Labor and Industrial Protest Songs in Canada

1969 ◽  
Vol 82 (323) ◽  
pp. 34 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edith Fowke
Keyword(s):  
Protest Songs

scholarly journals Transcending the moment

2019 ◽  
Vol 18 (4) ◽  
pp. 491-508
Author(s):  
Martin J. Power ◽  
Aileen Dillane
Keyword(s):  
Folk Song ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Grass Roots ◽  
Protest Songs ◽  
Structures Of Feeling ◽  
Ordinary Person ◽  
The Moment ◽  
Traditional Structures ◽  
Historical Moment ◽  
Political Songs

Abstract Our paper argues that British singer Billy Bragg performs protest songs that cleverly draw upon musical forms underpinning his positioning as a voice of, and for, the ordinary person, ultimately disenfranchised by governmental adherence to neoliberal policies. While political songs are a product of their time, many of them can also transcend that historical moment and have a longer shelf-life in terms of their capacity to inform political thinking and action. Our song(s) of choice in this paper do so not just in terms of the relevance of their ‘literal’ message but also in how they draw upon traditional structures of feeling and generic elements of folk song to underpin this sense of ‘grass-roots’ critique via a modified, acoustic ballad form and a performance style. This serves to authenticate and legitimate the singer and his message and, in turn, allows Bragg to accumulate political and cultural capital.

Protest Songs from the Textile Mills and Coalfields

2020 ◽  
pp. 176-180
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Coal Dust ◽  
Coal Mines ◽  
Folk Songs ◽  
Southern Appalachians ◽  
National Consciousness ◽  
Textile Mills ◽  
Protest Songs ◽  
Traditional Ballads ◽  
A Site

Protest songs have sustained strikers on picket lines, memorialized disasters, galvanized support for unions, sparked folk revivals, and established Appalachia in the national consciousness as a site of labor struggle. In Coal Dust on the Fiddle (1943), a collection of songs from the bituminous coal mines, George Korson explains that the folk songs of immigrant miners, traditional ballads of the Southern Appalachians, and African American spirituals combined in music that documented and commemorated life in the mines....

Anglophone Songs about HIV/AIDS

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matthew J. Jones
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Political Messages ◽  
Political Discourses ◽  
Aids Activism ◽  
Popular Songs ◽  
Protest Songs ◽  
Central Argument ◽  
Song Lyrics ◽  
Diverse Groups ◽  
Hiv Aids

This essay focuses on English-language popular songs about HIV/AIDS and offers a five-part typology based not on sonic markers of musical genre but instead on lyric content. Its central argument is that song lyrics carry important political messages and constitute a significant and under-studied contribution to the broader culture of arts-based HIV/AIDS activism. In AIDS-themed elegies, protest songs, pedagogical songs, confessional songs, and a small category of songs in bad taste, songwriters and performers translate the official scientific, medical, and political discourses of HIV/AIDS into vernacular speech idioms. In doing so, ideas and ideologies about HIV/AIDS transcend generic boundaries to effectively reach broad and diverse groups of listeners with varying beliefs, attitudes, and stakes in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

Music of the 1960s and Social Justice: Masterpieces of American Protest Songs and Why They Matter in the Trump Era

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Hamm
Keyword(s):  
Social Justice ◽  
Future Generations ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Protest Music ◽  
Protest Songs ◽  
The 1960S

This article offers a sociopolitical framework for appreciating seven masterpieces of American protest music that emerged during the tumultuous decade of the 1960s. Attention is paid to the “worked-at-process” that each artist experienced while creating their landmark songs. They include Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” (recorded in 1956 but popularized in the 1960s); Pete Seeger’s “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?”; Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”; Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam”; James Brown’s “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag”; Jimi Hendrix’s “The Star Spangled Banner” at Woodstock; and John Lennon’s “Give Peace a Chance.” These songs became masterpieces primarily because they arose hand-in-glove with mass demonstrations for peace and social justice, thereby establishing legacies of protest music for future generations, particularly, the generation now facing uncertainty and fear created by the presidency of Donald Trump.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document