In the throes of the civil rights, hippie and anti-war movements of the 1960s, the landscape of popular music saw a vast increase in politically oriented songwriting. This shift resulted in numerous songs that endure as both great songs and inspiring calls to action, such as Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” and Bob Dylan’s “The Times They Are A-Changing.”
Two of the most crucial aspects of a good protest song are that it comes from a genuine place and can speak to the heart of the issue, not from a disconnected observer. What happens then if a song lacks both of these elements? You get something like The Beach Boys’ “Student Demonstration Time.”
In the late 1960s, The Beach Boys were faltering at an increasingly rapid pace. Their 1970 album “Sunflower” was their worst-selling record yet, and just ahead of its release, Brian Wilson gave his first full-length interview to radio DJ Jack Rieley, in which he expressed concern that the public’s perception of the band was holding them back.
“The clean American thing has hurt us, and we’re really not getting any kind of airplay today,” said Wilson in the interview. “We haven’t done enough to change our image.”
Soon after their conversation, Rieley sent the band a six-page memo detailing how the group could reform their public image and increase record sales. Rieley’s strategy included encouraging the group to write more environmentally and politically conscious.
What resulted was their 1971 album “Surf’s Up,” which is largely considered by critics and fans to be one of the group’s finest records.
There is one song, however, that keeps the album from soaring to its potential great heights: the Mike Love-penned “Student Demonstration Time.”
The song is a rewrite of “Riot in Cell Block #9” by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Love re-wrote the lyrics after hearing about the Kent State Shooting in May 1970, where the Ohio National Guard killed four unarmed college students protesting the Cambodian campaign of the Vietnam War.
The song also makes references to numerous other protests, shootings, and riots that took place throughout the 1960s and 1970s, including the Berkeley Free Speech Movement, the 1969 People’s Park Protest, the Isla Vista Riots of 1970, and the Jackson State killings that took place only 11 days after the Kent State Shooting.
Whether or not Love’s intentions were pure or if this was a bid to appeal to a different audience is up for debate, but the result speaks for itself.
“America was stunned on May 4, 1970, / When rally turned to riot at Kent State University / They said the students scared the Guard, / Though the troops were battle dressed / Four students earned a new degree / The Bachelor of Bullets.”
It sounds like a parody of itself. It’s possible that Love truly thought this song would inspire and rally change at the time—his sentiments now suggest otherwise—but “Student Demonstration Time” is an example of protest music gone awry. Who could have guessed that a song trying to amplify the voices of the oppressed would come off a little tone-deaf when written by the co-writer of “Be True to Your School”?
35 years after The Beach Boys released “Student Demonstration Time,” the United States was three years into Operation Iraqi Freedom, the US’s invasion of Iraq based on the false premise that the country owned weapons of mass destruction and was making more.
Among the opponents of the war were the Oklahoma-based rock band, The Flaming Lips. They had recently found indie stardom after they shifted stylistic gears with their 1999 and 2002 releases, “The Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots,” which garnered immense critical and commercial success.
The music blended ornate and outlandish psychedelic instrumentation with lead singer Wayne Coyne’s introspective lyrics. “The Soft Bulletin” and “Yoshimi” focused heavily on optimism in the face of mortality, framed in sci-fi trappings, and remained far away from real-world politics. However, that changed with their next record, “At War with the Mystics.”
While a good chunk of the album still meditates on life and death, it clothes itself in a premise about a fantastic battle between space wizards and an unnamed oppressive force. It features several songs that can only be described as “anti-protest song protests songs.”
The group had thoughts about George W. Bush and the Iraq War, but found a lot of typical protest music too idealistic.
“I think this has been a delusional quality to a lot of rock stars, and especially politically-oriented bands may think they’re going to sing some song and they’re going to stop a war by doing that, and we have no illusions that our music would ever do that,” said Coyne.
Instead of directly criticizing said music with their lyrics, they decided to write music as if it could instantly change the world.
“The W.A.N.D.” is a three-and-a-half-minute anthem about the “Mystics” declaring their possession of an all-powerful magic wand. The song absolutely rips, held together by Steven Drozd’s fuzzed-out lead electric guitar and manic drumming.
The lyrics are stereotypical revolutionary declarations, but within the context of the song, they are powerful statements that sound like real protest chants and slogans.
“Time after time those fanatical minds try to rule all the world / Telling us all it’s them who’s in charge of it all / I’ve got a tricked-up magic stick that will make them all fall / We’ve got the power now, motherf—s, it’s where it belongs.”
In attempting to make self-critical protest music, The Flaming Lips ended up making a solid contribution to the canon of protest music. Even if you don’t agree with Coyne’s thoughts on politically forward songs, it’s an interesting idea. It also reflects the transition from a more idealistic 1960s to a cynical view born from the failure of the hippie movement and a generation witnessing a new global conflict with parallels to the Vietnam War.
“Music is, when it’s at its most powerful, it’s your comforting friend. When you’re having deep, personal pain,” said Coyne. “If you want to protest, you can’t do it abstractly. Music only works as an abstraction.”
