Latent Protest Music

Protest music is not a genre. I’d suggest that protest music sometimes isn’t even protest music.

There are a few (true) things that most sophisticated music fans tend to know about me, and one of them is that in 2013, I made a failed attempt get The Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner” designated the official rock song of the Commonwealth.

Because duh!

I do need to write it all down sometime, because though much was written by others –some of it absolutely brilliant -- I am not sure the full story the way I see it, which of course is the true and accurate way, is fully appreciated.

It was an amazing rollercoaster ride of an effort, with hearings and drama and conflict that actually had some bearing on a once-in-a-generation mayoral election, and then actually touched the White House. I distinctly remember a tweet by a reporter that referenced a story about Marty Walsh being nominated to be United States Labor Secretary and proclaimed that he must be a solid choice because he filed the Roadrunner bill as a state legislator. (It seems to have been deleted, like a lot of my beloved OG Twitter, so you’ll just have to believe me.)

One of the most incredible things about that episode was that someone tracked down Jonathan Richman, the songwriter, who dismissed the idea, saying the song wasn’t “good enough to be a Massachusetts song of any kind.” I suppose I should have been sad about this, but I wasn’t, for two big reasons. First, punk rockers have never encountered an obstacle they didn’t want to smash to bits, and second, as I told The Boston Globe at the time, “the song transcends the artist.”

What I meant and still mean by this is that once a work of art is out in the world, its meaning is no longer wholly owned by the creator. When it is sent out into the world, wrapped in context, and ingested by hearts and minds, it takes on a life of its own.

I know that some artists understand this, and some struggle with it. In 1995, I was corresponding with the great Nick Hornby, as I was planning to see High Fidelity the musical, which of course was based on his book (one of my all-time favorite fiction works). I asked him how he felt about sending it off into the world like that, and he likened it to sending a child off to college. He had to just let it go, having fulfilled his role, and hope for the best. Hard-earned royalties and copyrights and licensing notwithstanding, that’s a healthy understanding of the role of art in the lives of humans.

That’s a lot of words to get to what I want to explore right now, which is latent protest music.

As you know if you have been here a while, I have been co-producing with my friend, the author James Sullivan, a monthly series of “protest music teach-outs,” which have, by all the measures I care about, been very successful. They’re equal parts music, education, and organizing, and they are joyful, vibrant events. In the context (swirling shitshow) we are living through, it is so rewarding to work with smart, talented people who care about each other and the world, on a project that feels like it’s helping bring comfort in some small way.

In this effort, James and I have done a lot of talking to the press and others ABOUT protest music. He wrote a book about it in 2019, and one day last year, it fell on my head and gave me the original idea for the series. One of the things I liked about the book is that it positions as protest music work that is not traditionally thought of as such. It’s not all white guys from the sixties with acoustic guitars.

In other words, protest music is not a genre. I’d suggest that protest music sometimes isn’t even protest music.

Songs/texts/works of art depend on listeners/readers/viewers, informed by context, experience, and understanding. To use one of my favorite examples as we’ve done interviews about our series, Tom Petty’s “Refugee” wasn’t a protest song when he wrote it. But it might be now.

Latent protest songs are my favorite kind because they prove a point about the power of art, right? The work transcends the artist. (Attn: JR.)

Of course, I like some of the pointed, timely ones too. There have been songs throughout history that spoke to a specific, current injustice that have played a part in changing the national conversation. “Ohio,” “What’s Going On,” and “Eve of Destruction” come immediately to mind. There are many. James often talks about the fact that the ubiquity of these songs at the time – everyone was listening to the same songs on the radio stations at the same time – is different from the way that we experience music now. It helps to explain why there has been so much written about why there is no protest music being written now, which is, of course, demonstrably incorrect. Older people especially like to opine that there is no new protest music. We like to shake our fists at clouds.

This is kind of a non-sequitur, but I have to say it because someone will inevitably bring it up.

Lately, when people are talking about contemporary protest music, the conversation inevitably turns to Jesse Welles. Aunt Theresa always invoked “Thumper’s rule,” which is “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say nothing at all,” which, if we are being honest about the double negative, means the same as the (Alice) Roosevelt rule, which is “If you don’t have anything nice to say, come and sit here by me.” I learned the latter from my friend Miguel, who said, “Si no tienes nada bueno que decir, ven y siéntate a mi lado.”

I am not a fan. (Of Jesse. I adore Miguel.) Welles has a mellifluous voice, GREAT hair, and superior social media skills. But he strikes me as a novelty act, churning out ephemeral jingles that are too clever, obvious, and relentless for their own good. If I want to be hit over the head with obvious things I’m already angry and anxious about, I’ll tune into MSNOW. It makes me sad that he’s being held up as a leading example, because I believe that great protest music – intentional OR latent - can make people think rather than just reinforce what they already think. While the text is left leaning, the structure shares more with another kind of protest. More on that later.

So, let’s discuss songs that become rather than start as protest. A song can become protest when the singer presents as vulnerable and the audience understands why. It can also become protest when a listener hears it that way because of the context within which it exists, as opposed to the context in which it was created, which, frankly, we often don’t know. Or it can be a combination of both of those things. The protest emerges from the tension between the song and the heart, mind, or world in which it is heard.

I have a fairly eclectic array of songs here that make my case. There are many. They range from subjective to universally understood.

Let’s start with the aforementioned “Refugee.” It was (I assume) not intended as a protest song when recorded in 1979, but it can sure as hell be one now. Here’s the mighty Jen Trynin performing it in July 2025 at our very first protest music teach-out. Go one step further from Jen’s fiery performance and imagine an immigrant performing it. It will have an entirely different meaning again.

David Bowie’s “Life on Mars” was released in 1971. Aurora’s version here, which doesn’t have the swagger of Bowie’s original, struck me recently as the inner dialogue of a person who must disassociate to survive. Like an immigrant being ripped from her life.

There’s a fascinating backstory to this one, from 1971 in Portugal. It was used to literally start a revolution that overthrew fascism. Many of Jose Afonso’s recordings were banned by the fascist regime, but for some reason – hard to fathom in retrospect – this one was not seen as a threat and not banned.

Blondie’s “One Way Or Another” came out in 1978, and I heard it recently on the radio. It made me think of a social media post I read earlier in the day. A woman I know from Minneapolis recounted the story of her niece, who had been called by an agent as she was on her way home from being an observer. Earlier, I had also read a story about a man who had been on the receiving end of an administrative warrant for his email presented to the company that holds the keys to the email correspondence of millions of us. The more obvious choice for this surveillance space may have been The Police’s “Every Breath You Take,” but the thing that makes me think protest here is that the singer takes control of the situation in the end. A distinction with a difference.

Supertramp’s “The Logical Song” came out in 1979, and Rodger Hodgson has said it’s about his bad experiences at boarding school. When I heard it recently, it recalled the ideological march perpetuated by the Heritage Foundation via the regime that’s bringing us book bans, the attack on humanities, school curriculum fuckery, and the despicable way they’re treating anyone who they see as “other” – especially trans kids.

This 1981 Abba song hits me very differently today. Obvs.

I heard this 1995 Vic Chesnutt song not long ago and it stopped me in my tracks. I’ve heard it dozens of times before and knew it to be a very personal song to my late, great friend Vic, but bringing my own fears to the text now, it’s a whole new song.

Here’s Angelique Kidjo, born in Benin, and now living in New York after many years in France, performing The Talking Head’s “Once in a Lifetime” (2003) at a festival in 2022. In a 2018 interview, Kidjo said that after HeWho’s first election in 2016, she saw the song as a “solution for expressing anxiety about the future.” Pretty sure that’s not what the creators of the song intended. She activated the latency by inserting herself into the text at a tumultuous time (which we didn’t know wasn’t as tumultuous as it would be eight years later, but that’s a different post).

This might be the very best example of what I mean to communicate. You’ve heard it before, and I can’t imagine what it felt like to hear it in 1969, when it was performed at Woodstock. The bombs bursting in air indeed. I don’t have to imagine what it’s like to hear it today. It’s profound. We actually opened our whole series with it – James’ idea, he opened his book with the Hendrix story – with Jon Butcher performing the Hendrix version.

Now all of this – the activation of latency or sheer reinterpretation within a different context – cuts both ways. There are MANY examples of artists getting angry when their songs are misunderstood and used without permission (even though legally, no permission is needed in many of these instances). There are millions of people out there who think “Born in the U.S.A.” is a patriotic anthem, and “The Future’s So Bright, I Gotta Wear Shades,” is an optimistic pop song. If I am arguing that the song transcends the artist, then I have to let those people, who either intentionally or unintentionally mishear the song, have this one. But what I find really interesting is that this doesn’t REALLY happen in reverse, and that’s because the liberal-coded songs tend to speak in the language of belonging, while the right-leaning ones tend to speak in terms of violence and retribution. Left-leaning songs are better positioned to change hearts and minds for this reason.

I arrived at this because I was headed in a VERY different direction. I tried to recast a song that really bothers me – Jason Aldean’s “Try That in a Small Town” – as a left-leaning protest song. But I can’t. I thought I could by removing that incredibly offensive video from the mix. But the song is about impermeable boundaries. It’s not about community, though it purports to be. It’s a lost cause. And I started to try to find another, an exception to the rule, but the deeper I dug, the angrier I got, because everything I found draws us vs. them lines that won’t be broken. Oh, and also there’s a LOT of dreck. That’s more offensive than anything.

I am eager to know if there are songs you hear differently these days. Feel free to share any thoughts in the comments.