That spirit was in the air, and I picked it up.” It’s speaking against what Eisenhower was calling a military-industrial complex as he was making his exit from the presidency. In a 2001 interview with USA Today he explained it was “supposed to be a pacifistic song against war,” adding, “It’s not an anti-war song. It’s an angry song, the young Dylan obviously incensed by a feeling of helplessness as the United States became entangled in international affairs – Cuba, Vietnam – for reasons he considered to be self-serving. The song is a sort of striking out, a reaction to the last straw, a feeling of what can you do?” On the release of its parent album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, he told Village Voice critic Nat Hentoff, “I’ve never really written anything like that before… I don’t sing songs which hope people will die, but I couldn’t help it in this one. While plenty of Dylan’s early forays into politicized writing leave room for interpretation, “Masters Of War” sees the then 21-year-old at his most pointed. – Jamie AtkinsĬlick to load video Bob Dylan – Masters Of War (1963) As with the best protest songs, it still resonates: Pete Seeger and Bruce Springsteen’s moving rendition at President Barack Obama’s 2009 inauguration ceremony remains a testament to its enduring power. Still, “This Land Is Your Land” gradually gained momentum as it was adopted as a patriotic anthem, and sung around campfires, at rallies, and in schools across the US. Guthrie recorded the song as a demo in 1944, changing the title and omitting the most explicitly political verse. He based the tune on The Carter Family’s “When The World’s On Fire” (itself derived from the Baptist hymn “Oh, My Loving Brother”) and called it “God Blessed America.” Originally, rather than each verse ending with, “This land was made for you and me,” Guthrie had written, “God blessed America for me.” Guthrie had grown increasingly irritated with what he considered to be the smug complacency of Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America”(inescapable in the late 30s, thanks to radio playing Kate Smith’s version) and crafted a retort that celebrated the natural beauty of the United States while questioning the notion of private ownership of property and pointing out the problem America had with poverty and inequality.

It’s remarkable to think that a song as entrenched in the American psyche as Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land” started life as an answer song. – Jamie AtkinsĬlick to load video Woody Guthrie – This Land Is Your Land (1944) However, many times it’s heard, “Strange Fruit” still feels like a warning from a not-too-distant past. Commodore stepped in and released Holiday’s version, which went on to sell a million copies, spreading awareness of the unmentionable cruelty and suffering caused by racism. Holiday grasped the impact the song had and knew she had to record it, but when she approached Columbia, her record label, they feared repercussions and gave her permission to record it for another label. A rule was enforced that she’d only be able to perform it as the last song in her set, once the bar staff had called time and the room was darkened. But “Strange Fruit” became a show-stopper – quite literally. When Billie Holiday first began performing the song at Café Society, in 1939, she was afraid of retaliation. Juxtaposing idyllic, florid scenes of a Southern landscape with uncompromising descriptions of black bodies swaying from a tree in the Southern breeze, his words were blunt and had the desired effect of shocking and appalling listeners. Written as a poem by Abel Meeropol – a white, Jewish teacher and member of the American Communist Party – and published in 1937 before he set the lines to music, “Strange Fruit” exposes the sheer brutality of racism in the United States at the time by way of a stark, powerful description of a postcard Meeropol had seen depicting a lynching.

The who songs 1965