Musicians and music that have helped changing the world to a better place .
and shown us that we can.
They did not do it all by them selves. But through their music, they reached out with the message of peace and justice, rallying the people of the world against war and strife. Against nuclear weapons. Against rearmament. Against land mines. Against Apartheid in the USA. Against Apartheid in South Africa. Against injustice and oppression. They have shown us that we can. Time has shown us that we must keep going.
Some of the Vietnam War’s most significant
musicians against the Vietnam War and protest songs
Country Joe & the fish:
The Fish Cher and I feel Like I’m Fixing to die rag, 1967
En sarkastisk protestsang om alle “herlighederne” ved Vietnamkrigens helvede. – klik
The song protest required courage. Courage to stand up against the political rulers. Against a powerful arms industry. Against a nationalistic public mood, where fathers and mothers of sons boasted that their sons were sent to die for the honor and benefit of their country.
Country Joe and the Fish got their big break with “I feel like I’m fixing to die rag” at the 1969 Woodstock festival where the song was played to an audience of half a million people. Even before then, the song was popular among young people, although due to its controversial message it was not played on radio programs.
Opposition to the war grew. US allies Australia and New Zealand withdrew in 1972. In 1975, the war ended with American soldiers fleeing and being evacuated from Vietnam. Much abbreviated here, the Vietnam War was a war between the superpowers: the Soviets, China and the US. The US thought communism was getting too close.
It is estimated that approximately 3 million Vietnamese lost their lives during the war. 300,000 Vietnamese were reported missing. Half a million Vietnamese children were orphaned. The war created around 10 million refugees.
1.4 million suffered severe physical damage from carpet bombing, napalm bombs and white phosphorus and chemicals dropped to destroy vegetation. The damage from the chemical weapons seems irreparable.
58,000 American soldiers were killed in Vietnam. 270,000 were seriously injured, partly as prisoners, but also by the US’s own chemical weapons. The soldiers were deeply traumatized. This is where the diagnosis of “PTSD” emerged.
We recommend: watch the videos and the unity against the war and the popular movements the songs created. For a more in-depth look at the wars in Vietnam, we refer to the sources below:
Sources:
Niels Bjerre Poulsen, Associate Professor PhD: https://lex.dk/Vietnamkrigen
Jacob Horn: High school teacher: https://jakobhorn.dk/vietnamkrigen/
Lotte Endsleff, Cand Scient: https://lex.dk/Agent_Orange
Alfa History: https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/feel-like-im-fixin-to-die-rag-1969/
Voices cross time: https://voices.pitt.edu/TeachersGuide/Unit8/FeelLikeImFixintoDieRag.htm
John Lennon and Yoko Ono:
Give peace a chance, 1969.
“Give peace a chance” blev til under en 2-uger lang “senge-strejke” mod krig
John Lennon and Yoko Ono, who held a two-week bed strike against war. The title of the song is a spontaneous response to a journalist: “Give peace a chance” – The song was recorded during the bed strike. It was first released in Europe and a few days later in the U.S. It was sung worldwide in the streets and is still relevant today.
Source: NPR-Music
The civil rights movement in the United States and
Some of its most significant musicians
Joan Baez, Pete Seeger
“We shall overcome” – 1963
Joan Baez og 250.000 mennesker Washington 28. august 1963
– klik
Pete Seeger wrote the song, Joan Baez’s powerful voice filled the air with 250,000 people gathered in front of the Lincoln Monument, Washington D.C. on August 28, 1963. People had come in buses, trains and on foot on the long protest march to Washington against poverty and racism and for equality and prosperity for all regardless of skin color and ancestry.
Bob Dylan was one of the other singers who took part in the protests.
Joan Baez has remained a protest singer against racial discrimination and discrimination against the poor. Including the song about Billy Joe, innocently accused and imprisoned for life.
At the Woodstock Festival, she sang the song about Joe Hill in front of nearly half a million people gathered at the festival. Born in the 1900s, Joe Hill became an agitator and protest singer — and was executed for it.
The year is 2024 and Joan Baez is still singing for equal civil rights for all.
Pete Seeger died in 2014, aged 94. He wrote and sang many anti-war and civil rights songs. “Where have all the flowers gone”, “last night I had the strangest dream” were also some of them.
Sources:
National Park Service: https://www.nps.gov/articles/march-on-washington.htm
Joan Baez: http://www.joanbaez.com/bio/
Snippet of History:https://snippetofhistory.wordpress.com/portfolio/joan-baez-singing-we-shall-overcome-in-washington-dc-march-28th-1963/
Faktalink: library and education
https://faktalink.dk/titelliste/mart/martraci?check_logged_in=1
Nobelprize.org: https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/peace/1964/summary/
Lex: https://lex.dk/Pete_Seeger
DR.dk:https://www.dr.dk/lyd/musik/kunstner/pete-seeger-11752
Martin Luther King 28.8.1963:
I have a dream
Man kan ikke nævne Joan Baez i washington 28.8.1963 uden også at sige “Martin Luther King – klik
It was Martin Luther King, the young black pastor and civil rights activist, who had organized the long march to Washington D.C. and here he gave his world famous speech: “I have a dream” – (referring to the American dream of a country where all people have opportunities)
The United States of the 1960s was still extremely discriminatory against African-Americans, as in the days of slavery, especially in the South. Colored children were still not allowed to attend the same schools as whites. All US citizens were legally entitled to vote, but many African Americans were denied access to polling stations. Reading tests were required and people of color had to pay poll taxes. Few could afford to do so, as they were also underpaid for their labor. The African Americans had not left for America voluntarily, but were taken there as captives and enslaved during the 18th and 19th centuries. They were kidnapped in Africa and sent to America by force by white people occupying and colonizing America.
In 1964, Martin Luther King was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for his peaceful struggle for civil rights for African Americans.
On March 21, 1965, another march took place: a 50-mile march from the city of Selma, Alabama to Montgomery, the capital of Alabama. Along the way, the demonstration grew from 3000 to 25000 people. Together they sang “Wehave overcome”
August 1965, African-Americans were granted full voting rights on equal terms with white Americans, Martin Luther King paid with his life for his efforts for civil rights for all. Martin Luther King was assassinated in 1967, shot by a sniper.
Music that toppled apartheid in
South Africa and freed Nelson Mandela
Free Nelson Mandela
Overthrow of the white apartheid rule in South Africa – click
Once upon a time, the whole world sang “Free Nelson Mandela” – at concerts, at the start of football matches, everywhere. Until Nelson Mandela was set free. – Today, we could use people everywhere singing “free the Palestinians” – until Israel frees the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank – as well as the many Palestinian women, children and men held hostage in Israeli prisons.
On the overthrow of the white apartheid rule in South Africa and the liberation of Nelson Mandela – click
Apartheid (racial segregation) laws were introduced in South Africa in 1950 by the white minority, which numbered only 10 percent of the country’s population. The whites were English and especially Dutch. Whites occupied 87 percent of South Africa’s land area. The black population, over 3 million blacks, were forcibly relocated to and lumped together in reservations. Their labor was underpaid, they weren’t allowed to form unions or speak out against whites. They formed unions anyway. Rebellions were put down by the white regime with rifle bullets and massacres. Nelson Mandela, leader of the ANC freedom movement, was arrested and imprisoned for 27 years. Many years of hard forced labor.
The protests against apartheid continued among black Africans. But many white Africans also participated. And the peoples of Europe. Songs and music had a major impact on the community that emerged in South Africa and around the world between opponents of apartheid and the political pressure that was put on the white apartheid regime. The protests spread to boycotts of South African goods and companies that traded with the white apartheid regime in South Africa. Shell in particular was hit financially and had to give up trading. No one dared or wanted to trade with South Africa anymore. Along the way, South Africa was excluded from participation in the UN General Assembly and an arms embargo was imposed. Mandela had the attention of the whole world and was released in 1990 and apartheid was abolished. In 1994, Nelson Mandela was elected president in the country’s first democratic election. Nelson Mandela was respected and loved for his peaceful approach in the fight to end apartheid. There is still not full equality, much could be better, but apartheid laws have been abolished.
Sources:
https://lex.dk/apartheid
‘https://folkedrab.dk/temaer/forskellighed-fordomme/farlige-forestillinger/case-apartheid
A selection of the many songs in support of freedom and
equality rights for South Africa’s black population
Sugar man – sugar man
Sixto Rodriguez, Sugar man, 1976 – klik
SIxto Rodriguez Mexican-American became known in South Africa in the 1970s with the album “Cold Fact”, 1976. His music brought together young white South African opponents of the apartheid system, especially the song “sugar-man” which the regime banned was played on the radio.
Sixto Rodriguez himself was socially indignant, but unknowingly part of the South African rebellion against the Apartheid regime. He lived in the US and not from his music. He did not become famous in the US as he had hoped for when he released his music. Rodriguez was a worker and unaware that he and his album had almost cult status in South Africa and were an important rallying point in the rebellion against the Apartheid regime.
Rodriguez rose to fame in South Africa due to the invention of the internet and later toured the country. This was after the Apartheid government had fallen. A documentary was also made about Rodriguez due to his fame in South Africa’s resistance movement and his extraordinary music career and influence on the end of apartheid.
Sources:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/8/9/singer-sixto-rodriguez-subject-of-searching-for-sugarman
https://www.theguardian.com/music/2023/aug/10/rodriguez-obituary
https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-66449150https://youtu.be/PHfaonlVEfg?si=rpWLd07wHJdzXQaR
Eddy Grant, Gimme hope Jo’Anna
Eddy Grant, anti-apartheidssang fra 1988 – “Gimme hope Jo’Anna” -klik
Jo’Anna refers to South Africa’s largest city “Johannesburg”. The song was banned by the Apartheid regime in South Africa, but was played widely anyway both in South Africa and the rest of the world.
https://theindyreview.com/2023/12/07/throwback-thursday-eddy-grant-gimme-hope-joanna/
And in a completely different genre
Twinkle star ogå kendt som abc-sangen
Og her en lille sang, der har ændret verden for mangt et barn og gennem generationer hjulpet børn i det meste af verden til at lære at læse, og sågar at spille musik.
No one knows who wrote the melody. It was first published in 1761 and was played at garden concerts. Later, Mozart published it in different variations. 1836 is the first time the melody was published with lyrics “twinkle twinkle little star” by Jane Taylor. When the ABC song came on the scene and began to change the world of children, so they began to sing in wisdom, it is not known.
Source: https://www.britannica.com/story/did-mozart-write-twinkle-twinkle-little-star
Twinkle star for music lessons: The melody is the first in the Suzuki method of playing. Suzuki was a Japanese violinist who invented the method in the 1930s.
Sources: https://www.suzukiinstitut.dk/metoden/musik-som-modersmal
https://da.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinichi_Suzuki
Youth rebellion in Denmark
and the protest song that tells
Det store stygge Storkespringvand – Ali Bali Bi – Thøger Olesen og Cæcar – klik
The 1960s is characterized by youth rebellion throughout the West. Rebellion against rigid rules and norms. Norms where women were expected to get married, take care of husband and children and men were expected to work and support their wives. Rebellion against the nice and the stagnant. It was the boom times after the war and depression of the 1950s.
The Beatles had arrived and were something completely new and fast-paced, much to the amazement and often outrage of young parents.
Young people weren’t allowed to gather together and just sit and play music and sing a song in the street. But they started doing that and became hippies, handing out hearts with the message “make love -not war”
In Copenhagen, the Stork Fontain on the main street became a central gathering point for young hippies and those who just showed up to have fun. People danced around the Stork Fontain and some jumped into the water and were chased away and beaten up by the police. That’s all it took. Young people had to obey, do their chores, and not run around the streets making “revolution” and partying. Today, the young people’s demonstration back then would most likely be considered quite harmless.
That’s what Caecar and Thøger Olesen’s protest song is all about. Gathering at Stork Fountain and getting beaten up by the police.
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