33 Revolutions Per Minute

8/12/2019 33 Revolutions Per Minute

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33

REVOLUTIONS

PER MINUTE

- A HISTORY

OF PROTEST

SONGS,

FROM BILLIE

HOLIDAY TO

GREEN DAY.

BY:

ELKE WEESJES


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Book and Author

Singer-songwriter Tom Robinson hassaid that combining music and politicsis a double-edged sword: If you mix poli-

tics and pop, one lot of criticism says youreexploiting peoples political needs and

ideas and sympathies in order to peddle

your second-rate pop music, and another

says youre peddling second-rate political

ideals on the back of your pop career. Ei-

ther way theyve got you. Lynskeys book

33 Revolutions Per Minute explores thisstruggle and shows that even the careers

of those artists nowadays recognized as

musical representatives of the civil rights

movement were often coloured by disap-

pointment, doubt, discouragement and

misunderstanding. Taking his readers on

a journey through seventy years of protest

music and shows, Lynskey suggests that,

besides the thrills and life-changing mo-

ments, it was and still is difcult to be a

musician with strong political convictions.

33 Revolutions Per Minute poses two per-

tinent and pressing questions: what right

does a musician have to discuss politics?

And is there a place for serious political is-

sues in entertainment?

From Holiday to Green Day

Strange Fruit, written by Jewish Com-munist Abel Meeropol and made famous

by Billie Holiday, was arguably the rst

protest song that didnt function as propa-

ganda and could be considered as art. For

this reason, it is an appropriate launch

point for Lynskeys musical ight. Lyns-

key dedicates 33 chapters to 33 songs, cov-ering 1939-2008, and ending with Green

Days American Idiot. Altogether well

over a 1000 songs pass review, making this

a standard work for anyone interested in

music, protest songs, politics and history.

In an informative, witty and at times cyni-

cal style, Lynskey tells us of these songs

conception and furnishes the reader with

relevant but never prurient insights into

the artists who wrote them. Lynskey makes

his readers aware of the less glamorous

side of writing/performing protest songs.

Strange Fruit, described by people in

the audience at the time as akin to expe-

riencing a physical assault, was banned or


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105 33 Revolutions per minute - Dorian Lynskey

ignored by many radio stations and not

heard by most American citizens. Bob Dy-

lan distanced himself from his early pro-

test songs because he didnt want to be a

poster-child for the counterculture move-

ment, whilst the more stern political mu-

sicians called his sentiments facile. Some

artists were discouraged from writing po-

litically charged songs by their managers

an exemplary case being the initial re-jection by Tamla Motowns Berry Gordy of

Marvin Gayes Whats Going On. Gordy

told Marvin Gaye that he was ridiculous

when Gaye proposed a protest record,

whilst musical director Maurice King gave

The Temptations a lesson in Hitsvilles

politics of caution; Do not get caught upin telling people about politics, religion,

how to spend money or who to make love

to, because youll lose your fanbase.

Other artists also struggled with their

political identities. The FBI held extended

les on many famous musicians, with artists

such as John Lennon, Pete Seeger and Phil

Ochs viewed as threats to national security

throughout the 1960s and 70s. COINTEL-

PRO (the covert branch of the FBI) which,

since 1956, had been surveilling, inltrat-

ing, harassing, and sabotaging subver-

sive groups, with special attention paid

to the civil rights and antiwar movements,

was disbanded in April 1971, but the gov-


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Book and Author

ernment continued to monitor black art-

ists in other guises throughout the decade.

Role modelsContrary to other authors who have fo-

cused solely on American protest songs,

Lynskey explores developments in both

the States and Britain. In parts IV and V in

particular, the authors comparative analy-

sis of punk and hip-hop in both countries

is refreshing and illuminating. Joe Strum-mer is a key gure in these two parts. Peo-

ple in the music industry either love the

Clash and Strummer (fans include Public

Enemys Chuck D. U2s Bono, Crass Ste-

ve Ignorant, Billy Bragg and Green Days

Billie Joe Armstrong) or hate him (detrac-

tors such as NME journalist Paul Morley

or REMs Peter Buck). Lynskey puts the

Clash alongside early Bob Dylan and Pub-

lic Enemy in terms of their respective po-

litical clout. Whilst there are ways to read

Punk as non-political, the Clash did not al-

low for such a reading a misunderstand-

ing of the genre which Lynskey argues has

been productive.

We can see a similar situation in hip-hop

- if it wasnt for Public Enemy one can

only speculate about how political hip-hop

would have been. Furthermore, Lynskeynotes that perfection does not create a big

following. The Clash grew up in public,

they made mistakes and it was their imper-

fections that inspired so many people to be

like them. Different people read different

messages in Clash songs; thats why artists

who are so dissimilar - like Bono and BillyBragg - both say Joe Strummer is their role

model.

To create a

successful protest

song in the twenty-

frst century is a

daunting challenge,

but the alternative,

for any musician

with strong

political conviction,

is paralysis and

gloom.


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Paralysis and gloom

Regardless of these wonderful role mod-

els, contemporary musicians have a harder

time producing protest songs than theirtwentieth century predecessors. Lynskey

concludes his book with the rather sober-

ing observation that the discourse around

politics and pop has become absurdly un-

forgiving. The age of the heroic activist

musician is over and the disincentive to-

ward writing protest songs is not COIN-TELPRO but the audience impatience with

any musician who purports to do more

than entertain, according to Lynskey. Un-

fortunately there isnt much of an alterna-

tive: To create a successful protest song in

the twenty-rst century is a daunting chal-

lenge, but the alternative, for any musician

with strong political conviction, is paraly-

sis and gloom.

AUTHOR Q & A

Your book, which combines political

sciences with cultural and social his-

tory, covers roughly 70 years of mu-

sic. What was your approach? Did

you outline historys major events

and picked songs that dealt with

these events before selecting one

that stood out in particular, or didyou have a specic set list in mind?

In other words: what came rst, the

songs or the history?

The songs came rst, not the history, but

as I was choosing them I wanted songs that

had a distinct space around them. Some

people wonder why, for example, JoanBaez wasnt one of the selected 33 artists.

She is part of the book, but since I already

had a Bob Dylan chapter I didnt want to

dedicate a chapter to her, or to Phil Ochs.

If you have got Stevie Wonder it is hard to

also do Marvin Gaye. I wanted songs that

were quite distinct, yet kind of hung to-

gether in a more general narrative - which

is why there are certain areas/countries

that I could not explore because they are

so distinct. When you look at Australian

protest songs for example, many are about

the treatment of Aboriginals. Or Irish rebel

songs. I didnt want the reader to absorb an

entirely new country each chapter. There is


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Book and Author

a little bit of that in the middle of the book:

I wanted to include Jamaica and Nigeria.

It seemed a natural step to go from James

Brown to Fela Kuti.

So people actually complained about

your choices regarding what you

included and what not? This must

have been frustrating considering

the amount of years, genres and art-

ists you cover in your book - whichcounts a whopping 660 pages.

When I read non-ction books I dont re-

ally care about what an author left out, un-

less stuff wasnt included out of ignorance.

I was quite surprised that various people

had issues with what I have put in and left

out. People come up to me and ask why

I didnt discuss so-and-so song and I say

well, probably because I didnt want the

book to be 1500 pages long and unreada-

ble. The book is meant to be read as a nar-

rative, although many people read it out of

order because they are interested in a few

particular artists or time periods, which is

ne too. Certain politicians, musicians and

other public gures crop up throughout

the book and sometimes one song contrib-

utes to another song in a different chapter.

I wanted a certain cohesion. Otherwise, itis just a bunch of stuff that happened.

You are a music journalist; what I

liked about your book is that it has

an academic approach, yet it is writ-

ten in a very popular, witty and some-

times raw style, exactly the style youapply when you write for the Guard-

ian and other publications. Was this

a conscious decision?

I denitely did not approach the project

in an academic way, because I am not re-

ally an academic. All I have is an under-

graduate degree in English Literature.

I approached it like a critic. But in some

cases I wasnt as opinionated as I would be

in a newspaper column, because it wasnt

needed. You dont need my opinion every

time I briey discuss a song. I didnt want

to be objective, but I tried to give my opin-

ions some weight. For example it was im-

portant to me, when criticising Thatcher,


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Book and Author

to take a few quotes from a biography thatwas broadly sympathetic to her. It was an

attempt not to make the whole thing about

hating Thatcher or hating Nixon. The aca-

demic bit for me was making sure it was

properly researched and footnoted. I was

absolutely adamant that readers would

know exactly where every quote came from.In certain cases it took forever to nd the

conrmation I was looking for. The book is

solid when it comes to its facts, but I want-

ed its style to be argumentative and witty.

I wanted to present my take on protest

songs and the history behind them. Thats

why I chose the title A history of protest

songs rather than The history of protest

songs. I dont think there is such thing as

The history of anything.

Scholars widely agree that the BlackPower movement provided the mod-

el for the womens movement, the

gay liberation movement and other

political and cultural minority em-

powerment movements to move for-

ward and gain some political trac-

tion. Some people say the music thatcame out of the Civil Rights and Black

Power movements was also the mod-

el for music that came out of the gay

rights and womens movement. Do

you agree with this? Or do you think

this undermines what was happen-

ing on the other side of the Atlantic?

I think it is true on a political level that

black power inuenced some of the mod-

els of feminism and gay rights. With mu-

sic, not so much. When you try to make a

list of gay protest songs or feminist protest

songs which are as directly polemical and

political as Black Power music you are

going to be disappointed, because there


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Book and Author

arent many. By its

nature, when you

write about gen-

der or sexuality,a lot of the songs

that end up having

political potency

are very personal.

That is quite dif-

ferent with Black

Power. I tried tond notable femi-

nist songs prior to

Riot Grrrl, because

I wanted more of

a female voice in the book, but I couldnt

nd any explicit protest songs I could use.

I needed songs that self identied as pro-

test songs. [...] People often say that one

doesnt have to be a protest singer in order

to be political, of course you dont. You can

read politics into all kinds of songs, partic-

ularly when a songwriter is female or gay.

In certain points of history just writing

about a relationship was already political.

But I could not hang a chapter on people

that didnt consider themselves as political

in that way.

Whilst reading your book it becomes

clear that being a protest singer

doesnt mean a person is overall po-

litically correct. Misogyny and hom-

ophobia are, for example, disturbing

features of reggae, soul, contempo-

rary hip-hop and dancehall. Do you

think that the fact that many protest

singers cant even absorb the mes-


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sage of previous singers is an indica-

tion that music cant be seen as a ve-

hicle for social change?

I dont know if you can say that peoplehavent learned. People have different ex-

periences. Like Rastafarians arent too

concerned with gay rights, but that is okay,

because they dont have to measure up to

some sort of liberal ideal. The history of

political movements is full of friction be-

tween different groups. There was frictionbetween Black Power and gay rights. There

was misogyny in many left wing move-

ments. A big inuence on hip hop was the

Nation of Islam which looked down on gays

and Jews. I dont think it is a matter of not

learning; they are not obliged to be part of a

liberal dream rainbow coalition. People are

awed, look at the Occupy movement and

the arguments within the movement about

whether they are equally representing fe-

male, black, gay and disabled people. They

have had serious rows about it. And this

is a pretty impressive radical movement.

There is always tension between people.

And music reects those tensions. Midway

through writing the book, what I found in-

teresting is that these musicians experi-

ences are also the experiences that a lot of

activists or politically concerned citizenshave; they are all dealing with contradic-

tions and compromises. Being involved in

politics is difcult and frustrating. People

who you admire on one level let you down

on a different one. Certain movements just

concentrate on their own areas. And yes, in

some cases at the expense of others.

Speaking of the Occupy movement;

do you expect that any decent protest

songs will come out of it?

I dont think so not directly anyway. The

point is that music rarely comes from the

heart of these movements. You can see ex-

amples of movements who did attempt this.

For example the Black Panthers formed

their own soul band which didnt go any-

where. Movements dont make the music;

what happens is that artists are inspired by

these movements or major changes. Like

Civil Rights, anti-apartheid or the fear of

a nuclear war; musicians will tap into the


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general frustration. Songs are more likely

to respond to a broader sense that there

are things to protest about.

So, can you give me one song that

taps into the current situation?

In Britain, there was Plan B with the song

Ill Manors, which is about class politics

and the riots last summer. That was a very

denite, unapologetic attempt to write a

political song about Britain as it is rightnow and it was fairly mainstream. [...] Un-

like events like Hurricane Katrina that

suddenly inspired a urry of responses, the

economic crisis has been slow to inspire

protest songs. Older musicians do discuss

it in their songs, like Bruce Springsteen or

Ry Cooder, but somehow the crisis hasnt

inspired many younger bands yet. Im still

hopeful though. These things take time.

Writing songs, and in particular

writing political songs, is very dif-

cult. After analyzing all these differ-

ent songs, do you have a clearer view

on what makes a protest song suc-

cessful? Is there a particular theory

or formula?

Generally, I am not very interested in the-

ory. I dont write in theoretical terms. I aminterested in people and their responses to

certain events and certain environments.

What I like about all the individual sto-

ries is the ambivalence, the contradictions

and awkwardness. The regrets some art-

ists have. The sense that sometimes peo-

ple didnt quite know what they were do-ing. [...] I realised that each story is its own

special case, I dont think there is any the-

ory that can explain all the weird constella-

tions of factors that make a song a hit - for-

get about politics for a moment - just the

factors that make it a hit. Theyre so unpre-

dictable and it really is hit and miss. This

is what I nd so exciting and interesting;

that you can never predict which things are

going to catch re. And then there are the

questions: What if Born in the USA had

sounded different, maybe it wouldnt have

been misunderstood as much? What if

Bob Marleys music hadnt been remixed

for a rock audience would he still have been


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this huge international star? Or would he

only have been big in Jamaica?

So this history of protest songs isntas coherent as one might think?

During the interviews [for his book Lyns-

key interviewed over 40 people] [...] I had

to try and hone it to a general argument.

But really the point is that if there was only

one argument the book wouldnt have been

so long. The point is to show rather thantell. [...]When you read about all these dif-

ferent songs and these different situations

the message I am trying to put across is

that there is incredible diversity and com-

plexity. It is not a thesis. It is history and

histories are full of random facts and loose

threads and anomalies.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dorian Lynskey is a music writer

for the Guardian. He also writes

for Q, The WordandSpin, among

other publications.33 Revolutions

is his rst book.

33 Revolutions per minute

A history of protest songs, from

Billy Holiday to Green Day

Dorian Lynskey

HarperCollins (2011)

ISBN 978-0-06-167015-2

33 Revolutions Per Minute

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