Our Subversive Voice:The History and Politics of English Protest Songs, 1600-2020

Street, John, Cox Jensen, Oskar, Finlayson, Alan, McShane, Angela and Worley, Matthew (2025) Our Subversive Voice:The History and Politics of English Protest Songs, 1600-2020. McGill-Queen's Studies In Protest, Power, And Resistance . McGill-Queen's University Press, Montreal. ISBN 9780228023722

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Abstract

Whether accompanying a march, a sit-in, or a confrontation with police, songs and protest are inextricably linked. As a tool for political activism, the protest song spells out the issues at the heart of each cause. Over a surprisingly long history, it has been used to spread ideas, inspire political imagination, and motivate political action. The protest song is - and has always been - a form of political oratory as vital to political representation as it is to performance. Investigating five centuries of English history, Our Subversive Voice establishes that the protest song is not merely the preserve of singer-songwriters; it is a mode of political communication that has been used to confront many systems of oppression across its many genres, from street ballads to art song, grime to hymns, and music hall to punk. Our Subversive Voice traces the history of the protest song, examines its rhetorical forms, and explores the conditions of its genesis. It recounts how these songs have addressed discrimination and inequality, exploitation and the environment, and immigration and identity, and how institutions and organizations have sought both to facilitate and to suppress them. Drawing on a large and diverse corpus of songwriters, this book argues that song does more than accompany protest: it choreographs and communicates it. The protest song, Our Subversive Voice shows, is an enduring, affecting, and effective means of expression and an essential element in understanding the drive to create political change, in the past and for the future.

Item Type:	Book
Uncontrolled Keywords:	sdg 10 - reduced inequalities ,/dk/atira/pure/sustainabledevelopmentgoals/reduced_inequalities
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of Politics, Philosophy and Area Studies
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Centres > Centre for Competition Policy Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Cultural Politics, Communications & Media Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Policy & Politics Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Research Groups > Political, Social and International Studies
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	05 Mar 2025 10:30
Last Modified:	10 Mar 2025 01:12
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98677
DOI:

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