Credit: Libby Hamant
Songs I Wish I Wrote is a monthly column that assembles new and old songs for Ohio State’s music lovers.
Click here to listen to the “‘Get Up, Stand Up’ with these musical calls to action” playlist on Spotify.
Election season has passed, but what resounds in its immediate aftermath is how vital it is to exercise one’s right and responsibility to help better their country and the world at large.
Due to its relative accessibility, music has historically been a powerful vehicle for political and social progress — arguably more so than any other art form. What follows is a tracklist comprised of several songs that double as calls to action. Some get their messages to stick with you through enveloping hooks and catchy choruses; others are moving for their intentional indigestibility.
Get up, stand up, follow these artists’ lead and use your voice.
“Get Up, Stand Up” by Bob Marley and the Wailers
Written by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh in response to the poverty they witnessed while touring in Haiti, “Get Up, Stand Up” sounds much less angry or urgent than the prototypical protest song. Yet, exhumed from each curling guitar chord and thin drum tap is a deep exhale of determination and persistence.
Marley and Tosh trade verses, breathing life into each hypnotic repetition of the choral hymn: “Get up, stand up, stand up for your right.”
It’s meditative, surely, but don’t confuse its groundedness with restfulness — refusing to wait for change to magically arrive, the song crawls toward a brighter future on its own accord, clear-eyed and resolute in its quest.
“Double Dare Ya” by Bikini Kill
Spilling over the edges of Bikini Kill songs like “Double Dare Ya” is much more than mere anger — revolution pulses through the track’s very bones, a relentless force that threatens to bore through the musical architecture like a tornado.
Lead singer-songwriter Kathleen Hanna inflates each syllable like a balloon. Each word of encouragement she fires to women living under patriarchy, her mouth a canon, is so potent with zeal that it nearly bursts.
You’d better be ready to catch her “double-triple-f****** dare” to fight for your autonomy before getting swept into the wayward whirl of guitar, bass and drums — this is a “revolution, girl-style,” and it’s now.
“You Hear Yes” by Destroy Boys, Mannequin Pussy and Scowl
“You Hear Yes,” a cataclysmic concoction of three queer- and women-fronted punk bands, explodes with pent-up frustrations toward the patriarchy, barring no ferocity. The music’s brutality offers a jarring sense of the world that feminine-appearing individuals face on a daily basis, commanding oft-denied attention.
Hearing these three voices boil over together in rage, spitting back the patriarchy’s violence, is inspiring. To progress as a society, it is essential to “refuse to back down in the eye of hate” by relying on one another and finding strength in singing —literally or figuratively — shared truths.
“There Is No Time” by Lou Reed
Lou Reed’s voice might move mountains, but his emphatic, characteristic talk-sing cadence lends itself well to the guitars’ breathless jog on this political wake-up call — “This is the time,” he says with an emphatic pause, “because there is no time” — in which each word clunks down like boot-steps on a staircase as Reed zips up the perennial sentiment.
As each proclamation shoots out, one after the other, it becomes clear that there really is no time for vocal gymnastics when the walls are closing in. And when there is no time, as Reed decrees, that’s when “this is a time for action because the future’s within reach.”
“The Times They Are A-Changin’” by Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan gets a lot of flack for his vocal ability. Still, I’m a firm believer that his singing is just as rousing as his poetry.
Besides, who better to deliver an anthem of change than a scrawny, young midwesterner whose voice, though not classically great, is so distinctive and self-assured that it demands attention?
The track rumbles with a wisdom beyond its years, clearly laying out one’s options in the face of political and social turmoil: Face the music and join in time’s waltz, as steady and constant as Dylan’s strumming, or be abandoned among the dust it kicks up.
“Don’t criticize what you can’t understand,” Dylan exhorts in the song’s fourth verse. That credo has always been relevant, and always will be. Dylan sang it six decades ago, yet it could have been yesterday, and could just as easily be tomorrow.
Imagine what the world might be like if more people took time to try to understand other’s differences — or, if not entirely understand, at least accept them — instead of confining themselves within their own prejudices.
Surely, the world would be a better place. By raising our voices and offering each other compassion and support, times will change for the better.
