This is a service from January where I worked with a colleague on RSC to talk about protest songs. We deliberately tried to move outside of the usual 1960's image of protest music, and I expanded it perhaps a little too far, but I really wanted to find a way to talk about one of the songs which pushes me to think about our cynical attitude towards finding answers to global problems (you will see it below.) This is only half of the reflection, sorry, but I don't have my co-leader's text. I'll try to get it from him, but no promises yet.
SONGS OF INDIGNATION
Music is a powerful thing. There is a reason why nearly every religion in the world has a rich tradition of music, why songs from a Beethoven Sonata to a Burger King Jingle can become looped in our minds and hummed unconsciously. Music can bring us a message and give it meaning for us in a way the words alone cannot. If you doubt me, read the lyrics to “We shall overcome” and you will find it nearly impossible not to follow the rythm of the song we all know.
Music gives the words we hear power. It makes them memorable and moves them from our head to our heart. Reading the lyrics of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” make me think, but hearing his plea for freedom and justice in music makes the message resonate. In the cause of justice, music can give us hope for the future, and there are many songs which seek to unite us, but it can also be a clarion call to action. It can shine the light on tragedy or put a fire in our belly about inequity.
I am a child of the 80’s, born two years before the Summer of Love, so I do not remember the lost hope of John F. Kennedy, of his brother Robert or of Dr. King. I don’t have pictures in my mind of Woodstock or Haight Ashbury, but when I listen to Neil Young sing about the tin soldiers, the drumming of war and the four dead students in Ohio, I can feel his anger, his horror and his sorrow. When I listen to Bob Dylan challenge politicians to “Please heed the call / Don’t stand in the doorway / Don’t block up the hall. because the Times, they are a’changing, I am drawn into that sense that we as a people must always push for change, push against the status quo.
Perhaps it is too easy to associate Protest Music with the 1960’s and imagine that it was a rare phenomenon. It is not. Songs of protest were around long before anyone had heard of Dylan and Young, Baez and Marvin Gaye. As early as the 14th century songs celebrated political and social uprisings. When the American colonies rose up against the English crown, they turned “God save the King” into countless songs of new identity. When the labor movement started fighting for workers’ rights, they song of “Bread and Roses” at the steps of textile mills. Many of us probably remember the service last year when we listened to Billy Holiday’s desperate song of tragedy “Strange Fruit” about the trees in the south whose only fruit were the bodies of the lynched.
Protest songs raise our awareness by delivering the pain to our hearts, the anger to our blood and the sense of all that is unfair to our minds. They speak to us with honesty, openness and often with great despair. But they also ask the important questions which need to be answered by any society. How do we allow justice to be unjust? How do we allow our brothers and sisters to be unloved? And how do we stand by and do nothing when the world calls us to stand together for what is right?
As I said earlier, I am a child of the 80’s, most of the music I listen regularly is not the music of John Lennon or Otis Redding, but songs which connected with me during my life. The 80’s and 90’s are not particulary good periods for protest songs. Corporate music, bubblegum pop and boy bands seem to be all the airwaves will support. Much of the most powerful music of these past decades has been rap, which I must admit, is not prominent on my Ipod. But as I flipped through my CD’s for songs that remind me to be my best self, some stood out for me. When U2 sings about Martin Luther King in the song ”Pride, In the Name of Love” I can sense the impact King had on our entire world. When Springsteen sings “Born in the U.S.A.” I do not mistake it for a happy tune with a patriotic message. When Pink asks President Bush how he sleeps at night or Green Day’s “American Idiot” denounces the role of the media and our own complicity as citizens in the drumbeat to war, it reaches that part of me that longs for change.
But two songs stand out for me, because they do not speak only to an issue, a single injustice or a particular circumstance of history, they speak to the very root of change. I doubt that either is well known, but for me they hold a special power. The first is a pretty recent song from one of my favorite bands, Radiohead. They are a British group, a fact that probably does not shock those of you who know me at all, because I am somewhat enraptured by all things British. The song is called “Stop Whispering” and it sends a simple message to let your voice be heard. I won’t sing it, trust me no one wants that. But the simple chorus repeats again and again its core message: “Stop Whispering, Start Shouting”. Stop whispering. Don’t let your anger stay within you. Don’t let the injustice go unwitnessed. Don’t let the lies be told as truths. Start shouting. Let your voice be heard.
The second song is our postlude for today, Elvis Costello’s “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding.” And what I love about this song is that it is indignantly optimistic. It is an answer to all the “realists” who say that peace is not practical, love is a word used to market jewelry and chocolate, and understanding is not in our national interests. Costello wants to know why humanity’s dreams of justice and harmony are so easily mocked as quixotic, unrealistic or delusional. The lyrics are honest. We find ourselves walking through a wicked world, searching for the light in the darkness of insanity. He despairs, loses hope, feels the pain, hatred and misery around him. He wants to find leaders he can trust when he asks “Where are the strong and who are the trusted?” but mostly he wants to know why these ideals he cherishes, peace, love, understanding are not as practical as money, power or resources. What’s so funny about wanting to live in a better world.
Elvis Costello’s song has power for me because it is universal. It is not just about one crisis, one tragedy or one injustice, it is about a world which routinely accepts tragedy and injustice as the norm, unwilling or unable to bring the people what they need. It speaks to spiritual needs and challenges us to ask those in power why these needs are not being met. Like I said earlier, Music can move a message from your head to your heart. For me Elvis Costello’s song does just this.
We will hear the song as we end the service today, and I hope that you find that it moves you to ask the same questions. It has always had this effect on me and like any good protest song, it makes me just a little bit sad and just a little bit angry.
Music gives the words we hear power. It makes them memorable and moves them from our head to our heart. Reading the lyrics of Bob Marley’s “Redemption Song” make me think, but hearing his plea for freedom and justice in music makes the message resonate. In the cause of justice, music can give us hope for the future, and there are many songs which seek to unite us, but it can also be a clarion call to action. It can shine the light on tragedy or put a fire in our belly about inequity.
I am a child of the 80’s, born two years before the Summer of Love, so I do not remember the lost hope of John F. Kennedy, of his brother Robert or of Dr. King. I don’t have pictures in my mind of Woodstock or Haight Ashbury, but when I listen to Neil Young sing about the tin soldiers, the drumming of war and the four dead students in Ohio, I can feel his anger, his horror and his sorrow. When I listen to Bob Dylan challenge politicians to “Please heed the call / Don’t stand in the doorway / Don’t block up the hall. because the Times, they are a’changing, I am drawn into that sense that we as a people must always push for change, push against the status quo.
Perhaps it is too easy to associate Protest Music with the 1960’s and imagine that it was a rare phenomenon. It is not. Songs of protest were around long before anyone had heard of Dylan and Young, Baez and Marvin Gaye. As early as the 14th century songs celebrated political and social uprisings. When the American colonies rose up against the English crown, they turned “God save the King” into countless songs of new identity. When the labor movement started fighting for workers’ rights, they song of “Bread and Roses” at the steps of textile mills. Many of us probably remember the service last year when we listened to Billy Holiday’s desperate song of tragedy “Strange Fruit” about the trees in the south whose only fruit were the bodies of the lynched.
Protest songs raise our awareness by delivering the pain to our hearts, the anger to our blood and the sense of all that is unfair to our minds. They speak to us with honesty, openness and often with great despair. But they also ask the important questions which need to be answered by any society. How do we allow justice to be unjust? How do we allow our brothers and sisters to be unloved? And how do we stand by and do nothing when the world calls us to stand together for what is right?
As I said earlier, I am a child of the 80’s, most of the music I listen regularly is not the music of John Lennon or Otis Redding, but songs which connected with me during my life. The 80’s and 90’s are not particulary good periods for protest songs. Corporate music, bubblegum pop and boy bands seem to be all the airwaves will support. Much of the most powerful music of these past decades has been rap, which I must admit, is not prominent on my Ipod. But as I flipped through my CD’s for songs that remind me to be my best self, some stood out for me. When U2 sings about Martin Luther King in the song ”Pride, In the Name of Love” I can sense the impact King had on our entire world. When Springsteen sings “Born in the U.S.A.” I do not mistake it for a happy tune with a patriotic message. When Pink asks President Bush how he sleeps at night or Green Day’s “American Idiot” denounces the role of the media and our own complicity as citizens in the drumbeat to war, it reaches that part of me that longs for change.
But two songs stand out for me, because they do not speak only to an issue, a single injustice or a particular circumstance of history, they speak to the very root of change. I doubt that either is well known, but for me they hold a special power. The first is a pretty recent song from one of my favorite bands, Radiohead. They are a British group, a fact that probably does not shock those of you who know me at all, because I am somewhat enraptured by all things British. The song is called “Stop Whispering” and it sends a simple message to let your voice be heard. I won’t sing it, trust me no one wants that. But the simple chorus repeats again and again its core message: “Stop Whispering, Start Shouting”. Stop whispering. Don’t let your anger stay within you. Don’t let the injustice go unwitnessed. Don’t let the lies be told as truths. Start shouting. Let your voice be heard.
The second song is our postlude for today, Elvis Costello’s “What’s so funny ‘bout peace, love and understanding.” And what I love about this song is that it is indignantly optimistic. It is an answer to all the “realists” who say that peace is not practical, love is a word used to market jewelry and chocolate, and understanding is not in our national interests. Costello wants to know why humanity’s dreams of justice and harmony are so easily mocked as quixotic, unrealistic or delusional. The lyrics are honest. We find ourselves walking through a wicked world, searching for the light in the darkness of insanity. He despairs, loses hope, feels the pain, hatred and misery around him. He wants to find leaders he can trust when he asks “Where are the strong and who are the trusted?” but mostly he wants to know why these ideals he cherishes, peace, love, understanding are not as practical as money, power or resources. What’s so funny about wanting to live in a better world.
Elvis Costello’s song has power for me because it is universal. It is not just about one crisis, one tragedy or one injustice, it is about a world which routinely accepts tragedy and injustice as the norm, unwilling or unable to bring the people what they need. It speaks to spiritual needs and challenges us to ask those in power why these needs are not being met. Like I said earlier, Music can move a message from your head to your heart. For me Elvis Costello’s song does just this.
We will hear the song as we end the service today, and I hope that you find that it moves you to ask the same questions. It has always had this effect on me and like any good protest song, it makes me just a little bit sad and just a little bit angry.
2 comments:
Ben Harper is my pick for protest singer extraordinaire! Great idea to blog Allen. Good going! Roger
This service was excellent - thanks for blogging up - how do we get more in?
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