Our Subversive Voice 1600-2020: The History and Politics of English Protest Songs
John Street, Oskar Cox Jensen, Alan Finlayson, Angela McShane, and Matthew Worley
McGill-Queen’s University Press, £26.99

THE recent media storm surrounding the Northern Irish hip hop trio Kneecap, with member Liam Og O hAnnaidh charged by the Metropolitan Police for allegedly supporting Hezbollah, is the latest example of politics and popular music making headlines.

Written by five academics, Our Subversive Voice 1600-2020 confirms protest music as “a vital – if overlooked – part of the repertoire of political communication.” And as the title suggests it is one that has a long history in England, stretching back to songs like The Powte’s Complante (1619), about the impact drainage and land-reclamation projects in the East Anglian fens had on local people and the environment.

As well as concern for the natural world, the authors note two other common themes: poverty and hunger, and disdain for the political class. A good protest song can “say what is wrong and what is right, and what needs to be done – and not just tell us, but make us feel its truth”, they contend.

The politically turbulent mid-1640s seems to have produced many oppositional tunes (e.g. The World Is Turned Upside Down and A Coffin for King Charles) as did the Peterloo massacre in 1819. Centuries later comes Noel Coward’s satirical Don’t Let’s Be Beastly to the Germans (1943) and Brazen Hussies, written by women at the Greenham Common Peace Camp in 1983.

While Thatcher’s Tory government triggered a glut of protest songs (1982’s Shipbuilding arguably one of the best), the authors note that between 1890 and 1980 leaders and governments received very little criticism in music form. Is it really true there were no contemporary English protest songs written about bloody British colonial wars in Kenya, Malaya, Aden, Cyprus and Suez?

There are detailed readings of more contemporary protest songs, such as Dave’s Question Time (2017), which holds then Prime Minister Theresa May to account for Grenfell Tower and UK domestic and foreign policies, and Richard Dawson’s anti-Amazon epic Fulfilment Centre. Of course, protest music isn’t owned by the left, with the authors highlighting Mike Read’s Ukip Calypso (2014) and the potty-mouthed pro-Brexit 17 Million Fuck Offs (2019) as two recent right-wing broadsides.

Also included are interesting deep dives into communities that birthed the cultural dissent, such as folksinger Ewan MacColl’s doctrinaire Singers’ Club in the 1960s, and Dial House in Essex, which acted as a creative hub for anarchist punk band Crass.

There are certainly lots of interesting examples and information in the book – Maggie Holland’s 1991 anti-war track Perfumes Of Arabia was completely new to me, for example. However, frustratingly large parts are written in a bland Cultural Studies language, making it very heavy going indeed. There is quite a bit of repetition of arguments, which I put down to too many cooks. I even started feeling a little resentful about reading it – quite an achievement when you consider I write album reviews for the Morning Star.

For those looking for a more accessible way in to the subject, it’s worth noting this academic volume is part of a larger two-year research project based at the University of East Anglia, whose other main output is an online database of 750 protest songs, with accompanying audio interviews with key figures (Peggy Seeger, Billy Bragg etc), videos and case studies.

So I would recommend using the website and the index at the back of the book to find songs and actually listen to them on Youtube and elsewhere. And don’t forget there is lots of great protest music being made right now – from Jim Ghedi’s fuming version of What Will Become Of England to Loyle Carner’s thoughtful take on knife crime Blood On My Nikes.