History in Europe has a lot of music and musicians doing material that was both political and religious, and I find the question a bit strange, because if this were the case, no one would listen to Roger Waters or Neal Morse! Or a lot of other folks claiming to ________________________ ... you get the idea!

Now you know why I think that STRAWBS song about the nails is so important ... but some folks don't like it because of its side comment on Springsteen! ... it wasn't really about him, it was mostly about the girl believing that! 

And I think it hit a real hard note to many of us that we would like something so much that we took it to an extent that ... probably should not have happened?

As well anything that is on purpose, pushing ideals on me. I don't have any issue with Rush's Jacobs Ladder, telling a story is fine. Neal Morse can at times get a bit preachy.....Overall I am fine with musicians, they can do whatever its art.

How facund and fervid.

Hi,

Not always and not everywhere. In some places it was always a struggle, and ... many have died for it. AND, this is the case in various places around the world, where "freedom" simply gets you the slammer, or a lot worse. In some countries you "disappear", never to be found again ... 

It's the history of the arts, and it's not even about religion if you can count Ken Russell's satirical version of ... "... bye bye blackbird ...".

This is the reason why so much of the material in the history of literature has always looked to allusion and various other ways to say something without saying it directly, so no one could accuse them of this or that ... heck, even the Grimm's Fairy Tales were considered political ... now we can talk about Weill/Brecht, right?

The worst is out there ... be it what is happening here there or everywhere, or someone simply abusing the privilege with "you're fired!" ... we think it's great theater ... now we're back to the roman places with many folks getting thrown to the lions, and people applauding ... here we elect them!

^ ( I appreciate you are in jest ) I'm not familiar with what sort of music the poster listens to but you don't necessarily require lyrics to have a discernible political agenda e.g.:

That said will always be a risk of me not like what I hear, not too much “I was saved by the almighty”. But if the album is great (slow train coming) its ok.

I think artists should be able to write about whatever they want... But at the same time, audiences should be free to criticize artists or stop listening if politics/religion are starting to get in the way of the music. Free speech goes both ways!

Ideally, I think political songs work better if they have some subtlety and universality to them. If you start singing about how [political party you didn't vote for] is terrible, it's going to lose appeal to their supporters, and risks being irrelevant in a few years. Same thing with political banter in between songs. Same sort of deal with religion... if you start singing about how great Jesus is, non-Christian listeners are more likely to tune it out. If you make a song about forgiveness or loving thy neighbour, it can appeal to listeners of different faiths while still passing on some of the values of a religion.

Hi,

It is censored in many countries with some really bad consequences ... and it is in the news each and every day! It almost does not mean if it is political or religious anymore ... all it takes is a paranoid leader or a megalomaniac ruler or a self proclaimed cleric!

I have noticed though that typically only punk bands sing about politics(and usually from a left wing perspective). Prog bands tend to stay away from politics maybe out of fear of scaring off their conservative fans. I know some do but not most. Politics seems to be most common among punk bands(and in the old days folk).

Hi,

SFX: Glass breaking

SFX: Glass falling on the ground

SFX: Someone sweeping the glass

There goes the need for half the great poets and writers in our history.

So let the Spanish (New) Inquisition go about killing all writers, actors, artists in their version of the new this and that ... and allow the Church to control things and cut up movies left and right, including kisses (very real in Europe btw) simply because ... it did not suit their crowd control methods.

I guess Pablo Neruda is an idiot!

(just one example ... Garcia Lorca would cry at what you just said ... )

I was tempted to say 'misrepresented', but by this point it's fairly clear that you're not actually interested enough in anyone else's point of view to pay that much attention. Why bother reading a post properly when instead it can just be used as a pretext for yet another patronising, irrelevant screed intended to demonstrate your cultural superiority? 

Hi,

That was not the idea, and I updated the post so the rest of your comments were included which were fine with me.

Your comment, from the point of view of my house's literary sense, is an insult to a lot of people that meant well and tried the best they could ... and some lost their lives for it! 

There are, just as many "street" writers, painters and musicians that were greatly appreciated as there were "intelligent" folks doing the same thing, and I do not quite like to make that distinction, since in Portugal and Spain they all suffered the same! And having had family members succumb to it, is another story that wouldn't interest you, more than likely.

The whole point is, and you were right in the premise, is that sometimes, a sermon is not a sermon, sometimes a poem is not a poem, and pretty soon, you are going to tell T. S. Elliot to shut up, because you fell asleep after the words ... Michelangelo ... and/or Allen Ginsburg started a poem and went on for 25 minutes and then you saw (Check the movie about the FURTHER bus with Ken, and the troup!) a guy just rap forever while driving a bus ... and this is not about the sermon ... it is just who they are and how they were remembered, and add a chapter to American Literature.  ON THE ROAD ... here we come ... it's not about "your definition" of what the song had or didn't have, and your comment is a bit flippant and strange, considering that I knew better your tastes ... but something slipped!

There will always be, specially now that we can all specify our opinions which are always better than anyone else's (I never believed that, btw! I directed in film and theater ... that is a gross and misguided illusion!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!) ... and all we can say is ... that you were wrong and my idea was right.

Mine was not a comment about you ... it was more of a comment about a place where many things like you and I say and get posted and they get ignored to oblivion because in America they have never seen anything like it! ... and you just know it ... the next person will say ... it never sold or did anything in VARIETY anyway! Or the best one yet ... too long, and I don't want a sermon. Or a fudging lesson from the professor! Or my favorite ... it's along meandering, meaningless solo and instrumental passage ... 

Art is art ... and defining it in those terms is kinda bad ... there are a lot of religious stuff that is magnificent material ... I can't put down I Ching, The Bardo, and many of those books, and that stuff is at times a bit on the sermon side of things ... but I don't think it is meant to be that bad!

Hi,

NP: Strawbs ... The Nails From The Hands of Christ

From your posts I would say that you were not exactly inspired by "music" ... you were inspired by a scene! 

At least I discussed it from an artistic/slightly historic point of view, not from a fan of a scene point of view as you suggested. I could have, easily, made this historic with 500 years of materials ... 

Hi,

You have not lived in a place and time when the "arts" were the voices that stood up ... and it meant a lot more than you can imagine, and has a lot more strength than we think. Only in America, will "art" not mean anything and not suggest anything worthy of changing and appreciate.

Europe has many of these stories, and a lot of their arts were the ones that told that story ... not the church or the government! 

Hi,

There are plenty of stories around Europe, and even in Irish film, where the struggle for a change was being made, but it was not going to make the front page news ... fer' crying out loud, those people would get killed off right away.

Czechoslovakia had a very serious movement that even ended up with a playwright as its leader. Spain and Portugal remained "quiet" because of the Government ... but you can read Luis Bunuel's book talking about many artists that the Spain government did away with, and Garcia Lorca was one of the more famous one ... so saying that it was not "alive" or "visible" is really strange. Pablo Neruda finally left Chile ... sometimes it seems like hours before he was going to be picked up.

The "public" is not always aware of these things, since the government controls the media ... so what do you expect? That it be delivered to your door? However, there would be a lot of parents that would hide these things from their children (like my mom and dad did) so we would never say anything about it, and when the Portuguese Government finally blew up, the whole thing became anarchy central and everyone took the guns in their hands and started shooing anyone indiscriminately and we lost some family members to that.

NOTHING in my life has EVER been invisible ... except one thing ... the inability to tell the truth and find out who the real _________ .... The only other thing that hurts, is people sometimes saying things that are not quite right, and they can not see that others fell victim to it, and didn't have a choice to get out! No one can tell me that the IRA and the Irish fight many years back, was silent .. it never was!

Really? "A Nation Once Again" immediately springs to mind as a famous call to arms, written by Thomas Osborne Davis in the mid-1840s. There are many more, but I would also suggest that songs, particularly Irish Rebel songs that recall previous events, were sung during the 1916 Rebellion as anthems to steel and fortify the men facing the full weight of the British Empire. 

As far as protest songs, I could rattle off a hundred that were written in the moment, actually when strife was beginning or prophetically singing about the future.

Bob Dylan had albums full. Like "Masters of War" (1963, prior to the escalation of war in Vietnam), or "The Times They Are A'Changing" (written in 1964 that presaged the anti-war movement of the later 60s):

Nick Hornby summarising that the closest white, middle class suburbanites get to the coalface is being curled up in front of an electric fireplace

Hi,

Thanks ... I was even thinking of Woody Guthrie just now ... or even later during VietNam ... Fortunate Son by CCR ... and several other bands ... Jefferson Airplane for example (Crown of Creation, Volunteers) ... too many to count and mention!

We live in a time, DE, that I'm not sure these folks can conceive of the idea that "songs" don't just happen so they can become a HIT ... and of course, because they are never in a list of top this or that pile of heap ... they must all be trash and not important! Kent State DID happen and a lot more!

There was a film, I think one of the last Richard Harris films about the Irish conflict ... and it is gut wrenching and sometimes, hearing comments like some posted here ... is really scary ... and so SAD ... makes me feel that all that stuff in Madison, Chicago, Milwaukee and around the north Midwest was just crap and nothing meant nothing ... and I do not think that is true!

The two are often so intertwined, sometimes it would be hard to avoid it. There’s very few people who sing about religion (apart from those who use the music to praise their God/s) that aren’t doing so from a political viewpoint.

They are welcome to sing about anything they like...

Stinkfoot - Frank Zappa

Taste of My Love - Emerson Lake and Palmer

Maxwell’s Silver Hammer - Beetles

Timothy - The Bouys

My Sweet Lord - George Harrison

Have at it !

This was literally what I was about to write... So I second your opinion! 

I don't remember Neil Young's "Looking for a Leader", but I do recall his controversial "Let's Impeach the President" song from the same album: Living with War.