PROTEST
MUSIC
Jazz and blues have always attacked injustice, as in Billie
Holiday's Strange Fruit, written in 1938 about the
lynching of black Americans. But the pop protest song kicked off
in the 1960s when artists like Bob Dylan began to write and sing
songs like The Death Of Emmett Till (about a race
killing).
Protest songs actually became so trendy at one point that there
was a backlash. Merle Haggard's Okie From Muskogee ("we
don't smoke marijuana") was a minor US hit in 1969, but by
the 1970s pop was reflecting America's turmoil over Vietnam
in songs like Edwin Starr's War (What Is It Good For?).
In the UK Labi Siffre was often the solemn guest on The Two
Ronnies television show, but his songs - especially (Something
Inside) So Strong - protested against apartheid and
inequality. The Jam hit out at racism with their first hit, Down
In The Tube Station At Midnight in 1978, and at the turn
of the 1980s The Specials' anger fuelled Ghost Town, Too
Much Too Young and (as Special AKA) Nelson Mandela.
Billy Bragg and Elvis Costello both dwelt on social inequality,
and CND got a surprising plug from Frankie Goes To Hollywood with
their hit single Two Tribes, while vegetarianism was in
vogue in the mid-1980s with The Smiths' album Meat Is Murder.
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