A Brief History of Protest Songs Protest songs are topical pieces of music associated with social change. Key social movements accompanied by protest songs include civil rights, the anti-war movement, gay rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism and...
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A Brief History of Protest Songs Protest songs are topical pieces of music associated with social change. Key social movements accompanied by protest songs include civil rights, the anti-war movement, gay rights, animal rights, vegetarianism, veganism and environmentalism. An 18th-century example of a topical song intended as a feminist protest song is "Rights of Woman" (1795), sung to the tune of "God Save the King", written anonymously. However, there is no evidence that it was ever sung as a protest song. In the past various figures regarded protest songs differently. Sociologist R. Serge Denisoff saw them as further propaganda and likened the idea to hymns of the Protestant revival. Used either to attract more people to the cause or simply to outline a political message, Denisoff did not share the views of protest songs with the likes of Martin Luther King. MLK described the conception this way: "They invigorate the movement in a most significant way ... these freedom songs serve t
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