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Blinding Flash of Insight
May. 19th, 2004 05:22 pmSo I was chatting with some friends last night about the sorry state of our nation and our politics, and everything seemed to boil down to the thought that people just can't get emotionally worked up about any of the options available to us. They're unhappy about one situation, but feel that the alternative isn't exciting enough, or better enough, or suchlike. We're all full of a case of the national blahs.
This morning, as I was driving to work listening to my normal morning car ride folk radio show, they had an unsuspected binge of protest songs. And as I sat there happily singing along with 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone' and 'I Ain't Marchin' Anymore,' I realized the true problem.
Our current wars and crises have no decent protest songs. We have to borrow nonspecific folk songs from previous generations - current folk is full of songs about feelings and personal crises and how to live life, but I honestly can't think of any songs railing out against the state of the world and our nation here and now. And.... how can we ask people to be passionate about something that doesn't have a catchy chorus?
So I'm putting out a plea to all of my songwriting friends - I may have enough of a way with words to make them jump up to do my bidding in short essays, but I can't write poetry and music worth a good gosh-darn, and I know that enough people who read this can - please, for me or for the sake of the universe, write me a protest song. And I promise that if you do, I will hum it in my car, sing it while I'm working, and generally make enough of an earwormy nuisance to get it into the heads of everyone I see. And maybe they'll pass it on, and maybe if people have a quick and easy source for someone else to put their caring into rhyme for them, they'll start giving a damn. And if not, at least we'll all have a bunch of cool protest songs.....
This morning, as I was driving to work listening to my normal morning car ride folk radio show, they had an unsuspected binge of protest songs. And as I sat there happily singing along with 'Where Have All the Flowers Gone' and 'I Ain't Marchin' Anymore,' I realized the true problem.
Our current wars and crises have no decent protest songs. We have to borrow nonspecific folk songs from previous generations - current folk is full of songs about feelings and personal crises and how to live life, but I honestly can't think of any songs railing out against the state of the world and our nation here and now. And.... how can we ask people to be passionate about something that doesn't have a catchy chorus?
So I'm putting out a plea to all of my songwriting friends - I may have enough of a way with words to make them jump up to do my bidding in short essays, but I can't write poetry and music worth a good gosh-darn, and I know that enough people who read this can - please, for me or for the sake of the universe, write me a protest song. And I promise that if you do, I will hum it in my car, sing it while I'm working, and generally make enough of an earwormy nuisance to get it into the heads of everyone I see. And maybe they'll pass it on, and maybe if people have a quick and easy source for someone else to put their caring into rhyme for them, they'll start giving a damn. And if not, at least we'll all have a bunch of cool protest songs.....
