1. The 1900s: "The Preacher and the Slave" by Joe Hill (1911)
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Cover rendition of "The Preacher and The Slave" by Joe Hill
The decade of the 1900s in the United States was marked by labor struggles for better and fairer wages. Songwriter Joe Hill was famous for his many protest songs written across several years of his life. He was a member of The Industrial Workers of the World, also called Wobblies, which is a labor union founded in 1905. The Wobblies made big pushes for worker equality. Hill participated by his songwriting activism.
This particular song is his most popular and most well known. "The Preacher and the Slave" is about Hill's dislike of the Salvation Army organization, which many called the "Starvation Army." The organization made what Hill called "pie in the sky" promises to workers when in reality the promises were made to keep workers entangled in capitalistic society. It is written to the tune of one of the Salvation Army's hymns, like many other protest songs of this decade, called "Sweet Bye and Bye." The lyrics make fun of the "long-haired preachers" who try and tell everyone what to do but are not willing to help anyone along. They just make promises that if you "Work and pray, live on hay, / You’ll get pie in the sky when you die.”
2. The 1920s: "(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue" by Fat Waller (1929)
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Moving into the 20s, the labor movement and class struggles were still strong and reflected in music but a new movement came forth in this decade: racial discrimination. Jazz and blues dominated music in the 20s. Both these genres were pioneered by black artists so they were being put in the spotlight more than ever before. Just because black artists' music was popular did not mean that they were respected. Racial tensions were high during this time. Fats Waller, a famous jazz musician and composer at the time, wrote this song with his friend and close collaborator Andy Razaf for a musical titled Hot Chocolates.
"Black and Blue" was composed by Waller after the director of the musical, Leonard Harper, suggested a song be written specifically for performer Edith Wilson about the "woes of being black." Waller came up with this song that is a commentary of the racial situation in the US at the time. Some of the lyrics include lines that say things such as "Cold empty bed, springs hard as lead" and "No joys for me, no company" pointing out that many black people do not live a life as nice as whites. Other more striking lyrics are: "I'm white inside, but that don't help my case / 'Cause I can't hide what is on my face" and "My only sin is in my skin / What did I do to be so black and blue?" These lyrics blatantly call out racism.
3. The 1930s: "Strange Fruit" by Abel Meeropol (1939)
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Live performance of "Strange Fruit" by Billie Holiday
Songs protesting racism remained popular in the 1930s too. "Strange Fruit" performed by Billie Holiday is a haunting song detailing the mass lynchings of black people. The song originated as a poem by white Jewish schoolteacher Abel Meeropol after he saw a photograph of a lynching that haunted him for days. He and his wife, Anne, set the song to music. Anne actually performed the song prior to Holiday. The song was performed at a club that set in motion the journey for Holiday to record and make "Strange Fruit" famous.
The entirety of the lyrics paints a vivid picture of what a lynching may have looked at. Here are just some lyrics to take a look at: "Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze," "Them big bulging eyes and the twisted mouth," and "Then the sudden smell of burning flesh."
The song became so popular that in 1999 it was named the "song of the century" by Time Magazine. Several versions have been recorded and the Library of Congress even added the song to the National Recording Registry.
4. The 1940s: Union Maid by Woody Guthrie of the Almanac Singers (1941)
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The 1940s brought back music relating to the labor movement again. Woody Guthrie, who wrote this song, wrote many other pro-union songs and can be considered one of the most notable folk musicians of this era. Guthrie wrote and performed music alone but occasionally performed with the Almanac Singers band, a group that mainly released topical songs relating to the war, racism, and labor unions.
"Union Maid" was written by Guthrie after he was asked to write a union song that was from a woman's perspective. According to Pete Seeger's book titled The Incompleat Folksinger, he and Guthrie had been in Oklahoma City at a Communist Party office singing for oil workers who were on a strike when the next morning Guthrie sat down in front of the typewriter to complete the first verses of the song.
This song is unique because of its use of the female perspective. Notable lyrics include: "And when the Legion boys come 'round / She always stood her ground. / Oh, you can't scare me, I'm sticking to the union" and "She always got her way when she struck for better pay."
5. The 1950s: "Old Man Atom" by Vern Partlow (1945)
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Sam Hinton's performance of Partlow's song
In the 40s anti-nuclear protest songs started to arise. The year 1945 saw the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which began to spark panic throughout the world surrounding nuclear warfare. Vern Partlow's song "Old Man Atom" (also known by other names) is one of the most successful anti-atom bomb songs. The song was recorded by several artists. Sam Hinton, Ozzie Waters, and the Sons of the Pioneers are some. The song even got the attention of Pete Seeger from the Almanac Singers and Bing Crosby!
The lyrics of this song are very clever. Partlow uses double entendres throughout the song mixed in with black humor. For example a verse about halfway in says: "And the answer to it all ain't military datum / Like who gets there firstest with the mostest atoms / No, the people of the world must decide their fate / They gotta stick together or disintegrate. / We hold this truth to be self-evident / That all men may be cremated equal!"
The song gained a lot of radio play with not much promotion, prompting music industry magazines Cash Box, Billboard, and Variety to declare the song a "hit." Many people protesting the song because of its communist-like ideas within the lyrics. After protests and bans for the song, the popularity never recovered but to this day it is a great example of a protest song.
6. The 1960s: "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival (1969)
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Lyric video for "Fortunate Son" by Creedence Clearwater Revival
Music in the 1960s was rampant with political and social protest and commentary. The Civil Rights Movement was coming to an end, the Vietnam War was raging and much of society desired for peace. The war was a main focus of a lot of the protest music being written and released at this time. The list is long for songs that could have been chosen to be discussed here. "Fortunate Son" is not about a specific aspect of the war but about the relationship between social and economic class status and war. The universality of the song makes it powerful.
Each verse of the song starts by criticizing people who are born into economic status, social status, or blindly follow their country. For example, the second verse starts: "Some folks are born silver spoon in hand / Lord, don't they help themselves" and then ends with singer John Fogerty yelling: "It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no."
Fogerty has said that he was angry about the war because he and others were being drafted for a war they didn't understand why they were fighting. In his autobiography, he talks about his inspiration for the song. He thought of all the sons and daughters of congressmen and senators who were able to stay out of war because of their parents or pick their position in the military when everyone else was stuck to fight their parents' battles.
7. The 1970s: "What's Going On" by Renaldo "Obie" Benson (1971)
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2019 music video for the 1971 song recorded by Marvin Gaye
The Vietnam War lasted until 1975, so many songs from this decade are also about the war. Marvin Gaye released a concept album in 1971 called What's Going On about the story of a soldier who comes home from the war and sees all the injustice, hate, and suffering that has been caused because of it. Songs on the album not only touch on the horror of war itself but the effect it can have on someone. Some other themes from this album are poverty and drug abuse.
The title track from this album was inspired by a police brutality incident that Renaldo "Obie" Benson, member of the Motown band the Four Tops, had witnessed in 1969. He and his band members turned to each other and said: "what's going on?" which inspired him to write this song. The nature of the song was so controversial at the time that none of the other members of the Four Tops would record it so Benson offered to Marvin Gaye and the rest is history.
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