Political Song

The New Statesman revealed its "Top 20 Political Songs" this week. The songs were picked by the magazine's readers, as well as members of the Political Studies Association (whatever that is). In keeping with the recent pop culture trend of creating lists for every conceivable thing (i.e. the greatest TV dinners OF ALL TIME!! the top 20 jai-alai performances of the last 50 years, etc.) - these are, of course, the greatest political songs...EVER. It's a little ludicrous if you ask me...ranking something as subjective as song, but I will admit - there are some good choices here. The list is as follows:

1. Woody Guthrie - This Land Is Your Land
2. The Special AKA - Free Nelson Mandela
3. Bob Dylan - The Times They are a-Changin'
4. Billie Holiday - Strange Fruit
5. Claude de Lisle - La Marseillaise
6. U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday
7. Eugene Pottier - The Internationale
8. Robert Wyatt/Elvis Costello - Shipbuilding
9. Sex Pistols - God Save the Queen
10. William Blake - Jerusalem
11. The Who - Won't Get Fooled Again
12. Rage Against the Machine - Killing in the Name
13. Tracy Chapman - Talkin' 'bout a Revolution
14. Nina Simone - Mississippi Goddam
15. Marvin Gaye - What's Going On?
16. Gil Scott-Heron - The Revolution Will Not Be Televised
17. Bob Marley - Redemption Song
18. John Lennon - Imagine
19. Pete Seeger - Where Have All the Flowers Gone?
20. Tom Robinson - Glad to Be Gay

Keep in mind that these are political - not protest - songs (although some of them are protest songs). For example, a national anthem ("La Marseillaise") made the cut...and "Jerusalem," a William Blake poem set to music, was a wildly popular song (the unofficial national anthem) in Britain during the First World War. As the New Statesman is a British publication, there's a decidedly Eurocentric bent to the list (not a bad thing...just a fact), although they do concede that Woody "This Machine Kills Fascists" Guthrie is the penultimate avenger of song.

A podcast that features all the songs...plus additional commentary... is available here.


I was actually more interested in the companion article "Militant Tendencies Feed Music" by Mark Fisher. Fisher argues that the defining trait of protest music is not so much lyrical content...but the sound itself. The sonics. He states that political music challenges the "pacifying mechanisms" of popular culture, citing subversive acts like Public Enemy and Gang of Four as inheritors of the experimental tradition - a tradition that includes everything from Beethoven to Coltrane. I would include the artists of Tropicalia (see the earlier post) in this category as well. Here's the article.