IF you agree with the position that the Beatles represented a major transformation in popular music when they appeared on the scene, and IF you also accept the argument that rock and folk replaced jazz and blues as the music most commonly associated with disaffection and dissent, then: what would have Woodstock sounded like, absent the existence and career of the Beatles? Would have it been a jazz/blues-centric event? Would have it been less white? Less focused on Vietnam?
Somebody should write a story on that. Somebody who knows the time period and musical genres better than I do, mind.
Moe Lane
PS: Sorry. I just wonder about this scenario every time I listen to this song. Which is fairly often.
I can’t speak about the Beatles since I am not a fan (don’t hate them, just indifferent), but I do want a few words on protest songs. A great protest is one who doesn’t have an ideology behind the lyrics.
.
Take “Land Of Confusion” by Genesis as one example. I dare you to find a ideology behind the lyrics besides wanting peace. Everyone wants peace. Only the mentality ill want war.
.
“Ten Thousand Fists” by Disturbed is another good one. The lyrics are about standing against power and corruption. The listener can make up their own minds of those who is corrupt.
.
Rage Against The Machine is not as enjoyable, since their songs spell out in detail what they are protesting (capitalism). Green Day was all about how much youth sucks, until they took a hard left turn (literally!) and became a liberal/progressive mouth piece.
To my mind the most effective protest song is the Pogues’ “The Band Played Waltzing Matilda”.
Not only is it a great tune, but it raises a number of important questions. While (crucially) never pretending to have the answers.
Amusingly, there’re at least a couple lefty musical groups whose protest music I enjoy: Rise Against and Muse. In particular, Re-Education Through Labor and Uprising. Now, I don’t like all their stuff, haven’t heard but a bare majority. But those songs in my ears are non-ideological and powerful. The fact that my take on them is diametrically opposed to the authors just adds a little schadenfreude to the mix, much like I support the singing of The Times They Are a-Changin at liberty-minded protests.
Dylan is a little cagey about his actual politics, sometimes.
“Dylan may be fillin’ the puddle they designed..
Is it gonna take a miracle to make up his mind?”
.
Steve Taylor, “Meltdown (at Madame Tussaud’s)”
.
Mew
Really? Reeducation (Through Labor) is as radically anti-capitalism as they come. I want to like “Rage Against The Machine” but I feel dirty after listening to them.
Personally I’m thinking of Tom Lehrer’s _The Folk Song Army_. I think the influence of The Beatles is kind of overstated; sure, Sgt. Pepper’s was a very different album, but the Beach Boys beat them to it with Pet Sounds. The Beatles were more in the middle of trends instead of starting them, IMHO, if that makes sense. I’ve always seen The Who as being more edgy for their time than The Beatles, and by the time 1968 came around there were bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, though of course late 1960s Pink Floyd was substantially different than the 1970s Pink Floyd that’s on classic rock stations. In the United States there were The Doors and Jimi Hendrix pushing the edge in the late 1960s as well. The story of Jimi Hendrix at the Atlanta Pop Festival almost makes Woodstock seem tame, especially considering it happened in the heart of the Deep South.
One could say that The Beatles were a Buddy Holly cover band that used the Cavern/ Star Club milieu to become “Lennon MacCartney “: a two man Tin Pan Alley song writing machine . And not to forget the engineering , production and management that was George Martin . By the Revolver era , with all of the chaos of what was released when and where , The B’s were a studio operation and not even really a ‘band’ in the accepted sense of the word . Coming through the mid late 60’s in several pop bands , every band I worked got to know each other playing Beatles songs : everyone knew them and there was something for everyone’s divergent tastes , rockers like Taxman and melodies like Eleanor Rigby .
The more jazz, the less effective.
Effective protest songs are “three chords and the truth” in style. The more ornamentation, the less impact they’ll have.
.
As for Blues, Rock and Roll is an offshoot of Blues.
😉 https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Mk6mGEst7mM
Heck, the Rolling Stones actively insisted that they were a Blues Band, and I don’t think anybody could seriously deny that Janice Joplin sang Blues.
.
Folk is a more interesting question. But the same Scots-Irish songs that re-emerged to influence folk were one of the primary roots of Blues. Would this https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=2kZASM8OX7s have resurfaced in poignant songs of loss? I think it would have.
Hard to nail down the Stones at this point, but Blues band is totally justifiable for large swaths of their work.
I would suggest the conundrum of the Stones’ work is found all wrapped up in ‘ Beast of Burden ‘ . The lyrics are all that Jagger led bad boy thing but underpinning that is Richards’ guitar which is as true blues as anyone anywhere else .
Willie King and the Liberators.
.
Everything else is derivative.
.
Mew