To Find The Perfect Protest Song

Bruce Springsteen is one of my favorite artists. But he isn’t quiet about his politics, which are clearly left-leaning. I have a lot of friends who do not like him because of it, and other friends who do like him because of it. For me, I find a deeper message to many of his songs about humanity. So I look at his music from a different angle as just another human being trying to “figure it out”.

That’s one aspect of art that I think is important—and it’s one way I approach art and am able to separate a person’s politics from their art.

I think Springsteen’s commitment to the human project is what drives his politics, and I can respect that. Others have the same commitment and come to a different political opinion. This is what politics is about and we should all be grown up about it. Everyone wants human flourishing, we disagree on how to get there, and there are a pack of freeloaders who see self-serving opportunities in our commitments to that project to enrich themselves. They are the corrupt politicians, and there’s no shortage of them.

Following his own conscience, Springsteen hastily released a protest song last week around the protests in Minnesota and the clash with law authorities and the violence that has ensued. I found it interesting because this one isn’t couched as cleverly as something like “Born in the USA” is but is rather straightforward about who he thinks the bad guys are.

Many people on the American Right will disagree with Springsteen about what really has gone down in Minnesota, and I wonder where their protests songs are. Three years ago, Kid Rock released an openly anti-Biden / Left song (lots of NSFW language—you’ve been warned!)

Perhaps a little more classy than Kid Rock, Oliver Anthony’s surprising hit song (also some NSFW language) from two years ago, “Rich Men North of Richmond” takes a shot at the entire system. Perhaps this is one that everyone could nod in agreement with—and perhaps, therefore, a better protest song?

In this article I’ll venture a little bit into politics, which is not my usual thing to do. I want to look at politics from an artistic perspective, particularly when thinking of the Christian imagination and what the Christian is called to do through art.

I can respect all of these guys’ above point of view. They’re also prove what I’ve learned about politics in my 40+ years of being on this planet: so much of it is framed by experience and background—where you’ve lived and where you are living right now. Oliver Anthony lives in Farmville, Virginia—a small town of about 7,000 people. Springsteen comes from New Jersey and its big city of Philadelphia, a multicultural pot full of rich history tied directly to the American experiment and the blue collar worker. Kid Rock is from Michigan, which is rather interesting since it’s a “Blue State” but I bet there’s a story to his politics.

I’ve been living in America for four years and have been learning a lot about this amazing country—its history, its people, and what it is really all about. I still have a lot to learn. I came to this country believing that God called us here for ministry, and I still believe that. I don’t know what that means in the long term, or, as an immigrant, what’s going to happen next, or even what that means to you reading this. I can say that I came here to add value to this nation in any way I can. Even more, I can also say that one thing that has always impressed me about this country is the great American experiment: the idea that it doesn’t matter where you’re from, your background, or the color of your skin—if you want to add value, if you want to subscribe to American values and help build a nation around them—then you can also become a citizen with full rights and responsibilities, and play your part. I consider my staying here a privilege, not a right, but a privilege I am grateful for nonetheless, with the deep hope of having the privilege of rights and responsibilities as a citizen at some stage, too.

The idea of a country that will see you as an equal if you subscribe to the values, not if you have the right blood, is an idea I think is worth standing up for. That’s what I always saw America as, and it’s one that the Left and Right largely accepted up until recently. Here’s what Reagan (conservative) said:

And of course, Martin Luther King’s (liberal) famous speech about judging a man by the content of his character rather than the color of his skin:

America has always been a politically active country. People really care about what they believe, and I love that about it. But maybe what is actually worth standing up for needs to be made clear again. There’s a theme that runs in this country that has truly made it great. It’s a theme about a commitment to certain values of freedom and the inherent worth of each individual.

But what I’ve also learned about America in the last four years, and in the years I came to visit beforehand, is that it is a land filled with paranoia. There is always someone out to “get us”. Suspicions run high—you’re often told to be careful because you never know when someone might end up being a hidden enemy. I have wondered if the Cold War did a real number on this amazing nation, causing everyone to be cautious about what everyone else’s real motivations are and suspicious about them. This plays across the entire political scene and explains a lot about why certain politicians make the decisions they do and why this country often votes the way it does.

I’m coming to the art part in a moment, I promise, but I’m just laying some foundation work.

I believe in judging people as individuals, not on the basis of group or skin or even ideology, because people come to believe what they believe because of their own unique experience of being human. Nowhere better is this illustrated for me than peoples’ opinions on guns in America.

A gun is a neutral tool designed for a very specific purpose. I’ve noticed that people have many different opinions about guns that relate very much to their experience of them. If you grew up on a farm where the gun was a tool for hunting, providing, and protecting, you may tend toward a positive view of them. Guns are not a threat in this circumstance but are a security. You believe you have a God-given right to protect your family and the gun is one tool that affords you the ability to do so.

But if you grew up in a ghetto and were exposed to a lot of gun violence, you see a very different thing when you see a gun. It is for you probably a sign and signal of families torn apart, trauma and crime and sadness, and people lost too soon. You also believe you have a God-given right to protect your family and therefore having less guns in society affords you the ability to do so.

Your view on guns is often not framed by the big picture but by your own experience of them. If you had a fairly neutral experience with guns you will have a neutral view of them. That doesn’t mean your neutral opinion is the more mature one, it just means you are just as biased as everyone else by your experience.

The whole point of the American experiment was to try and create a society where each can live according to their own conscience. The laws on guns try to reflect this, but it is a difficult one. There are limits to freedom of conscience when we are trying to live together. This is why a free society will always be a society in flux. It’s part of the package.

Commenting on the Minnesota and immigration issue is hard for me right now because I, myself, am an immigrant. My opinion may be biased. Of course, I think violence is completely unacceptable, but when I’ve looked at the videos and heard the stories from Minnesota and the unfolding tragedies, I try and consider it all from a human point of view.

People are under a lot of pressure. Law enforcement, some probably under-trained, feel in danger all day, and are out there in sub-zero temperatures. The people protesting feel in danger, and many of them are protesting because they have friends who feel in danger. Immigrants feel in danger. Violence breaks out in this kind of tension because our fight-or-flight response gets the better of us. That doesn’t excuse it, but it helps to explain a lot.

And in the mix of all this, there are those who see it all as an opportunity to build their own brand, use the events as content for their social media, exert their own influence, and use hurting human beings for their own enrichment. This is the system that lurks in the background, adding to the pressure.

In fact, we all feel the pressure from invisible powers all day—hidden forces that we can’t quite explain that seem to bear down on us. This is the system everyone is paranoid about. It makes us suspicious about who our enemies really are, and whether our neighbor may, in fact, be a raging lunatic on the internet. Everyone feels scared about the same thing, but for some reason we allow ourselves to look the wrong direction for our enemy. This is why the Bible is explicit: our war is not actually against flesh and blood, but against spiritual powers and authorities (Ephesians 6:12). We don’t always know what these are or how they work—whether a metaphor that describes the hidden oppressive systems of society or describes literal beings who play games with us. Or perhaps even both. But it’s a reality of living. Almost everyone feels like they have no power in this world and that something else is really calling the shots, and the slightest mistake will cause you to have even less power over your own life.

Fantasy and sci-fi, as one example of an approach, is not just about monsters and beings and strange planets, but about exposing the heart of humanity and the hidden forces at work—giving us a picture of what is really going on.

For example, art can help shine a light on the paranoia—the spiritual undercurrent—affecting everyone and ask: what’s that about? If we could deal with that, might we not be able to deal with all this (all this other stuff) better?

Immigration affects me directly. I sacrificed a lot coming to the USA, but if I have to go back to South Africa (as many friends are now having to do) I will end up sacrificing even more, because by then I’ll honestly have nothing left. I have no job to go back to, investments, homes, nothing. I will have my extended family, whom I of course miss, but I will have zero security for a future for me and my family. I will have to try and start a third life in my mid-forties, which is not easy to do. We did not come here with much and we do not have a backup plan. I will still freelance as a ghostwriter, but moving clients over will be hard due to tax reasons and that will cost me even more. So, for me, I feel the invisible forces at work in my life every day, waiting for any moment when I might be made powerless.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, because it’s a very human situation. Just listen to those songs above. These are human beings not just giving you their opinion but telling you something of their experience of living in this world. They are exposing their fears, their anger, their point of view; and with that we can see we live in a broken world in need of healing.

This is art. It shows us that we’re broken. It shows us that there is a hidden world we’re not considering. It can help us deal with the realities of our sin, our anger, our paranoia, our need for hope.

Or, at least that’s what art should be. It’s what it is when it’s not commodified, packaged, commercialized, branded, and put on a social media feed. And it can definitely be used for the opposite: to amplify our paranoia, which a lot of it does. Art can very easily turn into propaganda.

It gets rather confusing, doesn’t it? Is Bruce Springsteen just satisfying his fanbase through his song? Is Kid Rock just looking for his niche? Are they secretly working for some sort of political organization? We may never know the true motivations, but even that points us to the brokenness of humanity.

All of this to say that the place of the artist has to be one that helps us to open our eyes and peer behind the curtain. It’s important to do that—to show the brokenness of humanity, to even protest in response to it in its various shades—but to do so without a self-righteousness about it.

The Christian story offers hope, one where God Himself will restore the world and bring humanity to be who it is supposed to be. He has already begun this project through the offering of forgiveness and reconciliation through Jesus. What it also does, however, is bring humility. This is one reason why I think it’s the truest story you’re going to find. It tells us like it is: we all suck, we all think we don’t, and we all need a wake-up call about how much we do. But we are also made in the image of God, who loves us, and this also makes us beautiful and full of value and worth. We suck, but we are not rejected. We suck, but we are also of infinite worth. We suck, but we have tremendous potential. We suck, but we have a bright future.

The story of politics, however, is frequently one of self-righteousness. “We’re the good guys, you aren’t and must be stopped.” The story of the Kingdom of God, however, is one of humility and unity. “We all suck, but God loves us all, so let’s build together.” Politics can even reflect that and be a part of that, when the people involved choose to make it so. There can be a politics based on Christian values, but that’s a politics that is tremendously challenging to everyone and, I promise, most don’t like it! Nevertheless, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible.

I think, therefore, we need even better protest songs. Those above have their place, but we need to also protest the heart of things that cause us to do what we do.

My hope is that even in the brokenness of Minnesota, we will see the hope of humanity shining through, and choose the better path.

If I was to write a protest song, that would be my theme.

Heck, maybe even I should :).