Frank Zappa - "I am the Slime"
After everyone finished taking their test yesterday morning, my government professor was showing the class some of Frank Zappa's songs. One of them was "I am the Slime"; a particular reason why he wanted to expose this song to us was the lyrics:
. . . Have you guessed me yet?
I am the slime oozin' out
From your TV set. . .. . . You will obey me while I lead you
And eat the garbage that I feed you
Until the day that we dont need you
Dont got for help. . . no one will heed you
Your mind is totally controlled
It has been stuffed into my mold
And you will do as you are told
Until the rights to you are sold. . .
Then he went on giving a little background information on Zappa, aside from the strange names he gave his kids (although, I might consider legally changing my name to Moon Unit :P). Frank Zappa was a strong advocate for freedom of speech for rappers and other musicians, so much to the point where I guess you could say he embodied the First Amendment. :P In addition, my professor showed us some more songs by other artists such as Phil Ochs' "I Ain't Marching Anymore" and Bob Dylan's "Blowing in the Wind". Before we were dismissed, he commented that there's not much protest songs out there anymore if any.
When I went home, the comment was mulling around in my head. I was thinking of all the songs I knew that had something to do with either political messages or important aspects of society:
-"Everything Counts" and "Master and Servant" by Depeche Mode
-"Bulls on Parade" and "Killing in the Name of. . ." by Rage Against the Machine
-"Gimme Shelter" by Rolling Stones
-"War Pigs" by Black Sabbath
-"Mass Destruction" and "Love Lives on my Street" by Faithless
-"Sunday Bloody Sunday" by U2
-"Anarchy in the UK" and "God Save the Queen" by Sex Pistols
-"Under Pressure" by Queen and David Bowie
-"Revolution" by The Beatles
-"The Devil Inside" by INXS
-"The Beautiful People" by Marilyn Manson
-"99 Red Balloons" by Nena
-"Money" by Pink Floyd
-"Social Enemies" by Orgy
-"All She Wants to do is Dance" and "Dirty Laundry" by Don Henley
-"Born in the U.S.A." by Bruce Springsteen
-"Fight the Power" by Public Enemy
-"American Idiot" by Green Day
-"Final Straw" by R.E.M.
I was trying to come up with more songs in recent years that addresses significant issues. . . but I could only come up with the ones by Faithless, R.E.M., and Green Day. And I'm sure U2 and Bruce Springsteen came up with more protest songs not too long ago. But, what's happening to protest music? Is it because people these days aren't involved in politics much anymore, or am I just not exposed to other protest songs out there? And this brings me to my next point. . . Why does it seem like everything's becoming part of the mainstream or that certain musicians these days are losing their distinctive styles? Is it too early to assess how music reflects our society in this decade?
I noticed you didn't have one country music song on your list. How about American Soldier by Toby Keith or Bumper Sticker on my SUV by Chely Wright. Those are just two "protest"songs among the many in country music. But since they don't sit there and berate the American soldier (and as one email put it-there have only been two people in the world willing to die for you. Christ who died for your soul and the American soldier who died for your freedom) they don't count. The face of war has changed. We are no longer fighting soldiers in some God-forsaken country. We are fighting civilians who want Americans to die because we are the Great Satan. We are fighting jihadists who are willing to die and use their children as bombs to get their point across. It is no longer about I want your land or you are a mean dictator. It is about wiping America off the face of the Earth....period. That is what the loony liberals don't get! So now the "protest" songs are about protesting the anti-American fervor that has taken over this land. The protest songs are about returning America to a more moral time. The protest songs are about not taking Hollywood and their craziness seriously (like in Celebrity by Brad Paisley). Besides what do liberals have to protest? They have realized their dream of taking this country into the gutter, now it is our turn to protest!
"I noticed you didn't have one country music song on your list."
That's an excellent point. Asylum Street Spankers have some great protest songs: 'Yellow Ribbon' is one of the best going. 'War on Drugs' is another beauty.
Albeit, these are Alt-Country tracks and in complete opposition to the kind of country tracks you are talking about.
I find it amusing the way you can paint up the jihadists as being in anyway different from the fundamentalist Christians in America.
The Jihadists you refer to want everybody to convert to Islam or die, yet the Evangalists in the US want everybody to convert to Christianity or get out of America and/or die. The only difference between the two groups lies in the fact that Liberals and Libertarians, and all the other Americans you seem to hold such disdain for, prevent the fundamentalist Christians from having free reign over the US by ensuring they don't create a monsterously intolerant theocracy. In places like Afganistan they didn't really have a powerful enough Liberal force to prevent the rise of a theocracy.
I laugh when I hear fundamentalist Christians talking about the freedoms we enjoy in countries like the US and the UK, as if they had anything to do with those freedoms; they hate our freedom, they never shut up about how much they hate it. If they had their way we would be living under an extremist Christian theocracy with all of our freedoms brutally revoked. Their use of the word 'freedom' should come with a trademark symbol, because it is so divorced from the dictionary definition.
We enjoy freedoms in the West despite the efforts of lunatic Muslim and Christians, who actually hate and dispise those who fight to ensure those freedoms remain and who ensure that the US does not slip into the grip of an intolerant theocracy.
"protesting the anti-American fervor that has taken over this land."
It's not anti-American fervour, it is anti- right wing Christian authoritarian fervour, there is a marked difference; read the Constitution.
"The protest songs are about returning America to a more moral time."
Which is exactly what the Ayatollahs in Iran claimed they were doing when they installed their regime and regressed Iran to a system that hadn't existed for over a thousand years; that turned out pretty well didn't it? You are the people you profess to hate so much and who you identify as such a stellar threat to our freedom: different teams, same game.
"They have realized their dream of taking this country into the gutter"
So what would you see as this golden age of morality you long so desperately for? When good white Christian men were free to own other human beings as slaves, before those pesky Liberals came along and messed the whole thing up?
Aah thems was moral times, when y'all could string a pregnant niggress from a tree, burn her alive, cut out her womb and crying child in front of a crowd of cheering Christians and crush it's skull under your boot, before distributing her body parts as sweet merciful Christian momentos. (That's actually a documented lynching from a book called 'Without Sanctuary', which highlights the flavour of morality good Christians gave the thumbs up to in "a more moral time")
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
I always wonder what people really mean when they refer to the "good old days" or "more moral times". I have to check out "Without Sanctuary", I've been to the website a few times.
If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed...nothing shall be impossible unto you. - Matthew 17:20
"Is it because people these days aren't involved in politics much anymore, or am I just not exposed to other protest songs out there? "
Unfortunately, it would seem that you don't listen to much underground rap, you'll find some great protest songs there. Here's a few awesome protest tracks:
Virtuoso featuring Slaine - Farenheit 9/11
Jedi Mind Tricks featuring R.A. The Rugged Man - Uncommon Valour
Saul Williams - Not in my Name (Dj Goo Mix)
Greydon Square - Molotov
Greydon Square - Pandora's Box
Dead Prez - Propaganda
Dead Prez - We Want Freedom
Hell Razah - Article One
Immortal Technique feat Mos Def - Bin Laden
One Be Lo - Propaganda
One Be Lo - Axis
Black Market Militia - Mayday
Rugged Man's verse in Uncommon Valour is one of the finest flows ever put out, it's also biographical as it deals with his own father who fought in Vietnam and his brother and sister, both of whom suffered the horrible birth defects of Agent Orange, with his brother dying from his disabilities.
Unfortunately, when I've played these tracks to a lot of people, they just switch off, they refuse to listen to rap, because they think that they are above it. Unfortunately all these people who think that they're too clever for rap only want to listen to formulaic love songs and colour-by-numbers singer song-writers' attempts at sounding like people who've already done it better. Apparently, these days, Jack Johnson's elevator music is what passes for depth in too many circles.
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I am the people my mother warned me about.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/tuffgong
TUFFGONG
Senior Executive Administrator™
It's not all becoming mainstream; you're just looking for protest in the mainstream. You won't find it there. Like Tuffgong said, Alt-country, underground rap, and really any NOT mainstream band from every genre of music is full of protest. They don't become mainstream, because in order for Clear Channel to promote it, it has to offend as few people as possible.
http://www.progressiveu.org/blog/ediblewoman
Goodie. :) I'm glad to hear there's still protest music out there. It was just a mattter of looking a little deeper.
When I said that everything seems to become part of the maintstream, I wasn't exactly talking about protest music (although, it's my fault for misleading because of the wording). I was talking about how it seems like some of the underground and/or creative artists became mainsteam and started to lose their styles. It's another topic, I know, but I was curious about this trend.
I was talking to a friend of mine about wanting to write an article on music in this decade. I told him that I believed there's still some great music out there and that music isn't dead like he thinks it is. As his rebuttal, he was going on about how great creative musicians like Marilyn Manson, Mindless Self Indulgence, Duran Duran, The Aquabats, and Retard-O-Bot lost their styles in order to appeal to a wider range of listeners. Then today, I asked him how they lost their styles. Marilyn Manson had his own sound 'til he became big. Same with Duran Duran: they had their own sound and then the adapted new wave and 90's sounds. The Aquabats lost band members who played the trumpet and sax, and they started getting heavy on the guitar and keyboard. Even their original guitarist quit. Retard-O-Bot lost their sounds after their album Throat Cutter. Prove me wrong, though. Are they losing their creativeness, or is it a matter of adapting to the times?
I do know from the top of my head there's some musicians who still retain their originality such as MC Chris, Gogol Bordello, DJ Shadow, and Faithless (as far as I know). What else is out there?
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-"Live Free and Starve" by Chitra Divakaruni
-Re: "Live Free and Starve" ("The Chance for Freedom: Priceless")
"Retard-O-Bot lost their sounds after their album Throat Cutter. Prove me wrong, though. Are they losing their creativeness, or is it a matter of adapting to the times?"
I had to comment, since i love ROB they are my favorite band! Retard-O-Bot HAS NEVER released a record called Throat Cutter!!! Their newest record is "I Don't Think You Really Mean It: Rabid" It's amazing! You should listen to it then post your thoughts!!!