Protest song

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A protest song or protest song is a song that is directed against an authority and mostly addresses social or political grievances.

Mark

A protest song primarily fulfills a political, educational function and therefore tends to have an inviting character. It arises against the background of agitating, mobilizing, showing solidarity and reflecting on social and political conflicts. Accordingly, the protest song is primarily characterized by its text. But musical elements such as blue notes or offbeat rhythms can also underline the critical messages in contrast to fixed norms.

history

Germany

Labor movement

Political songs and social movements are traditionally closely related. Political songs were already sung in the democratic and national freedom movements in the early 19th century, the Napoleonic Wars of Liberation, and in the pre-march of the revolution of 1848/49. As early as 1844, the German workers' song "The Blood Court" was written spontaneously in the Silesian weaver revolts.

When the social-democratic parties from the workers' education associations were founded around 1860, political songs were just as important. They are a symbol of the 'alternative culture' that wanted to represent a counter-example to bourgeois culture. In the labor movement of the early 20th century, protest songs were mostly simple and were often repositioned on the basis of traditional songs. Most of them were written by socialist or communist-oriented, classically educated composers such as Hanns Eisler or the songwriter Pete Seeger for the fighting workers.

Hanns Eisler

Even simple workers like Sarah Ogan Gunning or Aunt Molly Jackson from the USA wrote their own songs under the impact of the class struggle. Workers 'choirs also sang protest songs (see also: Workers' Song ). “These [songs] fulfilled various social functions: Outwardly, the songs were a commitment, they propagated the ideas of the labor movement, and they expressed basic knowledge, morals and values. They served to agitate and encourage workers to stand up for the implementation of the social interests of their own class, and they were also a piece of self-strengthening. In addition, the self-understanding about the social situation and political goals in the unified worker's song meant a community experience and conveyed feelings of solidarity. "

Songwriter in FRG and GDR

The conflicts in the USA in the 1960s also influenced the musical scene in the two German states. The GDR prescribed the citizens to take a critical stance towards the West and also punished any emerging criticism of their own state. Musicians and groups like Wolf Biermann or the Klaus Renft Combo , who still wanted to allow themselves open criticism, were banned from performing by the state .

Wolf Biermann

In the FRG , the musical scene was based on the Anglo-American model. In the 1960s a gathering of a small but lively folk scene took place around Waldeck Castle. Anti-fascism and anti-capitalism are keywords that made up the content of the political agenda of this scene.

A trendy performance and show business were frowned upon in this group.

In the 1980s, the first and influential German rock band Ton Steine ​​Scherben caused a sensation with their socially critical and emotionally charged lyrics. The contents of the lyrics are particularly popular in the left-wing alternative scene; they are still considered a cult band in the left-wing scene today.

The rock band "clay stones shards"

After reunification and the radical right-wing attacks in Rostock , Mölln and Hoyerswerda , anti-racist initiatives emerged that were supported by some young bands. Die Goldenen Zitronen , Die Sterne , Blumfeld and Tocotronic joined the Hamburger Schule label . In return, the hard rock band Böhse Onkelz addressed a partially right-wing audience.

United States

Folk music

In the 1950s there was an increased interest in folk music, especially in the USA . In connection with the social upheavals in the 1960s (emancipation movement, later the anti-Vietnam war protests), the folk movement, which came from the white middle class, was partly very politicized. The main reference point was the Woody Guthrie tradition , and the radical era of the Popular Front of the 1930s still echoed in them. They were directed primarily against racial discrimination and war. Important representatives were the young Bob Dylan , Phil Ochs and Joan Baez . Songs against nuclear weapons also came to the fore, for example Eve of Destruction by Barry McGuire , It's Good News Week by Hedgehoppers Anonymous or Morning Dew by Tim Rose .

Woody Guthrie

The civil rights movements that advocated equality between blacks and whites in society overlapped with the conflict over the Vietnam War. When the US began military intervention in 1965, the situation was already tense. The threat of nuclear war still hovered over the citizens of the United States like the sword of Damocles , and the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Korean War have not yet been overcome. Musicians like Phil Ochs and Bob Dylan addressed these political conflicts as early as the early 1960s and picked up on the mood within the population. With their songs Talking Vietnam Blues and Masters of War they founded a new pop genre. In the following months, other bands and musicians adapted the formats and content of the first protest songs in their compositions. Among others, John Lennon , Joan Baez, Creedence Clearwater Revival and Jefferson Airplane were inspired by the new stylistic device.

Twenty years later, the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York also affected musical pop culture . Rock stars like Bruce Springsteen and Neil Young , who had previously expressed themselves critical of the US state in their songs, now wrote patriotic songs in response to the terrorist attack.

punk

At the end of the 1960s punk emerged in the USA. The ideology of punk is the rejection of all social norms, which is reflected not only in music and song lyrics, but also in clothing and social behavior. The followers of this genre of music follow a lifestyle based on the motto “No Future”. The lyrics are often socially critical. However, they are mostly related to one's own world of experience in a modern capitalist society and are often nihilistic , that is, they do not offer any possible solutions to the problems, but explicitly political texts with criticism of capitalism, war or right-wing extremism also frequently appear. (see also: Punk (music) ).

The feminist variant of punk became known under the name Riot Grrrl .

Hip hop

Hip-hop music emerged in the early 1970s. The hip-hop movement started in the US ghettos. It was distinguished by the fact that it showed grievances and problems inside and outside the isolated society in the ghettos. Even today, alongside mainstream hip-hop, there is still a scene with socially critical or political rap.

Latin America

Nueva canción

Violeta Parra

By combining traditional folk music with socially critical elements, a new form of political song, the Nueva canción , developed in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s . Initially, the Nueva canción spread in Chile, Argentina and Uruguay, but soon it found spread throughout Latin America, and partly in Europe. The political songs dealt with topics such as popular poverty, democracy, imperialism, as well as human rights and religion. Musically, the Nueva canción was based on Andin music, the so-called Música negra , as well as Cuban, Spanish music and Latin American folklore . Another important musical reference point is the Chilean rural song form called Cueca . The politically motivated and mostly Spanish lyrics were often accompanied by the guitar, the quena , zampoña , the charango or the cajón . A well-known representative of the Nueva canción was the musician Violeta Parra .

In 1973, the coup against Salvador Allende saw this form of political and musical expression grow rapidly. During this time, the famous singer Víctor Jara was tortured and murdered by the regime under the general and dictator Augusto Pinochet . The Nueva canción retreated underground. After Pinochet's reign, the stadium where Victor Jara was murdered was renamed the Estadio Víctor Jara .

Africa

The most important protest musician in Africa to date is Fela Kuti , who became known throughout Africa far beyond his native Nigeria with his relentless criticism of the military dictatorship .

Arabic rap

Since the 1980s, rap music has established itself in most of the North African countries and those in the Middle East. In Algeria, the riots in 1988 marked the beginning of rap history. In this context, the groups Intik and Le Micro brise le Silence (MBS) became known. The MBS group addressed the country's social and political grievances in their songs and tried to encourage their audience to protest. From Algeria the hip-hop culture spread to the entire Arab hemisphere up to Israel in the mid-1990s. The bands MTM, Y-Crew , Omar x AkaEks were founded in Egypt in the late 1990s. Famous successors such as the Arabic and English singing Arabian Knightz joined them in the 2000s . Around 2001 Princess Emmanuelle became known as the first female rapper. Most of the song lyrics refer to the state of social injustice, to social taboos; However, some texts specifically call for people to resist capitalism and the urge to consume and to bring about Arab unity (“Arabs Stand Up” by the Arabian Knightz).

Meanwhile, the audience for these artists in the Arab states has grown to a large mass and there are numerous artists who imitate the style of the 90s rap pioneers.

Soviet Union

State-sponsored prostest against grievances abroad

The Soviet state, which itself represented a “notorious dictatorship”, promoted songs of protest against the enemy abroad, namely the USA, or exploiters of the working class, but also against juntas who suppressed human rights.

Protests in secret

“Bards”, songwriters who accompanied themselves with the guitar, often only played privately, but were also forced to do so by bans like Alexander Galitsch .
Even rock 'n' roll bands came in corresponding texts with censorship in conflict.

Russia

From 2006 onwards there were more protests in Russia and musicians protested “against the criminal members of the government and their connection to the Russian Orthodox Church.” From then on, protest songs were part of demonstrations whenever possible and in 2011 Alexei Navalny wrote a competition for a protest song Election fraud. Rabfak's winning song was “Our mental hospital votes for Putin”. Elsewhere, "Wasja Oblomow" also appeared, a rapper critical of Putin , in whose video Xenija Sobchak also played.
TV shows in state-controlled media in the years following the protests against Putin's re-election broadcast anti-Western rhetoric that evoked memories of Soviet propaganda. The Yezhov band protested with a song against the "anti-American propaganda in the official Russian mass media."

Trivia

Since 2004 the protest song contest has been held every year on February 12th in the Vienna Rabenhof Theater .

criticism

Insofar as protest songs, in order to be disseminated, are themselves subject to the exploitation mechanisms of the culture industry , they are exposed to the risk of being appropriated; In extreme cases, the protest is a mere vehicle for marketing (rebel image). Even if it is meant differently, the protest song can become a complement to the world against which it is protesting.

See also

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. Fehmel, Anna: Music is a weapon. The relationship between music, politics and protest using the example of “Ton Steine ​​Scherben”, Munich 2004
  2. ebooknews press, History of the Political Song , p. 15.
  3. a b Frankfurter Hefte
  4. a b Fluter ( Memento of the original from February 20, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.fluter.de
  5. db-punk, http://www.db-punk.de/punk-geschichte .
  6. 3satm, http://www.3sat.de/page/?source=/kulturzeit/lesezeit/159626/index.html .
  7. Hip-Hop Music, http://www.hiphop-musik.net/was-ist-hip-hop .
  8. YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PLJxelCflIA .
  9. el Culturn eV, http://cultrun.de/blog/2012/08/20/nueva-cancion/ .
  10. ^ German Institute Of Global And Area Studies, http://www.giga-hamburg.de/de/system/files/publications/gf_nahost_1209.pdf , ISSN  1862-3611 .
  11. ^ A b Protest Songs in Russia: The Sound of Democracy , Russia Beyond the Headlines, October 5, 2013
  12. I sing against the indifference of people. , derstandard.at, March 23, 2013