DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Your Favorite Protest Songs

We are obviously living in a politically and socially charged time. Every day we are bombarded by political and social news w/neither side willing to participate in fair debate.

I thought this might be a good time to start a thread about songs that were politically/socially motivated. There are a ton of them. I'd love to hear your contributions.

How about we limit each post to just one song at a time? Give it it's due respect. Cool?

My first offering is Sam Cooke's "A Change Is Gonna Come."

It was written in 1965 by Cooke after he listened to Bob Dylan's "Blowin in the Wind." Cooke said he couldn't believe a white man wrote that particular song and it motivated him to write his song.

Here are the lyrics. Play particular attention to the part I highlighted:



The highlighted part is obviously motivated by whites trying to keep him down and when he reached out to what he thought was his white brother[s], he/they ignored his pleas, meaning that racism was still alive and well in the mid-60s.

Cooke was murdered by a white hotel owner who claimed that Cooke was raping a young girl. Controversy surrounds his case even today.

Here is the song:



That's some powerful stuff, people! Very powerful!

Now, let me hear one of yours.

Excellent addition.

Merle Haggard - Fighting side of me

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VLhH2wCtAQ

I like this one, especially because it was 1965. Man, the young pups don't even have a clue how bad things were at that time, and Nina was killing it:

To me, almost the entire Forrest Gump soundtrack is golden ... what a movie that captured the 60s/70s in America

What's Goin On by Marvin was one of the greatest and most controversial songs of all-time.

I think it was written by a dude from the Four Tops. That group would not record the song because it was too controversial.

It was presented to Marvin who agreed to perform the song, w/some revisions. Berry Gordy...who was in charge of Motown, tried to dissuade Marvin from recording that song...because it was too controversial.

I really wish some of the younger folks on the board would examine songs like this and the history behind them while they are evaluating where we are as a country.

I like this song because of how this man addressed religion, war, and even famine in such a non-aggressive manner. The message.............which some people obviously disapprove of is............Imagine if people live as one.

Excellent addition. One of my all-time favorites. I was hoping someone else would add it. There are a few more obvious ones out there that I hope people add so I don't have to, but yes, that is certainly one of them.

Nice job.

Good thread


[video:youtube][/video]

Two more excellent additions that were on my list.

I would like to limit it to one addition per post though. Just to give proper respect to each.

For example: Here are the lyrics for Get Up, Stand Up by Bob Marley.



A lot of people think this is a song about religion and God. I'm not saying they are wrong, but I have a different interpretation.

I think it is a political song. I think it is about the oppression he and his kinsman felt from the invasive policies of the United States government and all the missionary work that accompanied that passive invasion.

Consider this stanza and tell me what you think:

Last couple

War, by Edwin Starr is another powerful song that I was hoping would be added. Here are the lyrics:



Lot's of anger in the lyrics and certinaly in his rendition of the song. But, here is what I found to be the most touching message in all of it:



Yeah dawgs, we all get the disdain, anger, and passion of most of his lyrics.......but damn man.........a mother's eyes? I had a mom. Her love was unconditional. I have a wife and children. And her love for her children is unmatched. It's nature, people. And when freaks go outside of that innate nature of how a mother feels for her children, something is wrong.

But, back to the song.........the love a mother has for her children is undeniable. And the selfish, greedy acts of politicians and nations as they try to gain control over one another at the expense of the sons of mothers, is something that might give the thinking person........pause.

OK

posted before I saw this.

It's alright. Obviously, no one has to follow the guidelines. It's a freaking message board. LOL

I was just kinda hoping that we could have a few discussions as to why each song was meaningful.

I'm saying that because there are so many protests and so much controversy going on right now.

No demands.............just a request. But, I do like your additions. Good stuff.

We sick an' tired of-a your ism-skism game
Dyin' 'n' goin' to heaven in-a Jesus' name, Lord

Like fight war of "communism" for god and country.

We know when we understand
Almighty God is a living man

we are all gods children created in his image


You can fool some people sometimes
But you can't fool all the people all the time
So now we see the light (what you gonna do?)
We gonna stand up for our rights (yeah, yeah, yeah)

you can fool people for a while but sooner or later they will catch on and turn on the man.

The Downeaster Alexa"

by Billy Joel


Well I'm on the Downeaster "Alexa"

And I'm cruising through Block Island Sound,

I have charted a course to the Vineyard

But tonight I am Nantucket bound.


We took on diesel back in Montauk yesterday

Left this morning from the bell in Gardiners Bay,

Like all the locals here I had to sell my home

Too proud to leave I worked my fingers to the bone.


So I could own my Downeaster "Alexa"

And I go where the ocean is deep

There are giants out there in the canyon

And a good captain can't fall asleep.


I got bills to pay and children who need clothes

I know there's fish out there but where God only knows,

They say these waters aren't what they used to be

But I got people back on land who count on me.


So if you see my Downeaster "Alexa"

And if you work with the rod and the reel,

Tell my wife I am trolling Atlantis

And I still have my hands on the wheel.


Now I drive my Downeaster "Alexa"

More and more miles from shore every year

Since they told me I can't sell no stripers

And there's no luck in swordfishing here


I was a bayman like my father was before

Can't make a living as a bayman anymore,

There ain't much future for a man who works the sea

But there ain't no island left for islanders like me.





The song is about small fishermen being put out of business by modern circumstances - large corporate takeover of the fishing industry on the northeastern shore, government regulation telling them what they can and can't fish for and sell, and the gentrification of the coastal areas that they had called home. But I think it can be an allegory to anyone who's job has ever been downsized (or "right-sized" as the MBA's like to say), out-sourced, off-shored, or automated. I think it speaks to a deep sense of betrayal and alienation for working class people who, despite all the challenges they face, still "have bills to pay and children who need clothes.". In a way its the same song as "Allentown", different setting, but the same sense of disillusionment in the American Dream.

Signs
Five Man Electric Band
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeT5otk2R1g&list=RDoeT5otk2R1g&index=1

And the sign said "Long-haired freaky people need not apply"
So I tucked my hair up under my hat and I went in to ask him why
He said "You look like a fine upstanding young man, I think you'll do"
So I took off my hat, I said "Imagine that. Huh! Me workin' for you!"
Whoa-oh-oh
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
And the sign said anybody caught trespassin' would be shot on sight
So I jumped on the fence and-a yelled at the house, "Hey! What gives you
the
right?"
"To put up a fence to keep me out or to keep mother nature in"
"If God was here he'd tell you to your face, Man, you're some kinda sinner"
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
Now, hey you, mister, can't you read?
You've got to have a shirt and tie to get a seat
You can't even watch, no you can't eat
You ain't supposed to be here
The sign said you got to have a membership card to get inside
Ugh!
[Lead Guitar]
And the sign said, "Everybody welcome. Come in, kneel down and pray"
But when they passed around the plate at the end of it all, I didn't have a
penny to pay
So I got me a pen and a paper and I made up my own little sign
I said, "Thank you, Lord, for thinkin' 'bout me. I'm alive and doin' fine."
Wooo!
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Blockin' out the scenery, breakin' my mind
Do this, don't do that, can't you read the sign?
Sign, sign, everywhere a sign
Sign
Sign, sign

Many don't know this one. Powerful.

Lyrics
1989 the number another summer (get down)
Sound of the funky drummer
Music hittin' your heart cause I know you got soul
(Brothers and sisters, hey)
Listen if you're missin' y'all
Swingin' while I'm singin'
Givin' whatcha gettin'
Knowin' what I know
While the Black bands sweatin'
And the rhythm rhymes rollin'
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be

Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power

Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power

Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
We've got to fight the powers that be

As the rhythm designed to bounce
What counts is that the rhymes
Designed to fill your mind
Now that you've realized the prides arrived
We got to pump the stuff to make us tough
From the heart
It's a start, a work of art
To revolutionize make a change nothin's strange
People, people we are the same
No we're not the same
'Cause we don't know the game
What we need is awareness, we can't get careless
You say what is this?
My beloved lets get down to business
Mental self defensive fitness
(Yo) bum rush the show
You gotta go for what you know
Make everybody see, in order to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the Power

Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power

Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power

Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power
We've got to fight the powers that be

Elvis was a hero to most
But he never meant, to me you see
Straight up racist that sucker was
Simple and plain
Mother, him and John Wayne
'Cause I'm Black and I'm proud
I'm ready and hyped plus I'm amped
Most of my heroes don't appear on no stamps
Sample a look back you look and find
Nothing but rednecks for four hundred years if you check
Don't worry be happy
Was a number one jam
Damn if I say it you can slap me right here
(Get it) lets get this party started right
Right on, c'mon
What we got to say
Power to the people no delay
To make everybody see
In order to fight the powers that be

Very nice, Dave. I bet you were a Straight A student in school. Well done!

I love that song and it was going to add it if no one else did. Very nice!

Not necessarily my favorite one, but Barry McGuire's "Eve of Destruction" comes to mind.

One of my favorites was from really popular film called "Billy Jack." The song was "One Tin Soldier." Just grabbed my self-righteous adolescent self. Transcendentalized me.

Eve of Destruction definitely belongs on the list.

Here are the lyrics:



Tell me that doesn't ring true?

NWA - F da police!!

LOL, I was going to post that one but there is definitely no radio edit version

Courtesy of the Red, White and Blue

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruNrdmjcNTc


Still sends chills

Incorrect. ...released in 1964. Sorry.

Great addition to the thread. As always.

Still powerful after all these years AND still relevant:



Lyrics:

"An Untitled Protest"

Red and swollen tears tumble from her eyes
While cold silver birds who came to cruise the skies
Send death down to bend and twist her tiny hands
And then proceed to target "B" in keeping with their plans
Khaki priests of Christendom interpreters of love
Ride a stone Leviathan across a sea of blood
And pound their feet into the sand of shores they've never seen
Delegates from the western land to join the death machine
And we send cards and letters.

The oxen lie beside the road their bodies baked in mud
And fat flies chew out their eyes then bathe themselves in blood
And super heroes fill the skies, tally sheets in hand
Yes, keeping score in times of war takes a superman
The junk crawls past hidden death its cargo shakes inside
And soldier children hold their breath and kill them as they hide
And those who took so long to learn the subtle ways of death
Lie and bleed in paddy mud with questions on their breath
And we send prayers and praises.