The Lefsetz Letter: Why we’ve Got no Protest Songs

1. Mariah Carey

Bob Dylan looked up to Woody Guthrie, today’s nitwits admire Mariah Carey. That’s right, she hit almost three decades ago and dominated the nineties and what was her message? Empty hedonism. Sung by a woman with great pipes. So, that’s who today’s TV contestants emulate. They figure someone else will write the songs, after all if you know how to sing… Clive and company made all those other victors winners.

2. Income inequality

Everybody’s so busy struggling, they don’t want to take any steps that might hold them back. Therefore, if you get ahead, you want to stay there. Kinda like Taylor Swift, the biggest star in America, she’s been mum about Trump, because she doesn’t want to lose any potential fans. And if Swift is mum, what are the odds anybody else is gonna voice a controversial opinion? The best and the brightest avoid music, because they know the odds are long and if you don’t make it and haven’t been investing in your straight career you’re screwed. Only the poor and disadvantaged commit to music, and they see it as a vehicle out of the dumps, not one of self-expression. They want some of that money and lifestyle, and, ironically, those who make it hang with billionaires and emulate them. Our society is dominated by money, not culture. After all, we elected as President a man whose sole calling card is he’s supposedly rich. We used to elect big thinkers, no more.

3. No sense of history

Dylan, et al, emerged out of the folk scene, with its long history of standing up for people’s rights and protests. There’s no folk scene today, there’s no sense of history at all. Will kids tomorrow emulate the English bluesmen who emulated the delta bluesmen? Possibly so, but there’s no evidence of this yet.

4. Hip-hop culture

Used to be about speaking truth to power, now it’s about lifestyle. Hip-hop is the most vibrant music we’ve got, but it’s become self-referential, kinda like metal. You can’t understand today’s metal unless you listened to decades of it before. As for hip-hop culture… This is dangerous, but I’ll wade in. The African-American has been screwed from Day One in America and he sees it as a badge of honor to get his and rip-off the man. So rappers don’t turn down corporate endorsements, they don’t say no to power, they want to become brands with all that money. And it’s understandable, since these same men who run the brands have been screwing them from time immemorial, and the opportunity to take back is hard to turn down. And my inbox will now fill up with missives telling me I don’t understand, and maybe I don’t, but that proves the point that everybody’s afraid of wading in, discussing the issues, especially if they’re murky. Funny how Republicans will say the seemingly unpopular, especially Trump, and Democrats are so busy pussyfooting, afraid to piss a single person off, that they end up saying nothing.

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