I protest!
Last fall, there was a discussion on the maplepost list-serv about protest songs. Someone asked why there were no songs about the Iraq war, given the role music had played during the Vietnam conflict... I responded this way.
There are tons of songs being written and played about this war. Since we're all chiming in... I've got 2, plus others I wrote for the first Gulf War, blah blah.
It's really just like writing songs about the weather: for the entire time I've been writing songs, there have been ongoing global crises far worse than Vietnam, although perhaps without the resonant symbolism for which that war has become so famous. That's what the world is like today, I'm afraid.
That said, there are still some very fine anti-war musicians from the post-Vietnam era. In fact, some of them are massively popular. U2 (slightly older than me) is only one example. Eminem (slightly younger) is another. I could go on and on.
The truth is that there will never be a time like the sixties again.The convergence of post-war idealism and pacifism, plus a burgeoning "youth market" with money to burn, to whom record companies were eager to cater, and the notion that North American youth could actually change the world... it's over folks.
I marched in protests against the Gulf War, and all that. Our numbers were small and our cause was hopeless from the outset. Thankfully we hadn't set our goals too high; we were too sophisticated even as kids for that. We were teenagers in the 80s, when the sixties finally came around. We knew the score.
A lot of people out there write and play in hopes of positive results. I'm one of them and there are millions. But the world is really, really complicated. There are twice as many people in it as there were a generation ago, with fewer resources to go around and more at stake in general. It makes it really hard to stand up and say what's wrong and what's right with authority. Even for the converted.
I write sincerely and I play with honesty and fire. I like to think people walk away from my shows feeling better about themselves, and perhaps more thoughtful about the world in general.
What more can one artist do?
<--! Imported from The Shed Out Back, 1/1/2009 -->
There are tons of songs being written and played about this war. Since we're all chiming in... I've got 2, plus others I wrote for the first Gulf War, blah blah.
It's really just like writing songs about the weather: for the entire time I've been writing songs, there have been ongoing global crises far worse than Vietnam, although perhaps without the resonant symbolism for which that war has become so famous. That's what the world is like today, I'm afraid.
That said, there are still some very fine anti-war musicians from the post-Vietnam era. In fact, some of them are massively popular. U2 (slightly older than me) is only one example. Eminem (slightly younger) is another. I could go on and on.
The truth is that there will never be a time like the sixties again.The convergence of post-war idealism and pacifism, plus a burgeoning "youth market" with money to burn, to whom record companies were eager to cater, and the notion that North American youth could actually change the world... it's over folks.
I marched in protests against the Gulf War, and all that. Our numbers were small and our cause was hopeless from the outset. Thankfully we hadn't set our goals too high; we were too sophisticated even as kids for that. We were teenagers in the 80s, when the sixties finally came around. We knew the score.
A lot of people out there write and play in hopes of positive results. I'm one of them and there are millions. But the world is really, really complicated. There are twice as many people in it as there were a generation ago, with fewer resources to go around and more at stake in general. It makes it really hard to stand up and say what's wrong and what's right with authority. Even for the converted.
I write sincerely and I play with honesty and fire. I like to think people walk away from my shows feeling better about themselves, and perhaps more thoughtful about the world in general.
What more can one artist do?
<--! Imported from The Shed Out Back, 1/1/2009 -->
posted by David Newland at 3.4.06
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