Music and Politics

Introduction
Music is a way to communicate, a way of expression, and has the power to provoke thoughts and emotions within an audience. Political music is music that is a reflection on events that are changing society. Black slaves who were kidnapped and taken to America, brought their own form of music with them and they sung about their time in captivity and slavery. They would use songs as codes when they thought they could escape, and these are widely accepted as the original protest songs (Epstein, 2010).   Throughout the 20th century there were numerous events that changed the way the world functioned, whether people liked what was happening or not. Within this changing society many turned to music to express themselves. Music has the power to establish and maintain a movement and to reinforce its message and objective. (Eyerman and Jamison, 1998). Political music helped with movements in the 20th Century such as: anti-war, feminism, civil war, world peace, and general political issues.  

One of the first, and still recognized political songs is a Christian hymn written by John Newton in 1779.

Listening to the song can change the way we feel about ourselves, our place in the world and our fellow human beings. – John Newton.

The song transcends religious, political and cultural boundaries with its universal message of redemption, forgiveness and salvation, rooted in timeless and unconditional love (Sawyers, page 24). This song was just the start of the political music, when the 20th Century came there was a whole new culture emerging from it. In the early 20th Century most political music came from black Blues singers such as Woody Guthrie; who wrote songs about common people and social issues in the nineteen thirties, and Muddy Waters (Gollust, 2010). These Blues singers influenced the next generation of political music that would shape the next few decades.

History Since The 1950’s
The political music of the time was reflected in the movements...