5 Protest Songs Whose Messages No One Understands
We’ve all heard the stories about politicians completely misunderstanding protest songs. When a song goes, “Born in the USA,” or, “I ain’t no fortunate son,” or, “I hate the government and hate this candidate in particular,” a politician will blindly assume that it must be their kind of anthem, just because it sounds inspiring.
But let’s not get too complacent, making fun of those dumb guys. You yourself have probably misunderstood the meanings of a bunch of protest songs. In your defense, it’s because the song is protesting some issue that’s so weird, you’d never dream that the song could be about that.
Dirty Water
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“Dirty Water” by the Standells is a classic song about Boston. It’s kind of a song about how much Boston sucks, as it calls out the Charles River’s filth and the population’s many criminals, but that doesn’t stop people from singing it with pride. Sure, the city might have birthed a Strangler, but it’s our city that birthed a Strangler, say Bostonians. Besides, the water is cleaner and the streets are safer than back in 1966 when the song was written, so none of us need to take those parts too seriously.
However, the song also contains these lines, the meaning of which is totally inscrutable to people today:
Frustrated women
Have to be in by 12 o’clock
But I’m a-wishin’ and a-hopin’
That just once those doors weren’t locked
I like to save time for my baby to walk around
“Yeah,” people today might think, vaguely, while singing along. “Women, right? Every guy wants a girlfriend, and plenty of gals are frustrated, by just everything.” And then they move on to the chorus before thinking too hard about this verse.
But the verse referred to a very specific issue: the guest policy at Boston University. Back then, BU dorms had strict cutoff times regarding when students could come in, and this was an issue songwriter Ed Cobb thought to immortalize in song.
We say “back then,” but that guest policy, complete with a midnight cutoff time, was still around at BU 40 years later before finally changing. The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.
I Can’t Drive 55
The literal meaning of 1984’s “I Can’t Drive 55” is clear, even if you only know the song from hearing it in Back to the Future. Sammy Hagar is complaining about the speed limit.
But we all know how music works, so we understand that when someone sings about driving, they’re really singing about life. “When I drive that slow, you know it’s hard to steer,” sings Hagar, “And I can’t get my car out of second gear.”
This is a guy who wants to go faster in life — and possibly faster in bed.
Except, no. The song actually is protesting the speed limit, which used to be a very serious annoyance.
Richard Nixon created the 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, and it was too low. It wasn’t just too low for crazy rock star speed freaks but too low for anyone who wanted to drive the optimal way. The speed limit wasn’t set so low to prioritize safety. It was set so low to reduce gas consumption during the energy crisis.
People later forgot the fury over the 55 MPH limit, first because cops started giving everyone 10 or 20 miles grace over the 55 limit and then because most states wised up and shifted their limits upward.
For What It’s Worth
Some of you might have trouble recognizing the title of this Buffalo Springfield song, but you’ll definitely recognize the song once you hear it. It’s the one whose chorus goes, “You better stop, hey, what’s that sound? Everybody look, what’s going down?”
There’s something happening here
But what it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
The song is clearly protesting something, and the tone alone lets you know this song is definitely about war. Given that it’s a 1960s protest song, it’s surely about Vietnam.
What a field day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and they carrying signs
Mostly say, “Hooray for our side”
You’d assume it’s about the war, and you’d be wrong. “For What It’s Worth” was a protest song about a curfew in Los Angeles that said teens couldn’t stay out after 10 p.m. It feels like the song is mourning people who were senselessly killed, but it’s really about kids bitter they can’t hang out late. Yes — just like “Dirty Water.”
The same was true with many of the physical student protests in the 1960s. You think, looking back, that it was all about national policy or racial discrimination, but with many kids, it was all about protesting mandatory curfews. Which was a serious issue for students, and a feminist issue, but it’s an issue no one today re.
Spasticus Autisticus
The United Nations declared 1981 to be the International Year of Disabled Persons. Into this setting came “Spasticus Autisticus,” a protest song by Ian Dury, who was disabled from childhood polio.
Clearly, this song called for the better treatment of the disabled, right?
Nope. The song protested the International Year of Disabled Persons, which Dury thought was a stupid idea.
“I wibble when I piddle, ’cause my middle is a riddle,” sings Dury. “I dribble when I nibble. And I quibble when I scribble. Widdling, griddling, skittling, diddling, fiddling, diddling, widdling, diddling spasticus.”
The BBC considered the song offensive to disabled people and banned it from airplay. In more recent years, however, people have come more to sympathize with Dury’s point-of-view that declaring an International Year of Disabled Persons was condescending and pointless. When London hosted the Paralympics in 2012, artists performed “Spasticus Autisticus” at the opening ceremony.
The Safety Dance
“We can dance if we want to,” sings this 1982 hit. “We can leave your friends behind. ’Cause your friends don’t dance, and if they don’t dance, well they’re no friends of mine.” These lyrics are about dancing, but once again, we understand how metaphors work. This song has got to be hinting at something else, right?
I say, we can go where we want to
A place where they'll never find
And we can act like we come from out of this world
Leave the real one far behind
Clearly, this song speaks to some deeper quest for freedom and identity. Maybe it’s about gay rights. And maybe the name of the group, Men Without Hats, refers to men who refuse to cover their true selves up. Or maybe it’s about men who refuse to wear condoms. The ’80s were a dangerous time.
But no. “The Safety Dance” really is a protest song, but it literally is about dancing. And the name of the band is literally about men without hats (men too manly to wear hats in the Canadian winter), but the truly baffling part is that the song really is about your right to dance.
The 1980s had a dance called pogo dancing. It involved jumping up and down, much like jumping with a pogo stick only without the stick. One night, a club kicked out lead hatless man Ivan Doroschuk for pogo dancing, which the place considered a safety issue. Like we said, the ’80s were a dangerous time. Doroschuk considered this rights violation so outrageous that he wrote this song about how people should be able to pogo dance if they want.
Yes, this was yet another song where artists very seriously protested for their right to hang out and have fun. And here we were thinking that “Fight for Your Right to Party” was just a joke — “Fight for Your Right to Party” being another song that people keep misunderstanding.
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