What is a protest folk song?

Answer 1

Folk Music in general is a relatively simple style of music, typically accompanied by guitar, and deriving from old musical traditions often involving music that is sung by people who are not professional musicians, i.e., they are just folk. Protest music in America begins with Woodie Guthrie, the protest singer from the era of the Great Depression, who composed many songs about the abuse of migrant workers, and other social ills of America at the time. The most famous practitioner of protest folk music is Bob Dylan, who composed protest music in the 1960's; some of his best known protest songs are "The Times They Are A Changin'" and "Blowing In The Wind" which remain classics of folk protest. In the 1960's, the main focus of protests in general was the very unpopular Vietnam War. Dylan does not name it directly, however, listen to his song "Masters Of War" for a deeply bitter denunciation of war in general. The 1960's was a great decade for folk protest - probably the greatest ever - and also included brilliant music by Phil Ochs, Tom Paxton, and others. I believe that the greatest of Phil Ochs' anti-war protest songs is "Is There Anybody Here?" which remains an astonishing piece of work even to this day, and has an emotional depth that is almost never heard in popular music. Oh yes, we should also mention another anti-war song, "Universal Soldier" by Buffy Sainte-Marie. Even the very cheerful and inoffensive folk trio, Peter Paul and Mary, did a lovely anti-war protest song, called "The Great Mandala".