{"id":1499,"date":"2012-01-16T17:08:07","date_gmt":"2012-01-17T01:08:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/?p=1499"},"modified":"2015-01-12T09:31:51","modified_gmt":"2015-01-12T17:31:51","slug":"playlist-14-anti-war-songs-for-the-21st-century","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/billchapin.net\/allthecitylights\/2012\/01\/playlist-14-anti-war-songs-for-the-21st-century\/","title":{"rendered":"Playlist: 14 Anti-War Songs for the 21st Century"},"content":{"rendered":"
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"Hell Broke Luce" from Tom Waits' latest album, Bad as Me, was the direct inspiration for this anti-war playlist. (by Michael O'Brien via tomwaits.com)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I was talking to some folks at a party this weekend when a subject that’s been on my mind came up: the perception that “they just don’t write protest songs like they used to.” I maintained that there have been several powerful protest songs written in the last decade, and, in fact, I had been working on assembling a playlist of a few choice examples.<\/p>\n

“You just have to dig a little deeper for them,” I said, “since they haven’t quite penetrated the mainstream consciousness the way they did back in the Vietnam era.” (Or, at least, this is the sort of insightful observation I would have made if I hadn’t been a few glasses of wine into the evening.)<\/p>\n

Even if this generation hasn’t quite found its “Give Peace a Chance” yet, a couple of the songs that follow were made by platinum-selling artists at the peak of their popularity. They are joined by a few old-guard songwriters who were singing protest songs back in the ’60s and ’70s and the occasional indie whippersnapper.<\/p>\n

Lord knows there’s been no shortage of things to protest in the last decade. So on this day in which we honor America’s greatest advocate for nonviolent protest<\/a>\u2014and in honor of the recent withdrawal of troops from Iraq\u2014I present 14 Anti-War Songs for the 21st Century for your listening enjoyment\/outrage. In addition to the videos with commentary posted below, you can play (most of) them via this Spotify playlist<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“Travelin’ Soldier,” Dixie Chicks<\/a> (2002)<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The Dixie Chicks famously got in trouble for daring to speak out<\/a> during the run-up to the war in Iraq, but the country superstars had made their views on the subject clear months before by cutting a version of Bruce Robison<\/a>‘s sad ballad for the return-to-roots album Home.<\/em> Set during the Vietnam war, the song is a heartbreaking portrait of the loss a community experiences by sending its best and brightest off to die.
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Peacemongering lyrics:<\/strong> “Crying all alone under the stands \/ was a piccolo player in the marching band \/ and one name read but nobody really cared \/ but a pretty little girl with a bow in her hair.”<\/p>\n