Rock and Politics

Through the years, music has delivered many messages and especially rock songs have been subjects of many things: drugs, the school system, girls, and wars being one of the most overlooked themes in the history of modern rock.

Politics Schmolitics:

OK, I know it may not be the best time to be talking about politics - being a sensitive subject with everything going on around us; however, the Vietnam War has been one of the most major subjects of 60s/early-mid 70s rock songs.

Vietnam War:

Although The Animals' 1965 hit We Gotta Get Out of This Place has been associated with Vietnam, it is generally an overall, anti-war song, being a plea by troops to leave a dangerous place. The same can be argued about Barry McGuire's 1965 hit Eve of Destruction.

In the late 1960s to early 1970s, the most notable anti-war act was Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR). John Fogerty has penned about a dozen anti-war songs such as: Fortunate Son, Who'll Stop the Rain? Have You Ever Seen The Rain, and several others. Contrary to popular belief, Run through the Jungle IS NOT about the Vietnam War. In 1970 Grand Funk Railroad released I'm Your Captain/Closer to Home - a song about sailing away from Vietnam in the midst of the war.

Even the Brits spoke out against the Vietnam War. The Fab Four's 1968 single Revolution, penned by John Lennon, addresses anti-destruction, and encouraging an end to the war. That very year, the Moody Blues released Question. In 1969, Jethro Tull recorded Living in the Past - being their well-known song before their well-known album. It reached #3 in the UK and helped to get them going. In 1970, Black Sabbath released War Pigs from their successful 1970 record Paranoid being about the regret of causing the Vietnam War and questioning the worth of the fighting.

Finally during the 1980s, The Boss released his signature song. Despite its cheerful riff, the song is an anti-war song about a veteran who went out to fight and then found himself out of work after coming back.

The Cold War...

There aren't as many songs about the Cold War as there are about the Vietnam War, but there a couple notable ones.

Rare Bird - Sympathy: Although the song does not exactly touch on war, the subject matter of the song leads many to associate it with such.
Deep Purple - Child in Time: This is one of the most notable examples of an anti-cold war song. See the blind man shooting at the world. The song appeared on the first of few of their successful albums In Rock which features the members portraits carved on a mountain akin to Mt. Rushmore, and you gotta love all of Gillan's aaaaaahs on this one.
Genesis - Land of Confusion: This song alludes to the 60s slightly, and is number two of the most noteable. The song notabely quotes Pete Townshend's My Generation as it does Sympathy (above) in the pre-chorus Too many men/too many people/making too many problems/and not much love to go around.

...but what about U2?

Oh yes, we can't talk about rock and politics without touching on U2. In fact, in an earlier posting, I compared them to the Beatles. In their career, especially in the 80s and early 90s, they had a few political hits. Their hits mostly foccused on peace and equality (MLK, Pride (In The Name of Love), One), as well as political activism (a la Sunday Bloody Sunday).

Let me just explain the latter. There have been a number of "Bloody Sundays" through history, This particular track was written from the viewpoint of an observer of the 1972 Bloody Sunday event in Derry where the British Army shot a number of unarmed Irish Civil Rights protestors. About the time of the incident, Paul McCartney & Wings wrote another, less-known protest, Give Ireland Back to The Irish, but it was banned by the BBC.

The big picture

From this posting, we can see that there are a large number of rock songs centered on politics - the majority being on the Vietnam and Cold Wars, but others also being on other political subject matters such as racism and equality.