By Fred Baerkircher
In 1970, a newly elected Chilean president, Salvador Allende, shared a stage with a
ragtag group of musicians. They stood beneath a banner that read "There can be no revolution without song." To many, a
revolution is exactly what had just taken place.
The Socialist reformer Allende was a strong critic of the injustice and corruption
so pervasive then in Chile. American business interests in the region feared him, and the Central Intelligence Agency
tried several times to oust him. A few years later, he was killed under mysterious circumstances, but there, under that
banner, he and the Chilean people celebrated a great moment in that nation's turbulent history.
After the military coup in 1973 that replaced Allende with U.S.-backed Augustus
Pinochet, the music that had rallied large portions of the country to Allende's cause was banned. Possession of that
social movement's music, known collectively as La Nueva Cancion, became an arrestable offense. One of the movement's
most prominent folk singers, Victor Jara, was killed by Pinochet's soldiers in a testament to just how serious a threat
the music had become to those in power.
This is but one example of many prominent roles music often plays in social change.
"Music has been a vehicle of dissent throughout history," said Daniel Boomhower,
Kent State's performing arts librarian and head of the music library. Boomhower rattled off a host of other examples,
like American spirituals, and slave songs, and music from the Weimar Republic in 1920s and '30s Germany. More popular
examples include Johnny Cash with his prison songs and directors like Daniel Barenboim, who used Wagner's operas to open
discussions about modern anti-Semitism. The list goes on.
Music Professor Kazadi Mukuna said it's a phenomenon found in nearly every culture.
"Songs of protest you'll find anywhere in the world," he said.
Some well-known international musical forms have their roots in protest. "That is
the essence of reggae," Mukuna explained.
The reasons for music's prominence in protest movements are not simple. Mukuna said
music allows people to say things that might otherwise bring about swift retribution.
"If you put it in song it will be tolerated," Mukuna said. "Music becomes a vehicle
for softening the edges."
Boomhower said that music can be a way of disguising a message. While a message may
not be so obvious in song, it somehow has a way of seeping into the listener's consciousness, he said.
At the same time, Boomhower said, those pursuing social change don't hold a monopoly
on music. "Throughout history, music has been used to support and lend credence to dominant positions," he said. "Music
is very pliable and serves all sorts of functions." As examples, Boomhower pointed to the frequent use of song in Nazi
Germany and songs in late-19th century England that supported colonialism. Today, Boomhower noted, songs can be found
playing on American airwaves that support causes across the nation's political spectrum.
Boomhower said matters become complicated as musicians and songs frequently defy
categorization. Bob Dylan, for example, stunned his fans at the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 when he pulled out an
electric guitar. "That was seen as selling out his folk roots," Boomhower said. "Yet there's tons of great music he
wrote in the late '60s that was very incisive and had a clear message."
Now, Dylan is shocking fans again. In August, he teamed up with the pervasive
coffee chain Starbucks in an exclusive distribution agreement many see as counter to the artist's past message.
Boomhower said he views the American protest music scene as being much more complicated now than in the past.
There are plenty of musicians with a message, but they often work for the giants of the recording industry. It's
sometimes hard to imagine the populist themes of a musician like Woody Guthrie coming through in such a system.
Boomhower pointed to another trend in music. In the past 25 years, he said,
there's been an increasing recognition that the creator is not the final arbiter of music's meaning. In the past,
composers were seen as the ultimate masters of their music; no one would dare challenge the creator's vision.
Boomhower said, that's a very Western notion that is incompatible with the way music is really experienced.
Music, after all, affects us on a very personal level.
This can bring about dramatic and previously unimaginable turns for a
piece of music. Beethoven serves as an example. His famous Ninth Symphony was written around 1800. The lyrics,
steeped in Greek mythology, make references to all men uniting in joy. The Nazis put their own spin on Beethoven,
eager to claim the composer as an example of German cultural superiority. They interpreted "all men" to mean Aryans.
And yet the Nazi taint didn't stick to the music. It already had a life of its own. When the Iron Curtain came down
in 1989, the work, conducted by Leonard Bernstein, played a prominent role in the accompanying ceremonies. "The same
piece of music can symbolize the perceived cultural authority of the Nazi government," Boomhower said, "and yet be
played at the fall of the Berlin Wall as a symbol of peace."
For Mukuna, protest music is shaped largely by the climate from which it springs.
He cited 1960s America. The country was experiencing rapid changes in culture and politics. While there is plenty of
political and socially conscious music today, the atmosphere is not quite so charged. There were specific rallying
points, like the war in Vietnam, that inspired some of this country's most memorable music. That music is still
frequently heard today, and it is indeed hard to imagine the '60s without its music.
"It is interesting to see that those songs of protest survived," Mukuna said,
"and established a dominant era in American history."