Greetings and salutations Hivers. Today let's go into another Evening Groove / Three Tune Tuesday post.
As always, thanks to 
Today I have some protest songs echoing in my head, so we're running with that theme.
Leonard Cohen - Everybody Knows
When people think of Leonard Cohen, they probably think of Hallelujah, which is undoubtably his most famous hit, but he does have an entire career of other great songs. While this one is often called a pessimistic song it was intended more as a protest song and is full of black humor. He wrote it during a period of depression, a period that generally seemed to last for a few years until he withdrew from the public and isolated himself at a Zen temple in LA for five years.
Jackson Brown - Lives in the Balance
On his eighth LP, Browne joined some of the other singers of his era and let his disillusionment and frustration at the direction of America out. The entire album was dripping with his thoughts, but this song may have summed it up best. This would have been in the midst of the Iran-Contra scandal, so Reagan and his politics were easy targets, but that doesn't change the power of the song.
Bruce Springsteen - The Ghost of Tom Joad
People don't often think protest songs when they think of The Boss. If they think of politics, they usually blindly think patriotism and of Born in the USA. Never mind that few people actually listen to the lyrics beyond that of the chorus of that song to discover it is actually a protest song itself, blasting the USA for Vietnam and the poor treatment of Vietnam vets. People remember Reagan mistakingly praising that song, but they don't remember Springsteen mocking the president for having obviously not actually listened to it. (Kind of like when Paul Ryan, Mr Establishment himself, listed Rage Against the Machine as his favorite band.)
Tom Joad is a character from The Grapes of Wrath and was also featured in a Woody Guthrie song. And those two things right there should tell you all you need to know about the political views in this song.
Speaking of Rage Against the Machine, the live version of this song I am embedding below features Tom Morello. (He also recorded a studio version of the song with Morello as well.) Very cool. This is not only an amazing song, but this is an amazing performance.
So what's your favorite?
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| David LaSpina is an American photographer and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Twitter or Mastodon. |