Resistance

I chose to write about the soundtrack to the film “The Harder They Come”, the 1972 Jamaican crime movie directed by Peter Henzell, because, as a white upper-class college student, this is precisely how the reggae movement reached me. I knew of the soundtrack and fell in love with it before the movie, and I think that’s true of a lot people of my similar demographic. I’d like to explore further why the compilation of these songs together spread the statement of the film so much farther than the film itself. The film is loosely based on a real-life Jamaican criminal, Rhyging, who gained fame in the 1970’s The film stars reggae singer Jimmy Cliff as Ivanho Martin (Rhyging), who also worked and is featured on the soundtrack which I’ll get into later. It’s the story of a poor man in search of job. He moves to the city to become a reggae singer, but when he finally gets the chance to record his first single, he is taken advantage of by the record producer and he can only sing if he signs away his rights, so he ends up selling marijuna. His boss for that job ends of taking advantage of him as well. Within half an hour he’s a fugitive of the law, and is doing battle with the music industry, old time religion, corrupt police and more corrupt drug dealers,  and life in the slums. He makes the Most Wanted list and simultaneously becomes a political hero and musical star. The actual filming and production was shut down by Jamaican police several times before it was completed due to the radical political content. The film was a cult-classic. It came out of left field as “Jamaica’s very first feature-length film”, moreover premiering in the United States, and Jimmy Cliff became a star. But the soundtrack seemed to outlast the movie, moving beyond cult status where the movie remained. I wouldn’t argue that it has anything to do with a difference in quality. The film is great and critically acclaimed. It came out when similar forms of anti-government movements were sweeping America and the world. Audiences were certainly ready to identify with a film about a hero who would “rather be a free man in a grave than living as a puppet or a slave”, I’ll add though, especially if you can dance to it. Which I think is one signifigant element of music that makes it a distinctly useful tool for resistance movements. I’ll post a clip now to display just how catchy and awesome the music is, you can’t help dancing. This is the title track, written and performed by Jimmy Cliff:

 Lyrics:Well, They tell me there’s a pie up in the skyWaiting for me when I dieBut between the day you’re born and when you you dieThey never seem to hear even your crySo as sure as the sun will shineI’m gonna get my share now, what’s mineAnd then the harder they come, the harder the fall, one and allooh the harder they come, the harder they fall, one and allWell the oppressor’s are tryin’ to keep me downTryin’ to drive me undergroundAnd they think that they have got the battle wonI say forgive them lord, they know no what they’ve doneChorusBut I’ll keep fighting for the things I wantThough I know that when you’re dead you can’tBut I’d rather be a free man in my graveThan living as a puppet or a slave  The music, like the movie, draws sharp distinctions between forces of “right and wrong as they perceive them” (Mattern, 1998). Most reggae music is “self directed”, a term used by King in “Protest music as ‘ego-enhancement’: reggae music, the Rastafarian movement and the re-examination of race and identity in Jamaica”. In other words it functions more to increase cohesion and ‘groupness’, and is less of an attempt to appeal to outsiders. This song is a perfect example of that, “You can get it if you really want”, another one by Jimmy Cliff:    LyricsYou can get it if you really want/ You can get it if you really want/ But you must try, try and try, try and try/ You’ll succeed at last/ Persecution you must bear/ Win or lose you’ve got to get your share/ Got your mind set on a dream/ You can get it/ though harder they seem now/Rome was not built in a day/ Opposition will come your way/ But the hotter the battle you see/ It’s the sweeter the victoryThe song is more about repairing bruised ego’s and pressing on despite oppression.I think the music here operates to draw an audience to the movie, which is still poignant today, and less “self directed” because of the visual aspect of violence between the two forces. That’s my experience at least.  While the music was a primer for Jamaican music (it included reggae classic hits by the Maytals and The Melodians-see next clip*) in the United States, the movie reveals the actual struggles between the forces that the music doesn’t  always depict. Reggae music and the movement it represents is a peaceful one. The music is a message of the movements attempt at change through force of argument, not violence. The music that accompanies the true story of strife serves to declare that message. *   

Thanks to my family’s diverse background (whatever that means… I’m questioning all euphemisms now), I was able to write two of the past three assignments from a very personal perspective.  In doing so I feel that I internalized the theoretical frameworks more profoundly than if I had remained dissociated from the classroom material.  This unit, however, remains a little distant.  Like many Oberlin students, I grew up in a Yellow Dog Democrat, left-leaning household, with parents who enjoyed harkening back to their glory days as youthful demonstrators in the 1960’s and 70’s.  Proverbial choruses from Pete Seeger, Bob (always Bobby to my mother) Dylan, Joan Baez, Tom Paxton, and their fellow rabble-rousers rang repeatedly from the rafters of my childhood home.  But no voice was more familiar than that of Phil Ochs, an American folk/protest singer-songwriter cut from the same cloth as Woody Guthrie and the other aforementioned masters.

Ochs’s voice — at once both youthful and wise — complements the clever satire and astute lyrics that proved his musical mastery.  But it was his intense political involvement and genuine commitment to humanity that guaranteed Ochs a long-lasting legacy.  He performed at countless anti-war rallies, organized labor events, and inspired myriads of college protesters.  His music and lyrics are not only entertaining, but also informative (though biased) and motivating.

You know you live with hippy-dippy parents when holiday presents unfailingly include some vintage reminder of the protest scene from years past.  My mother’s all-time favorite gift from my father was a three-CD set of Phil Ochs’s greatest hits.  His haunting tenor tunes became the soundtrack to my childhood and from an early age I was able to harmonize like a flower child back-up singer.

In this way, I can identify with some of the elements that Stephen King presents in his chapter entitled  “Protest music as ‘ego-enhancement’: reggae music, the Rastafarian movement and the re-examination of race and identity in Jamaica.”  Obviously Phil Ochs’s protest music is not facilitating the rebirth or “re-examination” of my identity, but it is promoting the longevity and cohesiveness of the protest community.  Phil Ochs and his contemporaries wrote songs that became emblematic of a generation.  My parents and many of their peers encouraged their children to listen to the music that represented their youth, as a means of preserving their legacy and brewing future activists.

Not only does protest music – especially catchy, moving tunes like Phil Ochs’s – render movements timeless, it also serves as a didactic tool.  Some of Ochs’s greatest hits (…if you can even call them that) were equal parts history lesson and political commentary.  Just as “reggae songs served as alternative history texts,” many of Ochs’s lyrics offered less rosy depictions of historical events that remained anything but explicit in the media.  Narratives that were swept under the rug by deceitful administrations and “downplayed by the educational system” were brought to light through music.  The way Winston Rodney, Burning Spears’ lead singer, makes history intimate by directly asks his listeners if they “remember the days of slavery,” Ochs often calls on his audiences to view him as a personally involved agent of the issue at hand.  He frequently sings from the first person point of view, bringing a subject matter from a removed location to a nearly uncomfortably close position.  “I Ain’t Marchin’ Anymore” is the song that first came to my mind in this context.  The text is both personal and educational:

Oh, I marched to the battle of New Orleans
At the end of the early British war
The young land started growing
The young blood started flowing
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore

For I’ve killed my share of Indians
In a thousand different fights
I was there at the Little Big Horn
I heard many men lying I saw many more dying
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore

Chorus:
It’s always the old to lead us to the war
It’s always the young to fall
Now look at all we’ve won with the saber and the gun
Tell me is it worth it all?

For I stole California from the Mexican land
Fought in the bloody Civil War
Yes, I even killed my brothers
And so many others
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore

For I marched to the battles of the German trench
In a war that was bound to end all wars
Oh, I must have killed a million men
And now they want me back again
But I ain’t marchin’ anymore

(Chorus)

For I flew the final mission in the Japanese sky
Set off the mighty mushroom roar
When I saw the cities burning I knew that I was learning
That I ain’t marchin’ anymore

Now the labor leader’s screamin’
When they close the missile plants,
United Fruit screams at the Cuban shore,
Call it “peace” or call it “treason,”
Call it “love” or call it “reason,”
But I ain’t marchin’ any more,
No, I ain’t marchin’ any more…

Proof of the music’s longevity:

(This is another example of topical material within protest music.  Discussion of history is vital to contextualizing a movement.)

I’ve really enjoyed reading everyone else’s posts so far on a topic that has become increasingly of interest and important to me throughout my time at Oberlin – resistance, through music, to dominant cultural ideas that are sometimes (often) harmful and oppressive. My final paper for my class on American social movements is tentatively titled “The Role of the Protest Song in American Social Movements, 1950-1980,” and I can’t wait to do more research on the songs that were important emotional components of some of these movements including civil rights, feminist, and gay rights.

I was overjoyed when Barack Obama won the 2008 presidential elections. I really felt like the whole world changed on that night….at least, the whole world as I see it, for such an immense better. Obama’s campaign team used this song by the National, “Fake Empire”, in the famous video that was on the home page of Obama’s website for the months leading up to his victory…I get goosebumps every time I hear it. We’ve talked in class about Obama’s use of songs like “Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I’m Yours” at his rallies, songs that don’t necessarily have a distinct political message but that people have positive associations with. This song is different, though – the repeated line “We’re half awake in a fake empire” seems to express a poignant observance of a common people who are not as fully cognizant of the political situation that they live in as perhaps they could be.

I was very happy to be in Washington, DC for the inauguration festivities, including the “We Are One” concert, to witness a bunch of artists who are famous for their songs that call for political change. But now I’m wondering whats going to happen now that the music of change is being sung by the administration of one of the leaders of the US government, an institution that the singers on January’s concert have so often wanted to denounce. In a New York Times Article about a concert held last Sunday on the event of Pete Seeger’s 90th birthday, author Jon Carminca notes that some of the songs that were once sung to encourage political unity and resistance to the dominant power structure “no longer sound defiant or expectant, but matter of fact.”

I’m lucky that I’m writing this blog post a little late. I just went to see Billy Upski Wimsatt give a talk in West Lecture Hall. He’s an organizer whos worked with the League of Young Voters and now does work promoting green jobs with an organization called Green For All in New York City, and gives speeches about organizing at campuses around the country. He told us that he thought we (being the good people Oberlin activist students that we are) have a moral obligation to get power. I agree with him, and also that Obama is the best president we could have at this moment, and so I wonder if I’m getting carried away with social agitator, mover and shaker joy. You know when you get so excited about something that you can’t even remember exactly what it is you’re excited about? Feeling excited about being part of a movement when you can’t remember or articulate what the movement is for, all you know is that you like it and it’s for the public good?

Now that Obama is in power, how is change coming at a mainstream level? Why are songs like “We Shall Overcome” and “This Little Light of Mine” now “matter of fact”? And why does that make me a little nervous?

For so much of my life, the power structure was what I was socialized to rebel against. And for so much of history (and now), gaining power has been about oppressing people. Glancing over Ullestad’s article on Native American rap and reggae, I notice his assertion that the fact that so many Native American artists are more popular on the margins then they are in the mainstream reminds the reader of “past and present treatment of the first inhabitants of the Americas and their descendants.” (346) But a president has been elected and a great number of people mobilized by the idea that power really does come from the public community as a whole. In the USA today, according to the Obama administration, power is not intended to be unjustly thrust onto anyone.

The Native American musicians that I read about in Ullestead’s article maintain their dual consciousnes as Native Americans and citizens of the United States, which means they “are not afforded much airplay” because they “have made a choice to be more relevant to their own communities…than to the broader consumer society.” (342) But the broader consumer society is responsible for electing Barack Obama and his politics of acceptance, hope and change to the office of President of the United States. A minority is now in charge of the majority.

This is my favorite youtube video of this very famous song of our parents…

and this is a band that had a top 40 hit last year (with “Apologize”), OneRepublic, covering that song (the quality’s not good but you only need to watch the first 30 seconds or so)…

I must be over the word limit by now. I feel like everyone’s speaking a similar language. We just all need to get together and start having conversations. I do very much want everyone to retain their pride in their heritage and everyone to be cogniscent of history. But I believe that, eventually, for the better of everybody, everybody working together is going to lead to an overall more positive world than everybody focusing all of their efforts on asserting their pride only on their own. Right now, I don’t feel a need to resist a federal government that I know feels very accountable to me and my family and friends, and THAT is a radical change from what I have ever felt. And if that’s the effect of the mainstreaming of resistance politics, making ideas of positive change more accessible to as many people as possible, then I’m ok with that.

Not everything is so good on this whole Earth yet, though, and I know that. I’m also always reminding myself that people are legally allowed in this country to discriminate in some ways by who they choose to associate with and to disagree for whatever reasons they may have with whatever mainstream policies they may disagree with, thanks to the rights guaranteed by our First Amendment. I wouldn’t ever want to forget that.

BUT.

I hope that I will remain the eternal optimist and believer that I am now, and that with hard work, maybe some day the word “resistance” won’t be in use to protest an unfair, oppressive, or problematic governmental, societal, economical, or any other kind of institution.

The end of the video I posted for The National’s “Fake Empire” made me think of this song, and I’m just going to go ahead and end this post with it to represent that kind of spirit that I have right now.


(This is kind of silly, but I want to thank my mom and dad and Billy Wimsatt for helping me write this post, even though they didn’t know they helped me.)

As a middle-class white girl, I admittedly have very little to resist in my privileged position.  However, I have always felt like an outsider no matter where I am, even in Oberlin, and music helps me feel less alone in both my political stances and general existence.  Lyrics and live shows help in creating a culture of resistance to the dominant American culture of political imperialism and consumerism.
I wish I had been around the right place and time to see the riot grrl movement take off.  As it is, I have to be content with listening to recordings of Bikini Kill and other bands and taking solace in their lyrics.  In the song ‘Bloody Ice Cream’ Kathleen Hanna of Bikini Kill sings  “Who is it that told me all girls who write must suicide?” and those lyrics really resonated to a 13 year old aspiring writer who had just read “The Bell Jar” (me).  It’s not like I was suicidal, but songs like ‘Bloody Ice Cream’ and my other favorite Bikini Kill song ‘Rebel Girl’ spoke to me in ways that the more well-known female musicians of the time didn’t.  ‘Rebel Girl’ gave me something to aspire to—to be the girl in that song, who “holds her head up so high” and “when she walks, the revolution comes”.
The band that has helped me the most through the past couple of years has got to be the World/Inferno Friendship Society.  Their live shows heal my soul and make me feel so much less alone for a couple of reasons.  First of all, they are incredibly inclusive.  If you know the right kind of mosh pit manners (elbows in, pick up people who fall, respect everyone), you can have so much meaningful and cathartic fun at their shows, from singing along at the top of your lungs to crowd-surfing, and everyone is really friendly.  Their lead singer, Jack Terricloth, knows how to connect with a crowd.  He makes eye contact, holds peoples hands, pulls kids up onstage to waltz, and will jump out into the crowd to surf when he can.   Halloween is their biggest holiday and show, which they call Hallowmass, and people come from all over the world to their huge party.  Having such a well-anticipated and big show helps create a world away from all the things that they are trying to resist, a non-hierarchical (anyone who wants to can come up on stage, I’ve never seen a bouncer pull anyone down) space for dancing and enjoying life.  Their lyrics and philosophy, however, are the most meaningful parts of the resistance that they create.
“All The World is a Stage Dive” is a song of resistance to becoming like everyone else, to becoming someone who takes little joy in the fun parts of life.  Terricloth sings:

“Quiet desperation ain’t my goddamn scene.
I don’t know if you can follow me,
but you bought a ticket so i guess we’re gonna see.
My friends!
To the wine and to the stage!
If you squander your precious beautiful days,
that makes you a sucker.
You don’t want to be a sucker do you?
To the quitters and the complainers,
if we never meet again
remember when?
all the world was a stage dive,
all the world loved a clown,
knowing how the clown hated them
and all the clowns in the house
stared up at the stage.
They used to get so mad.
The had such a good thing that day
but at the last minute it just sort of went bad.”

This song is seriously uplifting, telling the listener that they must take a stand and “don’t forget how it feels, kids/Don’t crap out!”  I listen to this song and another one of Inferno’s when I need a reminder that I do not have to grow up, take a boring office job, stop dying my hair and going to shows, cover up my tattoo, and generally become a yuppie.  This is something that I have been worrying about more often as graduation approaches.  It also reminds me not to be a quitter or complainer, since I know I would want to be remembered “as brave, and not as a bunch of whining jerks!”.
The other song that I listen to is called “Zen and the Art of Breaking Everything in This Room” and when Inferno was at the Sco a couple of weeks ago, Terricloth dedicated it to me since I am a philosophy major (I ran the show and we had a conversation earlier) and this song is their philosophy.  I almost died of happiness.  Anyway, the chorus of this song goes “Pirates and bankrobbers not lawyers or CEOs/stockbrokers ain’t no heroes” and it is about not becoming a corporate drone and instead having fun and doing what you love.  A lot of people that I know have abandoned their radical roots and started saying things like “being a lawyer isn’t THAT bad” and sometimes I feel very alone.  World/Inferno helps me resist those things and stay true to myself.

I’ve been thinking about musical forms of resistance in terms of my personal experience, and how far the term can be stretched without losing meaning. The example of Victor Jara that I shared in class a week ago is the most potent example of musical resistance that I know. His legacy is as a celebrity of political opposition and of a musical movement called the Nueva Canción in Chile; he was martyred for his political expression through music.

Jara’s case is extreme, but many Chilean musicians under Pinochet’s regime were persecuted. Many Chilean artists in the Nueva Canción movement were blacklisted or exiled, including the Andean-inspired groups Inti Illimani and Quilapyun. Song titles like “The Repression,” “We shall overcome/triumph,” and “Song of Hope,” clearly portray a political message of the oppressed. Their “El Pueblo Unido Jamas Sera Vencido/The People United Shall never be Defeated” , authored by famous socialist composer Sergio Ortega, became the anthem of the underground leftist party in Chile in the 1970s and 80s.

Quilyapayun and Victor Jara also recorded a powerful version of “Plegaria a un labrador/Prayer to a Worker,” that appears on the posthumous album “El derecho de vivir en paz/The right to live in peace.” The song has a far more sober feeling than many ‘resistance’ songs that we’ve encountered in class–it is a prayer rather than a protest. This solemnity (even more pronounced on the solo recording of Jara’s) is radically different than the political music of the 1960s and 70s in the United States. The ‘prayer’ has none of the qualities of either an angry shred of Hendrix, the peaceful mellowness of Cat Stevens or the ‘fuck you’ playfulness of Jefferson Airplane. ‘Plegaria’ asserts and pleads for something that I cannot express in words. Please listen.

This brings me to wonder if I am unable to express the powerful quality of Victor Jara’s ‘Plegaria’ because I know nothing but commercially approved American ‘protest’ music. In the biography of Jara written by his widow, he is quoted as saying,

“US imperialism understands very well the magic of communication through music and persists in filling our young people with all sorts of commercial tripe. With professional expertise they have taken certain measures: first, the commercialization of the so-called ‘protest music’; second, the creation of ‘idols’ of protest music who obey the same rules and suffer from the same constraints as the other idols of the consumer music industry – they last a little while and then disappear. Meanwhile they are useful in neutralizing the innate spirit of rebellion of young people. The term ‘protest song’ is no longer valid because it is ambiguous and has been misused. I prefer the term ‘revolutionary song.”

Jara had every right to reject any American movement at the time when he said this. Is there meaning to his statement beyond the anti-imperialism and anti-capitalism clearly expressed? Wasn’t Tom Paxton also afraid of being forced to fight and die when he wrote ‘Lydon Johnson Told the Nation’? Weren’t the 1970s in America considered revolutionary? Perhaps not in the sense that the government was never in threat of being overthrown. It seems like an entirely different scale than in 1970s Chile.

This brought me to a question about the meaning of political resistance music today. I was listening to the song ‘Mom and Pop Killer,’ by The Grouch, an Oakland artist. Though it might not seem like the most radical statement of resistance, in speaking out against corporations like Wal-Mart and Target, The Grouch is speaking out against a very powerful symbol of capitalism. More intense subjects for musical expression might be explicit anti-government sentiment, or opposition to the Iraq War. My questions are still the same. Victor Jara’s statement was most powerful because he was not allowed expression. What is resistance in a country that allows all political affiliations and free speech? Is anyone listening?

It was interesting to read the King’s article “Protest music as ‘ego-enhancement’” for class. In the article, King used reggae as a case study to explore his point that in social movements it is often the case that portraying an “enemy” as corrupted and morally inferior creates feelings of legitimacy and community within the movement. Music often becomes a large part of this process because music is so indexical and can be used as means to help bond people together. By articulating grievances and other sentiments to a catchy melody, people can not only relate to the music, but also sing, dance, and clap along. As people identify with the music, they also begin to identify with the culture surrounding the music, which leads to feelings of belonging to a community. If the community is promoting the idea that it is morally and ethically superior to another group, the group members will feel more positive and self-assured about their cause. Therefore, as King suggests, through the use of protest music and other means of boosting people’s egos and sense of well being, social movements can gain momentum and become successful. While there were times as I was reading his article that I thought King to be condescending towards the members of the Rastafarian movement by sort of insinuating that they are somehow egomaniacs blinded by their cause, I think he has an interesting point. Social movements always frame another group as oppressive and “wrong” as a means to help members in their group feel they are morally correct, giving them a reason to fight for their cause, and it is amazing how much music can aid in this process.

I’m currently researching the Nueva Canción movement in Chile for a research paper in my Latin American Folklore class, and I often think back to this article and class discussions on resistance as I read about this movement. “Nueva Canción” literally translates to “new song” from Spanish. The first wave of this movement, starting in the early 1960s, began as a movement of musicians trying to “reconnect” with their Chilean “roots” by incorporating indigenous instruments and song forms into more contemporary and popular musical genres. It is noteworthy, however, to mention that so many of these musicians were from the middle class with little to no cultural ties to the communities they were studying, which is why the movement is often criticized as having invented the roots with which it was trying to reconnect.

The other goal of the first Nueva Canción musicians was to organize a political community amidst the marginalized populations they were studying. They wanted to develop connections between, and help unify, different factions of the Chilean and Latin American populations in order to help facilitate social change, especially as the political climate of Chile was extremely polarized and in a sort of deadlock. The lyrics of their songs would often focus on the injustices inflicted on the lower classes, while the music would incorporate Chilean and other Latin American forms to help members of these different groups feel included (as well as to keep their traditions alive). These Nueva Canción musicians were relatively successful, as they were a driving force behind empowering marginalized communities to become political, helping to get Salvador Allende elected president and maintaining his support among left-leaning Chileans. However, while they helped to unify the left, they alienated the right, which widened the political and ideological gap between the two sides. This, while not totally the fault of the Nueva Canción musicians, was a major reason the military coup in 1973 occurred. In hindsight, many of the older Nueva Canción musicians have reflected that they lost their opportunity to promote mutually beneficial policies between all parties, and instead of promoting unity and peace, they only made the political climate worse. This is a good example of how the “ego-enhancement” as a result of protest music can be effective on a small scale within the social movement, yet destructive on a larger scale because the members of the movement can become self-righteous and uncooperative. While I don’t think it is necessarily an intentional choice to be perceived this way, I think this is a common problem in many social movements which often inhibits the success of the movement.

Under the Pinochet regime, the second form of the movement started to appear under the name “Canto Nuevo”. The goals of movement began to shift; Canto Nuevo musicians wanted to help people remember what their lives were like before the regime, and to unify people and comfort them as loved ones were disappearing or being killed. By incorporating empowering messages into their music, and by portraying the oppression of the Pinochet regime (usually through metaphors), these musicians were able to organize resistant communities within Chile as well as inform members of outside communities about what was happening. This ties in with the King article, as it is another example of using protest music as “ego-enhancement” to bring about social change. While the previous example had both positive and negative results from this “ego-enhancement”, in this example, the “ego-enhancement” was exactly what the Chileans of this time needed to help them resist the injustices occurring under Pinochet. This music gave people the courage to protest the government, and helped to organize underground political parties, which eventually lead to the unlikely election of Aylwin Azócar in 1989.

Here is a recording of Violeta Parra’s song “La Carta” (“The Letter”):

Translation by David Anderson:
http://setiweb.ssl.berkeley.edu/~davea/lyrics.php?file=albums%2FParras%2FLa+Carta.ly2.html&title=La+Carta

They sent me a letter
by the morning mail
in this letter they told me
that my brother was imprisoned
and without compassion, with shackles,
they dragged him through the street, oh yes.

The letter said the reason
that Robert was arrested
was that he supported the strike
that had already been settled
If this is really the reason
I’m going to prison too, Sargeant, oh yes.

I find myself so far away
Awaiting news
The letter comes to me and says
that in my country there is no justice
The hungry ask for bread
the militia gives them bullet, oh yes.

In this arrogant manner
They want to preserve their position
Those who have fans and frocks
Without deserving them
They come and go from church
and forget the commandment, oh yes.

We’ve seen insolence,
barbarity and treachery
Bringing out shotguns
And killing in cold blood
Those who have no defense
With their two hands empt, oh yes.

The letter I’ve received
Asks me for a reply
I ask that it be told
to all the population
That the Lion is bloodthirsty
in every generation, oh yes.

By luck I have a guitar
To weep my sorrow
I also have nine brothers
Besides the one in prison
The nine are Communists
By the grace of God, oh yes.

Here is a video of Victor Jara singing “Te Recuerdo Amanda” (“I Remember You, Amanda”):

Translation by Amanda Rivkin:
http://pages.slc.edu/~mnegroni/c02_artandpolitics/student/rivkin-jara.htm

I remember you, Amanda
where the street was damp,
running to the factory
where Manuel worked.
A wide smile,
rain in your hair,
nothing ever mattered
when you were about to see him,
him, him, him, him.

In five minutes
life is eternal,
in five minutes.
The siren sounds
for the workers’ returnand your gait
illuminates everything
those five minutes
made you bloom.

I remember you, Amanda
where the street was damp,
running to the factory
where Manuel worked.
A wide smile,rain in your hair
nothing ever mattered
when you were about to see him,
him, him, him, him.

He went for the sierras
he never harmed anyone
he left for the sierras
and in five minutes
he was destroyed.
The siren rang
for the workers’ return
many never returned,
neither did Manuel.

Additional Sources:

King, Stephen A. 2006. “Protest music as ‘ego-enhancement’: reggae music, the Rastafarian movement and the re-examination of race and identity in Jamaica.” In The resisting muse: popular music and social protest, ed. by Ian Peddie. Burlington, VT: Ashgate. 105-118.

Mattern, Mark. 1998. Acting in Concert: Music, Community, and Political Action. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.

Schneider, Cathy Lisa. 1995. Shantytown Protest in Pinochet’s Chile. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.

Tom Waits “The Day After Tomorrow”

 Tom Waits “The Day After Tomorrow” is a timeless song about a soldier missing home and his lover. The song also reveals the soldiers ambivalence about his work in the war: “I still don’t know how I’m supposed to feel / About all the blood that’s been spilled” and “You can’t deny /The other side / Don’t want to die /Any more than we do”. Waits performed this song on the Daily Show in 2006. Waits describes this song as an “elliptical” protest song about the Iraqi war, but unlike Oberst, does it without cynicism or smarts. Like Oberst, this song takes on a typical folk song form, with typical instrumentation, but he takes on the persona of a soldier in order to bring the listener into the place of a solider. Waits utilizes music and performance to give listeners an opportunity to be in the shoes of a soldier in order for the listener to feel and think something that they may not have otherwise. Bright Eyes “When the President Talks to God”   Conner Oberst (Bright Eyes)’s “When the President Talks to God” is much more obviously anti-Bush/war than Arcade Fire’s “Intervention” (below). The manner in which he performs this song, solo guitar and voice is akin to the protest songs of the 1960s. The song was written in response to the increasing influence of fundamentalist Christian ideals in US politics. The way Oberst phrases the song really brings out the absurdity in justifying political action, albeit often unjust political action, in the name of religion. Realizing how absurd some of these premises are (i.e. “does god suggest an oil hike, when the president talks to god?”), it’s hard to believe that this song is in reference to any president. This juxtaposition between absurdity and the person in charge of our country makes the song even more effective. Oberst, as a mark of democratizing information, released the song as a free download in 2005. Around the same time that he released the song, he boldly performed it on Jay Leno before an audience that is definitely not particularly left leaning. I read on a blog that he was motivated to do such a thing after learning about the connections between the Bush Administration and major television broadcasting channels. Either way, performing this song on a prime late-night TV show is a big deal and was quite a statement. Like the artists in the Rudeboys article, Bright Eyes appropriates the tools of those in power for his message of resistance.Arcade Fire “Intervention”   The political resistance displayed by Arcade Fire in the song “Intervention” is mainly lyrical. Like the dub poetry discussed in the Rudeboys article, the words take on a different meaning in the context of performance when people can clap, sing, and dance along. As shown in this video, the collective energy and experience of everyone singing together makes the message feel much stronger. Like we discussed in class, it is important for people to engage for there to be a social movement. The lyrics would not stand alone, and the message would be harder to disseminate if it weren’t performed or recorded on a CD and sold in major record stores. The lyrics in this song are not very blatant, but clearly allude to military and religious fundamentalism. Here is my interpretation of the lyrics: The “king” referred to in the first line “the king’s taken back the throne” refers to the old power in the White House (the Bush family, perhaps also the Clinton family). The “useless seed” in the next line refers to the war in Iraq. The line “working for the church while your family dies” has to do with the war being something done in the name of God, at the expense of citizens here and abroad. “When they say they’re cutting off the phone I’ll tell them you’re not home” refers to keeping soldiers in the dark about politics to keep their morale up. The next verse, regarding money and debt, is about the cold nature of government, its focus on money and not on the well-being of the people of its country. The verse beginning with “who’s going to throw the first stone” refers to the provoking of another nation to legitimize fighting, and also the abuse and demand placed on soldiers.  The final verse is in regards to the relentless nature of the US’s military techniques and its denial about war aftermath. Though these lyrics are quite poignant, they reach a wider audience through song, and perhaps a younger one as well. Arcade Fire is an indie-rock band loved by high school and college-aged people- I doubt this message would have the same affect if it were not performed on stage by a group of hip young adults in the indie-rock genre.  Arcade Fire became known as a heavy endorser of the Obama campaign, playing free shows in March 2008 at the height of the primary. The cities they played in were college towns (such as Athens OH). Worth noting is that many people criticized their active support because they are a Canadian band, though their singer and lead-Obama supporter was born in the States, bringing in the idea of nationality: can one resist a power that is not necessarily its own?