Speaker 1: Pushkin. A while back, David Byrne published a list of
Speaker 1: protest songs on his website. Billie Holliday's Strange Fruit was
Speaker 1: on there, so was Bob Marley's Get Up, Stand Up,
Speaker 1: and also more unusual choices like Merle Haggard's Oki from Muskoki, which,
Speaker 1: if you've ever heard it is a song not protesting
Speaker 1: for change, but against change. It's the song protesting protest songs.
Speaker 1: Needless to say, we loved all this a broken record,
Speaker 1: and we love David Byrne, going all the way back
Speaker 1: to his days of the Talking Heads and his brilliant
Speaker 1: book How Music Works, and a million other genius things
Speaker 1: he's done over the years. So Rick Rubin and I
Speaker 1: asked David to sit with us in New York. Rick
Speaker 1: skyped in from Hawaii and the three of us had
Speaker 1: a chat about David's list, the earliest test songs he remembers,
Speaker 1: and what it takes to write a song of protest.
Speaker 1: Here we are Rick Rubin me in conversation with David Byrne.
Speaker 1: I'm Malcolm Goldwell. This is broken Record. I have a question,
Speaker 1: a very naive question. Have you guys ever worked together? No,
Speaker 1: I don't think as far as I know, we've never
Speaker 1: even met. No, we've never really, we have never met.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, I've been a fan from a distance and likewise,
Speaker 1: but we've never met. So this is historic. This is
Speaker 1: kind of historic. I mean in the smallest in a
Speaker 1: small age, in the smallest age. I mean, it's not
Speaker 1: Neil Armstrong on the moon, but you know it's like, so,
Speaker 1: does that mean qualifies for your other podcast? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: going to revisit this incident. Yes, say what really happened? Well,
Speaker 1: welcome David, Thank you for coming on. Thank you, broken record.
Speaker 1: You had said that you wanted to talk about protest songs,
Speaker 1: and you've made this list which many of us have
Speaker 1: been scrutinizing. And can you start by defining what you
Speaker 1: mean by a protest song? Ah? Yes, okay, this is
Speaker 1: kind of where I started. Not too many years ago,
Speaker 1: there was a spate of articles in the press saying
Speaker 1: everybody's kind of up in arms about the political situation,
Speaker 1: social situation, polarization, etc. Etc. Where are all the protest songs?
Speaker 1: What happened was everybody just sitting back and going, Wow,
Speaker 1: we're just going to wait till this blows over. And
Speaker 1: I did a little bit of looking, and I thought,
Speaker 1: they haven't gone anywhere. They're still here. People are writing,
Speaker 1: and what's more, some of them are big pop hits
Speaker 1: by big pop artists. So not only have they not
Speaker 1: gone away, they've become part of the mainstream. And I thought, well,
Speaker 1: I'll make a little list to prove my point. What
Speaker 1: do you mean by they've become part of the mainstream.
Speaker 1: I mean they're now made in such a way that
Speaker 1: they blend in with other music. Absolutely, if you didn't
Speaker 1: listen to the words, you might think it was a
Speaker 1: love song or a big pop hit. The sound of
Speaker 1: some of the songs, not all. The sound of some
Speaker 1: of the recent songs that I put on here sounds
Speaker 1: just like any top twenty, top ten hit that you
Speaker 1: might hear. And then you listen closer to the lyrics
Speaker 1: and you realize, oh, this is about something else. Do
Speaker 1: you think that's a positive development or does it? Yes?
Speaker 1: I think it's very positive in a certain sense. It
Speaker 1: shows that these ideas are being discussed and put out
Speaker 1: and for kind of a general audience, a general public.
Speaker 1: It's not necessarily a public that is a little rebellious
Speaker 1: demographic or college students who have time to protest. It's
Speaker 1: kind of the general adolescent and young pop music listeners.
Speaker 1: And I thought, well, no, how about that. There's even
Speaker 1: some that are I would say, to my ears, they
Speaker 1: sound like straight up Nashville country, not the country that
Speaker 1: I know you and I might listen to, which is older,
Speaker 1: but kind of contemporary country music, which sounds more like
Speaker 1: rock music these days. And I thought you might not
Speaker 1: have expected to hear those sentiments being expressed coming out
Speaker 1: of Nashville. What's a good example of what you're talking
Speaker 1: about in that from your list? Hands Dirty by a
Speaker 1: group called Delta Rey. It's kind of a bluesy country
Speaker 1: song and it's about it's sung by a woman, and
Speaker 1: it's about equal opportunity and empowerment. And what do you
Speaker 1: mean I'm not suited for the job. I'm totally suited
Speaker 1: for this job. I can do this job. Or what
Speaker 1: are you saying? You're not going to listen to what
Speaker 1: I have to say? You're not? Why is that you're
Speaker 1: not looking at That's what a lot of the lyrics are.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of anger in it, but it's really catchy. Now,
Speaker 1: the obvious response to that is that what a protest
Speaker 1: song is is constructed like an everyday pop song, You're
Speaker 1: going to miss it. Like I think of how hard
Speaker 1: it is for I think musicians, and I would love
Speaker 1: Rick to respond to this, but I think musicians as
Speaker 1: a rule overestimate the extent to which people understand the
Speaker 1: subtlety is in their lyrics. Absolutely. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that one that I mentioned, I think it's pretty hard
Speaker 1: to miss that one if you listen to it at all.
Speaker 1: It's pretty it's pretty direct. But I absolutely agree. I mean,
Speaker 1: plenty of politicians have born in the USA not knowing
Speaker 1: what it's about that it's meant ironically in a certain way.
Speaker 1: So the rah rah I was born in the USA
Speaker 1: is kind of meant in an ironic way, which adds
Speaker 1: another layer of confusion to the understanding of it. I think, yeah,
Speaker 1: irony is a really hard thing to do in a
Speaker 1: pop song like that. Shouldn't an ironic protest song be
Speaker 1: ruled out of the list to protest songs? Can we
Speaker 1: say that if you are resorting to irony, you're not
Speaker 1: actually protesting? Well it could be, It could be, but
Speaker 1: I would just say it's really hard to pull it
Speaker 1: off so that it actually people. As you said, people
Speaker 1: really have to understand the lyrics. Yeah, they really have
Speaker 1: to be listening to the lyrics, say of that Springsteen song.
Speaker 1: It's also a subversive trick in that it allows the
Speaker 1: song to go places that the more direct protest song
Speaker 1: couldn't go. But the very fact I was thinking about this,
Speaker 1: you know, the I notice on your list is Randy
Speaker 1: Newman's Rednecks, which is it's funny because in my revision's history,
Speaker 1: I have a whole thing on that song. This is
Speaker 1: that one song, yes, which I'm so obsessed with. But
Speaker 1: at one point I interviewed Ready Nowone about it and
Speaker 1: he said, now, there is a song that is ironic
Speaker 1: and just the way you're talking about Rick. But he
Speaker 1: stopped playing it live because he'd play it in the
Speaker 1: South and the rednecks would all start shouting for him
Speaker 1: to play Rednecks, which is a song which is critical
Speaker 1: of rednecks, which and that criticism, that ironic criticism, ironically
Speaker 1: escape the redneck. At a certain point, you have to say,
Speaker 1: it's like, isn't it feudile to do a protest song
Speaker 1: that the subjects of the protest consider to be a celebration.
Speaker 1: I think it happens pretty often. Actually, there's an example
Speaker 1: I could think of from punk rock. Black Flag had
Speaker 1: a song called TV Party, which was a sarcastic song
Speaker 1: about people who just sit around and watch TV all
Speaker 1: day instead of going out and changing the world like
Speaker 1: Black Flag were doing. Yet it became an Eventually, even
Speaker 1: when Black Flag would play it, the people in the
Speaker 1: audience would cheer, not at the sarcasm of it, but
Speaker 1: the idea of we just want to have a TV party,
Speaker 1: Like it completely reversed. It was amazing to watch. Was
Speaker 1: it amazing to watch? You're depressing to watch? I found
Speaker 1: it entertaining. I'm going to ask you guys about some
Speaker 1: other songs that I put in. I put in some
Speaker 1: songs that were well, some will be familiar, like Oki
Speaker 1: from Muskoki put in some others like that. And there's
Speaker 1: one called Rednecks, White Sox and Blue Ribbon Beer, which
Speaker 1: is again kind of a there that one is celebrating
Speaker 1: for a redneck thing. So in Okay from Muskok, who's
Speaker 1: doing the same thing in another way, And I thought,
Speaker 1: these are songs that are protesting from the other side,
Speaker 1: not the side of Bob Billin or all that. And
Speaker 1: they're saying, wait a minute. Our way of life has
Speaker 1: a value. Our way of life. We have things that
Speaker 1: we believe in. We don't want it totally turned upside down.
Speaker 1: I was reminded when I was looking at those songs.
Speaker 1: There's a famous essay by a black historian called the
Speaker 1: whole Country is Southern, or the whole U the whole
Speaker 1: country is now Southern, which is or something like that,
Speaker 1: which is a famous statement made by George Wallace. George
Speaker 1: Wallace in the early seventies, when he runs for president,
Speaker 1: he starts to get people from around the country sending
Speaker 1: him letters saying that they agree with him. And what
Speaker 1: he meant by that was the whole US is Southern
Speaker 1: now is that the argument of the Southerner was that
Speaker 1: we ought to think about racial politics in personal terms
Speaker 1: and not structural terms, and that once America bought that
Speaker 1: line that this is all just about people getting along,
Speaker 1: not about reforming institutions and laws, they would win. The
Speaker 1: white Southern protest song is very often that kind of song.
Speaker 1: It's a song that personalizes structural injustice. And I consider
Speaker 1: those kind of personal protest songs to be illegitimate protest songs.
Speaker 1: I think I have a Marxist position that a protested
Speaker 1: to be a protest song has to protest unjust institutions,
Speaker 1: and if all you're doing is saying people are not
Speaker 1: nice to each other, like, I don't think that Sunday
Speaker 1: Bloody sunday's a protest. I know you like you too,
Speaker 1: that's a why can't we all get a long song?
Speaker 1: I don't. It's not a protest song. Okay, Okay, it's
Speaker 1: the point. That's a good point. Okay. So I'll pick
Speaker 1: another country, one which was coming from another point of view,
Speaker 1: an older country. Don't call on the pill. You would say,
Speaker 1: this is not protesting an institution. Well, the pill is
Speaker 1: an institutional. That's an institutional for us. Yeah, it's a
Speaker 1: So she's saying, you're saying you can't be telling me
Speaker 1: what to do anymore because now I've got the pill. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder do we think that the purpose of a
Speaker 1: protest song is to change somebody's mind who has a
Speaker 1: different opinion, or is the purpose of a protest song
Speaker 1: to rally the like minded people around something they already believe.
Speaker 1: I think the second one is what whether it's that's
Speaker 1: what the intention is or not. I think that's what
Speaker 1: it ends up doing it ends up creating a community
Speaker 1: by saying and people go, yes, I believe that, and
Speaker 1: look there's somebody else that believes that, and they wrote
Speaker 1: a song about it. So there's two of us now. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so it helps the tribe feel more like a tribe. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's what I think. Would that makes that sounds right
Speaker 1: in a roundabout way, that causes larger change. Once the
Speaker 1: tribe recognizes itself, then that then things can happen after that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a phenomenon in social science where the
Speaker 1: biggest obstacle to people to social change is that the
Speaker 1: people who are might be motivated to change radically underestimate
Speaker 1: the kinds of the number of people who feel like
Speaker 1: they do. So. For example, if you ask college students
Speaker 1: how many college students binge drink? There in many cases
Speaker 1: historically their estimates were way higher than the actual number.
Speaker 1: They thought it was the norm to binge drink and
Speaker 1: felt weird and left out if they didn't, and then
Speaker 1: they were informed, actually, you have weel majority of college
Speaker 1: students do not binge drink, and kids like, oh, I'm
Speaker 1: part of the majority. So a protest song can have
Speaker 1: that function. This is what you're saying, I guess is
Speaker 1: that it can alert people to a position and let
Speaker 1: them know they're not alone in I was thinking of
Speaker 1: do you remember a song? And I forgotten new sang it?
Speaker 1: A British new wave song from the eighties called sing
Speaker 1: if You're Glad to Be Gay? Oh? Who did that song? Oh?
Speaker 1: What's his name? Robertson, Tom roberts I'm Robertson. Do you
Speaker 1: remember this song? Rick? I don't sing if You're Glad
Speaker 1: to be gay? Sing if You're happy? That way, I've
Speaker 1: now rendered it completely and a nine. And the point
Speaker 1: of that song was that for it made it okay.
Speaker 1: I mean my interpretation of it was it at a
Speaker 1: time when it was difficult for people to celebrate their sexuality,
Speaker 1: he sort of legitimized it. He was talking about his homosexuality,
Speaker 1: his sexuality, not in a defensive way or an angry way,
Speaker 1: but in a celebratory way. That was why that song
Speaker 1: was such a radical I don't know if I'm getting
Speaker 1: it wrong. No, no, no, I agree, I totally agree.
Speaker 1: I think it was also had to do it the
Speaker 1: way he'd looked and thinks he didn't fit any of
Speaker 1: the stereotype gay stereotypes. Yeah, he looked like just another
Speaker 1: punk rocker or new wave rocker or whatever. But there
Speaker 1: that had that function that you're talking about of It
Speaker 1: was a rallying point for people who might otherwise be
Speaker 1: isolated or disaffected from their from their cause. But I'm
Speaker 1: still not satisfied that we have an answer as to
Speaker 1: why this question of who is the audience for a protest?
Speaker 1: So does this suggest that it when enough protests and
Speaker 1: gets an audience, it's in spite of its protests, not
Speaker 1: because of it, Like we just are we just drawn
Speaker 1: to what's going on because it's a beautiful song sung
Speaker 1: by you know, an extraordinary saying. I think if it's
Speaker 1: not a beautiful song, regardless of the content, we probably
Speaker 1: wouldn't be drawn to it. It has to function successfully
Speaker 1: as a song first before the message. The message is additional,
Speaker 1: but the message is rarely going to carry the weight
Speaker 1: of the work of the song. But when you're producing
Speaker 1: a song, if someone came to you with a I
Speaker 1: mean it could well happen. Someone you're working with comes
Speaker 1: to you has written an angry song about Donald Trump
Speaker 1: or some you know, would the lyrical content and the
Speaker 1: message change the way you would produce that song the
Speaker 1: way you help them craft its final thing. It's very unlikely.
Speaker 1: It's very unlikely that the content would would dictate. Do
Speaker 1: you ever have an experienced David of working on a
Speaker 1: song where you've musically changed it based on the lyric.
Speaker 1: I had a song that's not very well known, but
Speaker 1: it was one of those ironic ones where I wrote
Speaker 1: what to me seemed like a republican anthem, and I
Speaker 1: thought I was being very ironic, and I tried it
Speaker 1: as like a fascist rally style and worked with the
Speaker 1: guys from Devo, and then I tried in another style
Speaker 1: where it was more like this beautiful brass arrangement. Both
Speaker 1: of them completely ironic, and both of them, I think,
Speaker 1: in their own way, failed in that way. Wait what
Speaker 1: was the song? It's called Empire, but wait what album
Speaker 1: is it on? I was Grown Backwards is the name
Speaker 1: of the album. But it's fun. But I think in
Speaker 1: that sense, I tried to adjust the music to fit
Speaker 1: what I was saying, and I think it just made
Speaker 1: it more ironic than ever. We can't prevail on you
Speaker 1: to sing like two lines of it. Come on, give
Speaker 1: us a little flavor of it. National elections, it was
Speaker 1: something on ha with stirring emotions. As I've filled this
Speaker 1: guy in Democratic Fee for National Defense. So there you go.
Speaker 1: I like those two last two lunes. I like, we'll
Speaker 1: be back with more on protest music with our guest
Speaker 1: David Byrne after this break, We're back with more. David Byrne.
Speaker 1: I think I have an example of a protest song.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a protesting ready Okay, Peter Gabriel Bico,
Speaker 1: m h. It's a lament. The chorus is a searing
Speaker 1: personal lament. There's nothing pretty it is. It is a
Speaker 1: beautiful song. There is no way to listen to that
Speaker 1: song without understanding that it's a protesting Yes, but that
Speaker 1: but the very fact that I can think of only
Speaker 1: one is I think maybe proof of this point. Can
Speaker 1: you can you think of any others that are maybe
Speaker 1: Mississippi goddamn? Oh mm hmm. That that that really reeks
Speaker 1: of protest? Yes, yes, yeah. She announces the name of
Speaker 1: the song before she sings it, and you just go, okay,
Speaker 1: here we go. Yeah, I know what you're in for.
Speaker 1: We were talking before and someone I've forgotten new my
Speaker 1: apologies said, there's a Charlie minga song about Governor Farbus
Speaker 1: of Arkansas. Oh yeah, yeah, which he just you just
Speaker 1: sort of I have heard it fables of Faubus or
Speaker 1: fables of Fabus, that's right. Yeah, that would also hit
Speaker 1: into the category of one with there's no ambiguity. You
Speaker 1: know this video that is going around done by this
Speaker 1: sweet Masons of Once in a Lifetime putting Donald Trump,
Speaker 1: have you heard? Oh? Yes, I seen? Do you know
Speaker 1: this right? No? So someone will you tell David tell
Speaker 1: us what you might have sent it to me? Someone
Speaker 1: sent it to me. It's a they've done that CG
Speaker 1: trick where they can put Donald Trump's face on top
Speaker 1: of mine and kind of I think, just run the
Speaker 1: video all the way through, but instead it's a Donald
Speaker 1: Trumps instead of me, And I thought this is actually
Speaker 1: pretty funny. People were saying, you got to tell him
Speaker 1: to take this down. You take this down. More than that,
Speaker 1: it's that they go through Donald Trump's speeches and take
Speaker 1: out all the words where he appears to be saying it.
Speaker 1: Yeah he So they have once in a you know,
Speaker 1: once in a lifetime, they have Donald Trump. They found
Speaker 1: a once, they found an inn, they found an ad
Speaker 1: and they found a lifetime. So he's actually singing a song.
Speaker 1: It's like, it's kind of fantastic. Yeah, it's very clever
Speaker 1: as he bounces up and down in that. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: don't know what what particular protest song category that belongs to,
Speaker 1: but we're deep into c g I irony at this point.
Speaker 1: I have a question. I think to myself, now, if
Speaker 1: I were to write a song that dealt with an
Speaker 1: issue or of some sort like that, that I would
Speaker 1: put it in someone's mouth, as some of these songwriters
Speaker 1: and singers do. I would try and tell a story
Speaker 1: through a character and have them personify an injustice or
Speaker 1: whatever it had happened. Rather than me yelling and saying
Speaker 1: this is unjust, this is unfair, this is wrong whatever
Speaker 1: like that, you just tell the story and then let
Speaker 1: the audience make the conclusion, which again could be so
Speaker 1: what is that about? But you would hope that it
Speaker 1: would be more moving because it it has a narrative
Speaker 1: to it, and some of these people do that. Sever
Speaker 1: Earl's Billy Austin. Yes, that's really great at that. But
Speaker 1: this is an interesting question, which is that there is
Speaker 1: so little third person narration in popular music, which is
Speaker 1: weird only when you consider that in fiction, that's basically
Speaker 1: all there is. Some exceptions, the overwhelming. You would think
Speaker 1: there would be a thousand songs of filled with characters
Speaker 1: saying things, but there's very few. Ranny Newman does it
Speaker 1: in country. They do it from time to time, but
Speaker 1: there's very little of this way of storytelling, which I've
Speaker 1: never understood. Why is it? Is it hard? It's just different.
Speaker 1: I think most musicians think of it as expressing their
Speaker 1: true selves, and I think the jump to that using
Speaker 1: a fictional character to present your true self is a
Speaker 1: step that a lot of musicians don't take. Bruce Springsteen
Speaker 1: probably comes to mind as someone who really does it well.
Speaker 1: He often portrays a character in his songs. But it's
Speaker 1: true that I think for a lot of songwriters and
Speaker 1: singers it's deemed to be inauthentic if you're not singing
Speaker 1: about yourself. Yeah, I mean, but that's ridiculous. Well okay,
Speaker 1: but no, this is an interesting question. I understand on
Speaker 1: an emotional level why they would, but that's not what
Speaker 1: fiction writers think. Yes, and it gets even more complicated
Speaker 1: because a lot of pop songs are written in the
Speaker 1: first person, where it's I did this and under that
Speaker 1: and they're not the person that's singing it didn't. It's
Speaker 1: written by a professional writer or somebody. You have no
Speaker 1: idea who they are, and so there's a feeling that
Speaker 1: if the singer does it really well, it feels like
Speaker 1: it's their story that they're telling, but it's not. Is
Speaker 1: this why covers are as appealing as they are, because
Speaker 1: you have a prior relationship with the song that they're singing,
Speaker 1: often with the person who wrote the song singing at first.
Speaker 1: It's clear then that the person covering the song is
Speaker 1: in character. Is that a fair statements to why we
Speaker 1: like covers as much as we do. That's a good idea,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure, because when you hear someone sing a
Speaker 1: song that you're familiar with, you think of the song
Speaker 1: as the content, but you don't necessarily think of it
Speaker 1: as the person spilling their guts. If it's an already
Speaker 1: familiar song, it's more like, this is the way I
Speaker 1: would do this song if I wrote it. It's more
Speaker 1: like a demonstration of a musical angle or a direction,
Speaker 1: then necessarily making it sound like the person who wrote it.
Speaker 1: There are there are occasions where cover songs hit the
Speaker 1: mark so well. The first one that comes to mind
Speaker 1: is nothing compares to you the Shade version. I can't imagine.
Speaker 1: I know Prince wrote the song, but when I think
Speaker 1: of that song, I think of its as Shanade's song.
Speaker 1: A lot of people would say that about the song Hurt,
Speaker 1: the Johnny Cash version. They would just say, he just
Speaker 1: took it. Now he owns that song, So you would think, yeah,
Speaker 1: when it's really well done, the fact that it's from
Speaker 1: somebody else else just dissolves, and you're identifying with something
Speaker 1: that somebody else wrote. You know what this reminds me
Speaker 1: of when Iced Tea got in so much trouble for
Speaker 1: cop Killer, his response was that was a character. And
Speaker 1: I think in interview he mentioned psycho Killer your song
Speaker 1: and said the inspiration for cop Killer was psycho Killer.
Speaker 1: It was just my it was a version. And what
Speaker 1: was fascinating to me was no one could accept the
Speaker 1: fact that he was writing in character, whereas with you,
Speaker 1: it was clear that you weren't writing as a psycho killer.
Speaker 1: You were talking about a psycho you know. But with him,
Speaker 1: I wonder whether that was one of the forms in
Speaker 1: which that One of the things we deny the group
Speaker 1: that we are excluding is we deny them the full
Speaker 1: reign of their imagination. As we say, you can only
Speaker 1: be literal in your music, whereas for people who are
Speaker 1: on our side of the fence, we will allow them
Speaker 1: much greater license. Also, if you listen to so much
Speaker 1: early hip hop, it's packed with fantasy imagery. Very little
Speaker 1: little of it is face and value of people speaking
Speaker 1: about their lives. It's usually more paints a picture of
Speaker 1: this opulent lifestyle than more often than not, those artists
Speaker 1: were not living but desired, And it wasn't probably until
Speaker 1: maybe NWA was the first time that the lyrics were
Speaker 1: like gangsters talking about gang related things. That was the
Speaker 1: first time we heard that. Prior to that, it was
Speaker 1: more an arm's length relationship between the content and the artists.
Speaker 1: Is there a reason why the genre would have started
Speaker 1: that way and only moved to a more director or
Speaker 1: authentic form a little later. I think maybe in the
Speaker 1: early days, I don't know that the people who were
Speaker 1: making it felt comfortable celebrating that lifestyle. That's a real
Speaker 1: radical shift. It's one thing to be live in a
Speaker 1: rough lifestyle and then to sing beautiful songs. There's a
Speaker 1: long history of people doing that, going back to the
Speaker 1: Frank Sinatras of the world. But to sing about what's
Speaker 1: really going on is a It's a kind of a
Speaker 1: modern idea. Yeah, we'll be back with more David Byrne.
Speaker 1: After the break, We're back with more David Byrne. Can
Speaker 1: you guys remember each remember the first protest song you
Speaker 1: remember hearing in your life. I'm old enough that it
Speaker 1: was probably in the sixties, mid to late sixties. What
Speaker 1: comes to mind? I think I might have thought of
Speaker 1: songs like we Shall Overcome, or Blowing in the Wind
Speaker 1: or things like that. Blowing in the Wind is mine
Speaker 1: for sure. Did you know as a child when you
Speaker 1: first heard those songs that they were necessarily protest songs?
Speaker 1: Not exactly, I think we shall Overcome? I mean the
Speaker 1: lyrics says it, but again kind of like BECO. It
Speaker 1: sounds like a lament. Musically, it sounds yeah, it sounds
Speaker 1: it almost sounds very sad, and musically it seems to
Speaker 1: be saying, is this ever going to happen? Did you
Speaker 1: understand it when you heard it the first time? I
Speaker 1: think intuitively that conflict I was probably trying to figure
Speaker 1: it out. Musically, in the sound of it, it sounds
Speaker 1: like it's saying it's been so long, it's so long
Speaker 1: and so long, is anything ever going to change? And
Speaker 1: yet the lyric sounds hopeful. So there was this kind
Speaker 1: of a tension or contradiction between the music and the lyric,
Speaker 1: and I think I could sense that, but I probably
Speaker 1: couldn't figure out, well, what do I what is that?
Speaker 1: What's about? What's with that? Yeah, that was probably some
Speaker 1: of the strength of the song was that that juxtaposition.
Speaker 1: It made it more interesting. I can remember as a
Speaker 1: kid when I heard like Blown in the Wind. I
Speaker 1: didn't think of it as a protest song, but I
Speaker 1: did feel like it had a different kind of power
Speaker 1: than other music that I couldn't necessarily put my finger on.
Speaker 1: It did something made me feel something different, And it
Speaker 1: also had a like, in the case of Blowing in
Speaker 1: the Wind, there's a timelessness about it where I couldn't
Speaker 1: imagine the world existing where that song wasn't already in it.
Speaker 1: You know, I can't imagine there was a time before
Speaker 1: Blowing in the Wind. It just sounds so so naturally
Speaker 1: in the world. I do not explain it very well,
Speaker 1: but but it just sounds like that's something that's always
Speaker 1: been there, it's part of the natural world. I was
Speaker 1: just in what came after what songs like that had
Speaker 1: meaning for you, David? After Dylan? Is there a kind
Speaker 1: of second wave? Oh yeah, I mean I think after
Speaker 1: I heard Bob Dylan and stuff like that in the
Speaker 1: sixties and late sixties and all the other things. Then
Speaker 1: I started to go backwards. I staid to say, where
Speaker 1: did this come from? You know, we're he You're hearing
Speaker 1: Woody Guthrie songs and lead Belly, and there's blues songs
Speaker 1: that are talking about conditions and social justice and things
Speaker 1: like that, and you find there's a whole backwards tree
Speaker 1: of roots and all that of stuff that fed into that,
Speaker 1: and you realize, oh, it didn't start OU don't know
Speaker 1: where there was a whole backstory here. When were you, David?
Speaker 1: When were you doing that? Kind of at what point
Speaker 1: in your life were you doing that kind of historical
Speaker 1: did you go backwards and started? This has been right
Speaker 1: after that. There's been kind of late sixties, early seventies
Speaker 1: and whatever. And then I remember hearing like sound of
Speaker 1: Philadelphia songs like the Ojays that were singing about issues
Speaker 1: and social situations. But they were doing it in a
Speaker 1: pop song that was that you could dance to it,
Speaker 1: that had the sense of joy in the music, and
Speaker 1: which was a big difference from folk singers in the
Speaker 1: sixties and the pro test music in the sixties. Then
Speaker 1: you realized, oh, it can feel good and still be
Speaker 1: saying something you can you don't have to feel bad.
Speaker 1: You can feel good when you say something that insight
Speaker 1: seems like it left to mark on your own songwriting.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, I realized, oh, groove can make you
Speaker 1: want to move your body, and that is sometimes how
Speaker 1: you get the words and the other stuff in Yeah,
Speaker 1: like humor, if you can get ideas across through humor
Speaker 1: that people wouldn't accept if you just kind of set
Speaker 1: it to him. Are you writing music at starting to
Speaker 1: write music at the same period or no, not yet.
Speaker 1: I tried and it was it was terrible. When is
Speaker 1: very imitative? What were you imitating? I tried to imitate
Speaker 1: Bob Dylan and stuff like that, and it was just horrible.
Speaker 1: But you know, very kind of yeah, copycat kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: How long does it take for your own sound to
Speaker 1: emerge at least six years later or something like that.
Speaker 1: It's been while. Is it unusual for so somebody to
Speaker 1: try try a style and fail. I think that's pretty usual.
Speaker 1: I think artists normally start by copying the artists they love,
Speaker 1: and through that practice they can find their own voice.
Speaker 1: Takes time. Some it happens much quicker, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: takes much longer, but I think that's an regular trajectory.
Speaker 1: You don't ever revisit some of that early stuff to you?
Speaker 1: Does it horrify you that stuff? Yeah? That would be weird,
Speaker 1: incredibly embarrassing. There's other early stuff that I think holds
Speaker 1: up okay, where I see like lyrics that I've scribbled
Speaker 1: down and I go, it's a different guy than who
Speaker 1: I am now, But there's something there. But yeah, some
Speaker 1: of the really early attempts are just terrible. Yeah, unrelated
Speaker 1: to this, but it's just something I'm thinking about. When
Speaker 1: we talk about the artartists who are primarily protest writers,
Speaker 1: it seems like the people who listen to them would
Speaker 1: be that the tribe around them, Whereas the more unusual case,
Speaker 1: and maybe the one that has the bigger impact, would
Speaker 1: be like Marvin Gay, Because Marvin Gay went from singing
Speaker 1: non political songs to all of a sudden having what's
Speaker 1: going on this very political. So a very popular artist
Speaker 1: changes what he's singing about to all of a sudden
Speaker 1: get very political, and it seems more revolutionary than the
Speaker 1: guy who's always been singing the political songs. Well, the
Speaker 1: songs are incredibly catchy and there the production is beautiful
Speaker 1: and you're totally sucked in just by the music alone,
Speaker 1: and then there's all the young then there's all the lyrics.
Speaker 1: It's one of the things interesting, like when we think
Speaker 1: back about The Clash, we really think of them as
Speaker 1: a political group. Yet if you listen to their songs,
Speaker 1: maybe maybe a third of them are political, maybe less.
Speaker 1: You know, so many of the songs are you know,
Speaker 1: my baby drove up in a brand new Cadillac. You know,
Speaker 1: there's so many traditional songs mixed in. And I think
Speaker 1: that that may have played into why The Clash were
Speaker 1: as as popular and transcendent as they were. Even though
Speaker 1: we think of them as a political band, it was
Speaker 1: more that it was a balanced They didn't put the
Speaker 1: politics before the music. It was just one of their
Speaker 1: moves to the basket, let's say. And their image was
Speaker 1: so I just remember the London Calling album cover and
Speaker 1: just it was it took you aback like they just
Speaker 1: presented as being so radical and disruptive. They didn't even
Speaker 1: you know the It's funny you mentioned that about ri
Speaker 1: because I would have in my memory there everything was political.
Speaker 1: But you're right, you be surprised if you listen back
Speaker 1: with that focus, how many songs were not political. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I always wanted Ruly Giuliani to have his campaign song
Speaker 1: be Rudy Can't Fail. How did he not do that?
Speaker 1: That's great? What was there no one in Rudy Giuliani's
Speaker 1: in a circle who was like, here's your song? I mean,
Speaker 1: I mean if Reagan can do whoever was whatever Republican
Speaker 1: person did use born in the USA, then Rudy Giuliani
Speaker 1: can do Rudy Can't fail. Which is that? May be
Speaker 1: that may be asking too much of theater circle of
Speaker 1: Rudy Giuliani. Did either of you guys get to see
Speaker 1: Neil Young's I think it's called Greendale. It's either Greendale
Speaker 1: or Greenville. He made an album and then when he
Speaker 1: performed live, he performed the album in its entirety, with
Speaker 1: the stage play acting out the songs. I never saw that.
Speaker 1: I think there's a is there a movie? I think
Speaker 1: they filmed radio or something. But it was an amazing
Speaker 1: experience to see. I remember watching it and by the
Speaker 1: end of it, I was crying and I felt like
Speaker 1: everybody in that theater was going to leave wanting to
Speaker 1: take action and do something good. And it was so
Speaker 1: uplifting and so beautiful. And I can't remember another piece
Speaker 1: of music having that such a strong connection where you
Speaker 1: felt like, we need to get involved, we need to
Speaker 1: take we need to participate. It's really beautiful. What was it.
Speaker 1: What were the songs about? Variations of saving the planet? Oh?
Speaker 1: I see? Am I right? That It took place in
Speaker 1: one town, a small town, and you got to know
Speaker 1: different people in the town. Yes. And the characters were
Speaker 1: like Son, I can't remember her name, that one character's
Speaker 1: name was Sun, and one character's name was something green,
Speaker 1: meaning for the land. The relationship between these different characters
Speaker 1: were metaphors for nature and it was really it could
Speaker 1: sound very corny until you saw it and just got
Speaker 1: completely wrapped up in the story. It was amazing. Did
Speaker 1: you see it, David, No, I haven't, because it's what
Speaker 1: you were talking about, this idea of putting the words
Speaker 1: into an other characters. Yeah, yeah, I did. One on
Speaker 1: my last tour that I heard it was a Janelle
Speaker 1: Monet song called Hell You Tell Them About And basically
Speaker 1: I heard it like a year or a couple of
Speaker 1: years ago, and it never ended up on any of
Speaker 1: her records as far as I know, And it just
Speaker 1: basically just lists the names of young people. It's mainly
Speaker 1: male and female who'd been killed by police Trayvon Martin.
Speaker 1: And the song is just like, say their name, say
Speaker 1: their name. So it's an act of remembrance and an
Speaker 1: act of like, don't forget this, don't forget this. So
Speaker 1: it never analyzes things. It doesn't scream out for justice,
Speaker 1: but it just said it just is a list of
Speaker 1: these names and saying, don't forget these names, don't forget
Speaker 1: these people. These are people. And by putting out the names,
Speaker 1: it becomes incredibly moving because it kind of puts a
Speaker 1: face on the issue of what they're trying to say.
Speaker 1: I found it incredibly moving, so I started doing it
Speaker 1: as part of my own show. Of course, I asked
Speaker 1: I thought. I wrote to her and said, what do
Speaker 1: you think of this kind of kind of older white
Speaker 1: guy singing this song? She was very happy about it.
Speaker 1: Does it work about you? It works. People find it
Speaker 1: very moving, but we put it right at the end
Speaker 1: of the show and it kind of puts a little
Speaker 1: bit of a damper on things, and it does kind
Speaker 1: of kill. It's a little bit of a vibe killer,
Speaker 1: even though it's very rhythmic. What do you say an
Speaker 1: introduction to it? I say that it's her song. I
Speaker 1: say it's a song about change. It's a song about
Speaker 1: asking people to rethink things, and it has that effect
Speaker 1: on me. I have to question things for myself, and
Speaker 1: I leave it at that. People they loved it, but
Speaker 1: it's not like we're all happy and everybody's everything's fine
Speaker 1: kind of ending. It's kind of like, no, we got
Speaker 1: work to do. It's that kind of ending. Many thanks
Speaker 1: to David Byrne for coming on Broken Record. To see
Speaker 1: his full list of protest songs, visit David Byrne dot
Speaker 1: com slash Radio. We'll also put it up on brokenrecord
Speaker 1: dot com, along with a playlist of all the songs
Speaker 1: featured in this episode and others. Broken Record is produced
Speaker 1: by Justin Richmond and Jason Gambrel, with help from Meolabel,
Speaker 1: Jacob Smith, Julia Barton, Jacob Weisberg, and of course Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin and Bruce Hadlin. Our broken record theme music is
Speaker 1: by the great Kenny Beats. The show is brought to
Speaker 1: you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gladwell.