So modern (i.e. post WW2) popular music is replete with political statements and stances (as is older music of course). That runs the gamut from rich megastars pontificating on the cause de jour from the safety of their LA recording studio to musicians in repressive regimes using their songs as a means of resisting oppression (and paying the price in terms of oppression from said regime, I’m talking about the likes of Fela Kuti, a documentary about him is what trigger this post).
But given all that what is the most achieved by a political or protest song itself? Which song can you hold up as playing a significant part in solving injustice or changing the political reality discussed in the song?
I’m talking about the song itself not the musician (if the song was part of a wider political movement the musician was affiliated with, that’s OK, but just because someone was once a political singer, and later became a powerful politician that doesn’t count) I’m counting charity songs, though I beleive, due to the reality of politics on the ground, the actual good done by famous charity musical events like Live Aid and the Bangladesh concert, was limited.
That might be a tricky question to answer. How do you distinguish between what a song itself “achieves” vs. what people, inspired or motivated by the song (among other things), achieve?
What did the song “We Shall Overcome” achieve? On the other hand, would the Civil Rights Movement have been the same without it?
In terms of raising awareness, “Free Nelson Mandela” was a big hit in the UK in 1984 and subsequently around the world.
It elevated him, in the UK at least, from a niche political prisoner that few people knew, to being the undisputed emblem of the struggle against apartheid.
First song that came to mind was Biko by Peter Gabriel.
From the wiki article: “Biko” had an enormous political impact. It has been credited with creating a “political awakening” both in terms of awareness of the brutalities of apartheid, and of Steve Biko as a person.
Whether a single song, or collection of songs by different artists over a period of time, I’d say what was most achieved was that they brought greater awareness. Civil rights has been mentioned, in South Africa there was Apartheid. A big one during the 60’s was the Vietnam War. Repression of Blacks & minorities especially during the 80’s (& ongoing) with the govt peddled cocaine (crack) fueled rap music/poetry.
One thing for certain; whenever there’s suits lining their pockets there will be a cause for protest and sadly there seems no end in sight.
We can probably do better than this, but for a baseline, the song “M.T.A.” (AKA “The Man who Never Returned” or “Charlie and the MTA”) was key to Walter A. O’Brien’s successful campaign to become mayor of Boston. That’s definitely a political song, and was definitely successful for its political purpose (O’Brien’s campaign consisted almost entirely of that song going viral).
Another project by USA for Africa was Hands Across America, and there was a (cringe-worthy) song that went along with it. It raised about $40M. It was later parodied by The Ramones.
These would be my suggestions too. They did as much as a song could do, which is raise the profile of the subject, which in the case of Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela proably did make a difference, if your average American or British person had no idea who Steve Biko and Nelson Mandela were, and what apartheid was, the governments of the west would have been quite happy to ignore apartheid, and it would have lasted longer (and potentially had a much worse handover of power).
I don’t think the same could be said for other examples like We Shall Over Overcome or The Marseilles, were there significant number of people who only know about the Civil Rights Movement or the French Revolution because of those songs?
Are there any other examples ? (or counter examples where a song did do more than just raise the profile of the subject?)
I know I would have no idea who Rubin Carter was but for the Bob Dylan song (of course he probably actually did the crime he was imprisoned for, but that’s not a discussion for this thread)
Ditto The Internationale. Between those two and Solidarity Forever, we can see the truth of the sentiment expressed at the end of the Spanish Civil War, “we may have lost the war, but we had all the good songs.”
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
At the time, it was normal for white people to address a black man as “boy”. Astonishingly, many relatively progressive white people were obtuse to how offensive that was. The opening line was such an epiphany to so many potential allies in the fight for equal rights, that Martin Luther King picked up on the theme in his Letter from Birmingham Jail a year after Dylan recorded the song.
Getting people to change how they refer to other people in less hurtful language is no small feat; even today, as evidenced by the reactionary campaigns against so-called political correctness and “woke-ism”.
I’m not disagreeing with your point but just to mention that, in my experience in the UK at least, apartheid and the evils of the South African regime were very big news already.
I doubt there were many people who didn’t know about it and very few who didn’t consider it abhorrent.
I’m not sure “Free Nelson Mandela” was elevating the subject of apartheid so much but rather it attached a specific human face and a story to it and the benefit of having that symbolic image was, I’m sure, very powerful.
Is that true? Not just among people who paid attention to foreign news, but your average pop-music fan as well? I was too young to pay much attention to this when those songs were released, my memories (also from the UK) are from a bit later, during the last years of apartheid and it was universally taken for granted that apartheid was abhorrent and its apologists were 100% on the wrong the side of history. I do get the impression those songs played a big part in making that happen (specially making apartheid something you, as a white person in Britain, should care about rather than just another bad thing happening to foreigners somewhere in the world), in population as a whole, not just “activists”.