The Grandeur of Great Protest Music
Political art that outlasts its times needs more than just a powerful message.
A few months ago, the fearsome music critic Greil Marcus came across an old song he’d never heard before. Though the radio, against doo-wop harmonies and wandering guitar arpeggios, a woman crooned, “It isn’t nice to block the doorway / It isn’t nice to go to jail / There are nicer ways to do it, but the nice ways always fail.”
“The thing just sucked me in,” Marcus said Friday during a panel about protest and community at the Aspen Ideas Festival, which is cosponsored by and the Aspen Institute.
