Wednesday, June 27, 2007

Anybody who has ever seen me dance knows that i'll dance to anything as long as the music moves me. If it's good music, you can you can find the motion. That having been said, i know i come off like a wack job at times ...but if you can't let your hair down on the dance floor, where are you going to do it?

When i think of protest songs, two things come to mind. The great sixties and seventies songs of Dylan, Niel Young, etc...folk inspired; and the great afro traditions of Kuti, Marley and their peers and all that followed in their footsteps.

On my list would have to be, For What it's Worth, Fortunate Son, Ohio, Eve of Destruction, Woodstock performance of Freedom by Richie Havens (#1 pick?) , Sky Pilot, Hurricane and the list goes on and on.

When i think about political songs of a slightly more recent era, i start to think of Sinead O'Connor and of course, one of the biggest political bands of our times U2. The list of favourite artists who sing about more than just boy meets girls? ...Springsteen, Beastie Boys ...at one point i was a huge Bruce Cockburn fan but i can't seem to get into him any more. ...Lou Reed, R.E.M., The The (brilliant), Pearl Jam, Ramones, and Michele Shocked.

Somehow i do make a distinction between the protest song that comes out shouting it's message and the political song which can have much more subtle undertones of descent. ...as Brian aptly put it with bands like the Stones and the Who.

I gotta say though, the one thing that gets my back up is when people, proverbially, get together in a hotel room and start chanting for us to "give peace a change"

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