Protest songs Essay

Protest songs, are an interesting breed of music used as a tool for sending out a political message or counter message.   Country Joe McDonald sang “I Fell Like”, on stage at Woodstock in 1969, with his guitar, in front of a 300,000-person crowd. The performance roughly follows an ab song form, with a catchy chorus that goes like this…
One, two, three, what are we fighting for?   Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn, Next stop is Viet Nam. An its five, six, seven, Open up the pearly gates, Well ain’t no time to wonder why.   Whoopie we’re all gonna die.
The crowd sang along to the chorus with Joe and his simple guitar chords, resembling small children singing too a Disney sing-along, with the Mickey Mouse ball hopping over each lyric on the TV screen.   Truly a unique time in history, what impressed me the most was not the song or its lyrics, but the immense size of the crowd.   There wasn’t a blade of grass on the open fields in front of the stage that wasn’t occupied by a limb, bottom, or bare foot of a hippie in sight, and yet the masses were impressively well behaved.   More than likely from their sedated state of mind influenced by grass and hallucinogens, but even so, I was amazed.
Protest songs are a great way of connecting with others who have similar views on local and worldly issues, and I think we will eventually see some new ones stemming from our latest presidential election in the somewhat near future.