Music has a transformative power and its might cannot be understated.
Every country in the world has a national anthem and every movement has had it's soundtrack.
From "El Pueblo Unido, Jamas Sera Vencido" in Chile, to the bulk of Woody Gutherie's and Pete Seger's work and the re-contextualized hymn of "We Shall Overcome" in the civil rights movement of the '60s, music and song help define movements.
As dissent on the impending war on Iraq grows with the war's seeming inevitability, music once again steps in to help shape an ideology using only a few bars of rhymed verse.
Last year, all the talk was about Steve Earle and his controversial "Johnnie Walker Blues," a song written from the perspective of "Johnny Taliban," the American captured during ground raids in Afghanistan. His very existence
disheartened many and inspired a few, including Earle, to attempt to see things from Walker's unique point of view.
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This move proved disastrous as the media joined forces to call both Walker and Earle traitors. Unlike past movements, Earle's song proved to be the exception and not the rule, and other artists like Bruce Springsteen cashed in on the sudden wave of nationalism by writing pro-U.S. songs without regard to the new War on Terrorism.
As the War on Terrorism turns it's deadly eye to Iraq, artists have once again begun to speak up.
Billy Bragg, a British singer-songwriter has just released "The Price of Oil," a biting indictment of the U.S. and Britain and the political motivations behind the impending war on Iraq. The song makes the case that the War on Iraq has less to do with supposed "weapons of mass destruction" or genocide and instead says "it's all about the price of oil."
Comparing Hussein to Pinoche and other U.S.-backed dictators and leaders, Braggs efficiently tears down the argument that Hussein's tyrranical genocide against the Kurds is the impetus to go to war. Instead he states that we have known about these crimes against humanity for years and asks: "why him, why here, why now?"
These concepts quickly sum up the gist of the present anti-war movement and summarize speeches made just two weeks ago here in New Mexico by Amy Goodman of "Democracy Now!"
Billy Bragg first appeared in 1983 with his debut album, Life's a Riot. Since then he has become one of the country's best-known and best-loved musicians. Dubbed Britian's finest rock poet by NME, a British music paper, Bragg's songwriting has received acclaim overseas and here in the U.S.
The song has been donated to a compilation double CD, Peace Not War, released by the Stop the War Coalition in England this month. Among the many artists on the CD are such notables as Ani DiFranco, Chumbawumba, Massive Attack, Midnight Oil and Public Enemy. The song is also available for a free download at www.billybragg.co.uk/.
