Mar.04

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We The People: Fisking Rolling Stone's List of Protest Songs

We didn't get to a "We the People" last week because of the long and boring speech we had to listen to and then write up. But we return to normal order today with the entry that was originally going to launch the series, namely an examination of Rolling Stone's list of "The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time." These lists are calculated to generate debate (and, perhaps, outrage) and we're going to take the bait:

Five Songs that are Ranked Too High:

1. "Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)," by The Byrds (Ranked #95): We do not have a problem with including this song. But we do have a problem with the Baby Boomers at Rolling Stone including THIS version of it. The correct choice was the original version by Woody Guthrie, which inspired sympathy and support for the immigrant workers killed in a plane wreck in 1948, and helped lay the groundwork for the rise of the United Farm Workers.
   
   
2. "41 Shots (American Skin)," by Bruce Springsteen (Ranked #28): The Boss, who has produced dozens of important protest songs in his career, is going to place ONE song on the list, and this is going to be it? A fine song, but c'mon. If he only gets one song, it should be "Born in the U.S.A."
   
   
3. Give Peace a Chance," by John Lennon (Ranked #19): This may be famous, but it's hard to say it was impactful. And it's not even one of Lennon's 10 best protest songs. We prefer "Working Class Hero," but if you want impact, then how about "Revolution"?
   
   
4. "Them Belly Full (But We Hungry)," by Bob Marley (Ranked #12): Recall how Bad Bunny responded to the Super Bowl hullaballoo, and all the negativity, with an overwhelmingly positive message? Well, the Rastafarian Marley was running that playbook decades before Mr. Bunny was born. Yes, some of Marley's songs were pretty pointed, but his enduring songs were largely the ones that urged people to fight hate with love. Like, for example, "One Love" or "Positive Vibration." Note also that the list already has a social-criticism/resistance Marley song, namely "Get Up, Stand Up," so can't we get one uplifting song, too? And if it has to be two social-criticism/resistance songs, then shouldn't the second one really be "I Shot the Sheriff"?
   
   
5. "A Change Is Gonna Come," by Sam Cooke (Ranked #1): A great song, and something of an atomic bomb when it originally dropped, but it doesn't speak to different populations, and it didn't cross generations. Should it be on the list? Yes. Top 20? Sure. But #1? There are better choices. And, by the way, five of the top ten songs on the list are from the 1960s. It would be hard to think of anything that is more of a Rolling Stone cliché than that factoid.

Five Songs that are Ranked Too Low:

1. "I Am Woman," by Helen Reddy (Ranked #73): When we think "feminist anthem," there are three songs that immediately come to mind. One of them was ranked very high on the list. One was ranked kind of low. And one didn't make the list at all. This is the one that was ranked kind of low. It should be at least 20-30 spots higher.
   
   
2. "For What It's Worth," by Buffalo Springfield (Ranked #38): Obviously, the 1960s were an era of protest, and so there are many iconic protest songs. We tend to think that the tiebreaker, when trying to choose which to rank highly, should be "Did the song find an audience among later generations?" You don't find too many people listening to "Eve of Destruction" or "The Vietnam Song" anymore. On the other hand, "For What It's Worth" is still around. It was, for example, the basis for the Public Enemy song "He Got Game," recorded 30 years after "For What It's Worth."
   
   
3. "God Save the Queen," by The Sex Pistols (Ranked #27): We take the view that this is the seminal punk song (or maybe one of a small handful of them). It's also the second-highest-rated punk song on the list, behind only "Oh Bondage, Up Yours " by X-Ray Spex, at #23 (and note, Green Day, which placed "American Idiot" at #24, is NOT a punk band, despite what some American idiots who work for MTV would tell you). In what world do ZERO punk songs make the Top 20 of a list of the greatest protest songs? And in what world is a moderately well-known song from an otherwise forgotten band ranked ahead of not only the Sex Pistols, but also the Ramones, the New York Dolls, the Clash, MC5, and the Dead Kennedys (and of those bands, only the Clash and the Dead Kennedys made the list at all). We do lists a fair bit ourselves, for the Saturday Q&A, and so we know well that every "obvious" entry you add means some other entry has to go (or has to be moved down the list). But still, punk got short shrift, and there's no excuse for implying that "Oh Bondage, Up Yours" is somehow the greatest punk song of all time. And, by the way, if WE were choosing a Sex Pistols song, we would choose "Anarchy in the U.K." And if that's a little too on point, then we'd go with "E.M.I."
   
   
4. "Fuck tha Police," by N.W.A (Ranked #10): There is a direct line from this song (and the album it was on) to the L.A. Riots of 1992. Few songs can claim that kind of real-world impact. The song also helped trigger a discussion about race and about police misconduct that eventually brought down the bigot who was running the L.A.P.D. back then, Daryl Gates. This song should be in the Top 5.
   
   
5. "Respect," by Aretha Franklin (Ranked #4): This is the feminist anthem that ranked highly. It is even more famous as a Black anthem. The fact that it crossed divides like that, and that it is still well remembered today, almost 60 years after its release, would have made it our choice for #1.

A Dozen Songs that are Aren't on the List, But Should Be

1. "Yankee Doodle," by Richard Shuckburgh and Edward Bangs (1755): This song was originally intended to mock Americans. Then, in the same way that Americans of African descent took possession of 'Black' and LGBT Americans took possession of 'queer,' Americans took possession of "Yankee Doodle," and it became an anti-British rallying cry. You could argue it's America's first protest song, and if you did argue that, you'd probably be right.
   
   
2. "The Star Spangled Banner," by Francis Scott Key (1814): Another anti-British rallying cry, albeit from a different war. In the two-plus centuries since, the song has taken on an interesting quality that would not be true of most protest songs, in that the message of protest is very different depending on who is performing it, and how they are doing so. Consider the difference between, say, Lee Greenwood playing the song at the Republican National Convention and Jimi Hendrix playing it at Woodstock. And note that one of those two performances is the one we linked, but you'll have to click to find out which, because there's just no way you could guess, otherwise.
   
   
3. "Wade in the Water," by Unknown (Early 1800s): The folks at Rolling Stone take the position, it would seem, that protest songs began around 1940. It is hard to fathom, given the editors' pretensions to progressive political thinking, that they did not include a single slave spiritual. "Wade in the Water" is, at very least, a reference to the Book of John, and thus a song about how those who are enslaved will one day be saved, either in this life or the next. There is also much evidence that it was a literal song of resistance, containing an encoded message about how to escape from slavery (to wit, if you wade across a river, tracking dogs can't follow your scent, and so can't find you).
   
   
4. "Get Off The Tracks," by Jesse Hutchinson Jr. (1844): Similarly, abolitionism was America's first great left-wing protest movement, and maybe its first great protest movement of any political stripe (this somewhat depends on whether cordwainers, or Jacksonians, or nativists, or Freemasons count as a protest movement). Jesse Hutchinson Jr. and his family undertook national tours as The Hutchinson Family, and their pro-abolition songs, particularly "Get Off The Tracks," most certainly won converts to the cause.
   
   
5. "Give Us a Flag," by Septimus Winner, et al. (ca. early 1863): During the Civil War era, it was commonplace to take existing songs and adapt them for new uses. The original "Give Us a Flag" was a song written by Winner to persuade white men to join the Union Army in 1861. After the Emancipation Proclamation was promulgated on January 1, 1863, some unknown person updated the lyrics to apply to Black soldiers. Though we don't know who did it, we have a pretty good idea of when, since the demand to allow Black men to fight in combat, just like white men, only made sense from the issuance of the Proclamation (January 1, 1863) to the first combat experience of regular Black Union troops at Fort Wagner (July 18, 1863; there had been some combat for irregular Black troops before that).
   
   
6. "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier," by Alfred Bryan and Al Piantadosi (1915): We don't expect the folks at Rolling Stone to be professional historians. But given that their list includes at least 10 anti-Vietnam War songs, you would think they might be aware that there are anti-war songs for other wars, as well. We could name an anti-war song from the Civil War here, but we've already named enough songs from that era, and besides, the anti-war songs of that time (e.g., "Weeping, Sad and Lonely (When This Cruel War is Over)") largely did not reach a broad audience. "I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier" was really the United States' first mega-hit anti-war song. The fact that the U.S. eventually entered World War I a couple of years later does not change the fact that anti-war sentiment was very high in the U.S. when the song was released.
   
   
7. "Which Side Are You On?," by Florence Reece (1931): There are three things about the list that are truly shocking, in our view. The first, as we discuss above, is the lack of any songs from slavery/the Civil War. Again, the headline promises the 100 greatest protest songs of All Time. The third, we will address in a moment. And the second is that there's not a single song related to labor protest. The labor movement has been one of the greatest sources of protest music for the last 200 years, give or take. Now, when you make a list like this, you often kinda have to use one entry to reference an entire genre of music, or body of work, etc. So, we do not suggest there should have been, say, ten labor anthems on there. But maybe at least one, as a tip of the hat to this very important musical tradition? As you can see, we favor "Which Side Are You On," which was written for a mine strike in Kentucky. But we would also not object to "Joe Hill" or "Casey Jones (the Union Scab)."
   
   
8. "Rocket 88," by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (1951): Rolling Stone tends not to do "subtlety." So, most of their choices are songs that explicitly refer to "The Man" or "The Cops" or use curse words or other inflammatory language. But before a genre can get to that point, the music generally has to be more subtle in order to be subversive. "Rocket 88" was made at a time when white audiences would accept easy listening music from Black artists like Nat "King" Cole, but nothing more risqué or edgy. So, Ike Turner (the fellow behind Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats) ran with that, and wrote a song about his Oldsmobile 88 that was really a song about his dong ("gals will ride in style, movin' all along"). Oh, and in so doing, he may also have created the first rock and roll song.
   
   
9. "You Don't Own Me," by Lesley Gore (1963): This is the feminist anthem that did not make the list, and it's also the third real shocker. (Z) has a colleague who has taught a class about feminism in American culture. As you can imagine, there is a lecture about feminist music. And every song in that lecture comes from 1968 or later, except this one. "You Don't Own Me" anticipated where things were headed, and was a staggering 5 years ahead of the curve. In pop culture, 5 years is a lifetime. And THOSE 5 years, in particular? Think about the Beatles' biggest hit in 1963 ("I Want to Hold Your Hand"). Then think about their biggest hit in 1968 ("Hey Jude" or "Strawberry Fields Forever"). "You Don't Own Me" came out at the "I Want to Hold Your Hand" end of that spectrum. It's absolutely mind-boggling that Rolling Stone did not include it, so much so that we checked four times to make sure we did not overlook it. After that issue went to print, they must have said to themselves "How did we overlook Lesley Gore?"
   
   
10. "Ballad of the Green Berets," by S.Sgt. Barry Sadler (1966): Though Rolling Stone seems to think otherwise, not all protest songs are left-wing. Maybe that's why the Ramones didn't make the list; Johnny Ramone was a hardcore right-winger, and argued that all punk rock was fundamentally about conservatism. In any case, if it was our list, we would have included at least one right-wing protest song, and we think the anti-counterculture song "Ballad of the Green Berets," which was actually the best-selling protest song of the 1960s, is a good pick. That said, we would also give a long look to "Sweet Home Alabama" by Lynyrd Skynyrd and "Okie from Muskogee" by Merle Haggard.
    
    
11. "Rapper's Delight," by The Sugarhill Gang (1979): The story here is pretty much an Ibid. for "Rocket 88," except replace "rock and roll" with "rap." "Rapper's Delight" is subtle, because it had to be when it came out. But it also launched a genre, and the most important protest genre of the last half century. It's 14:37 long (unedited), and its impact is probably best summed up by Chuck D of Public Enemy: "A lot of you might think that was a long-ass record, but the irony is, when it came out, it wasn't how long it was, but how short it was." The Rolling Stone list does include the other "founding" song of rap, namely the much edgier "The Message" by Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. We would have found room for both.
    
    
12. Anything by Jesse Welles: It seems pretty clear to us that he's the modern-day answer to Bob Dylan, or Woody Guthrie, or Phil Ochs. Those fellows all have songs on the list, and Dylan and Ochs have more than one. How about one spot for Welles?

Note that we must limit our assessment to the U.S. and to English-language songs, because those are the areas in which we have expertise, and because that is the focus of the Rolling Stone list (despite the over-broad headline to the contrary). There are undoubtedly a lot of very important songs that fall outside of this scope.

Still, the Rolling Stone list does a pretty good job of reminding readers of the rich history of American protest music. And the Rolling Stone list PLUS our fisking? We flatter ourselves that this adds up to an even better job, though we concede this ended up being rather longer than expected.

Next week, this feature will address a different subject... we think. (Z)