33 Revolutions Per Minute: Music that mixes revolt with pop entertainment
socialistworker.co.uk | Mar 19th 2011
A history of protest songs, 33 Revolutions Per Minute, covers everything from
Billie Holiday to Green Day, and engages Matthew Cookson
Guardian music critic Dorian Lynskey’s new book is a wide-ranging and
thought-provoking look at the history of protest songs.
It begins with Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit” and 33 chapters later ends with
Green Day’s “American Idiot”. For each track it explores the song and the
artist who performed it.
Crucially, Lynskey puts each song in the social context that it was produced in.
The book punches through the perception that protest songs are embarrassing.
Lynskey shows that protest and pop can come together to create great art that
can affect millions.
The Jewish Communist Abel Meeropol wrote “Strange Fruit” in 1939 after seeing a
picture of two black men who had been lynched. It was one of the first songs to
deal with the extreme racism of the US.
Haunting
Holiday’s haunting and forceful voice sings, “Southern Trees bear a strange
fruit/Blood on the leaves and blood at the root/Black bodies swinging from the
poplar trees.”
Her performance of the song, with the only light in the room shining harshly on
her, captivated audiences in New York in 1939.
“Strange Fruit”, as Lynskey writes, “was not by any means the first protest
song, but it was the first to shoulder an explicit political message into the
arena of entertainment”.
The book focuses on the impact of political songs in the US, looking at the
work and lives of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan.
It is particularly good on the civil rights and anti-war movements of the
1960s. By exploring the songs of James Brown, John Lennon, Gil Scott-Heron and
Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young among others, it explores the movement and the
divisions wracking society.
As the civil rights movement came up against the strength of the establishment,
a number of young black people looked to more militant actions to bring about
change.
Frustrated with the non-violence of the official movement, people such as
Stokely Carmichael began to argue for Black Power.
The revolutionary Black Panther Party emerged from this ferment, as did radical
spoken word poets such as Gil Scott-Heron and the Last Poets.
James Brown was already a star. He was in favour of more black rights, but in
an individualised form of self-improvement. He claimed his ownership of radio
stations was “black power”.
But this conservatism did not fit with the growing radicalisation of the time
and Brown came under pressure to make a more radical statement. He responded
with, “Say it Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud”, which was a huge hit.
Brown later complained that the song lost him part of his white audience.
But he still continued to keep in with the establishment, playing at right wing
president Richard Nixon’s inaugural ball, even though he supported his opponent
in the election.
Neil Young wrote “Ohio” in response to the murder of four students at Kent
state by National Guardsmen in May 1970.
Shootings
They had been protesting against the US military’s extension of the Vietnam war
into Cambodia. The shootings saw protests by students across the country.
But the US was deeply polarised, with pro-war demonstrations and attacks on
anti-war protesters. Nixon’s landslide re-election in 1972 confirmed the
strength of the right and disillusioned many on the left, including many
artists.
This wasn’t the end of the protest song though, and the late 1970s and the
early 1980s saw the birth of punk in Britain and rap in the US.
Through bands like the Clash and Grandmaster Flash, punk and rap documented the
alienation, frustration and oppression of the young and black people.
Lynskey concludes by looking at political artists, such as Rage Against the
Machine, the Manic Street Preachers and Green Day.
The only duff note is the apologetic chapter on U2’s singer Bono, who has
degraded himself politically and artistically before the world’s powerful while
claiming to be a fighter for change.
Lynskey wonders if his book is a “eulogy” to the protest song because of its
failure to “catch light during the Bush years”.
While the last few years has seen a dearth of decent protest songs, the growing
feeling against the government and cuts could see a renaissance in this form of
art.
Lynskey’s book is a highly readable and engrossing history of a certain kind
of popular movement, with whole sections that can just be dipped into when
you’re in the mood.
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Original Page: http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=24177
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