Protesting Songs

By Jane Wood

Protesting songs have been around for years. Unlike Jane and Mike who have only been performing as a duo since 1982. Still, for most of that time they have been singing Protesting Songs, amongst other ditties, including many that they've written themselves. Some of them are included in this book, mostly written by Jane, with bits of history and discussion from Mike. He wants you to know how Protesting Songs are made and how you can make them yourself. He tells the behind-the-scenes secrets of songs that were made in the last few decades, and even talks about putting your own homemade songs out into the world, sharing them with other singers and a wider audience. That advice alone is invaluable, but the thing that means this book is unique is the links it gives to videos, audio recordings and websites. If you follow these, you will get to hear the songs being talked about, and be able to see for yourself if what Jane and Mike say is true. Good Luck, and don't forget to leave comments, positive or negative.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Dec 16, 2014
• ISBN: 9781326123598

Book preview

Protesting Songs

Protesting Songs

History and How-To

by

Jane Wood and Mike Scantlebury

(The Jane and Mike Band)

Copyright

© 2014 Jane Wood and Michael George Scantlebury

All rights reserved.

An ISBN has been issued for this version by Lulu.com

ISBN:  978-1-326-12359-8

Cover photo: c. The Lowry Arts Centre 2010

DEDICATION

Jane and Mike would like to dedicate this ebook to the members of 'Orlsorts', an Ordsall Trust project, the creative group that meets on a Wednesday morning at Ordsall Community Arts in Salford

Protesting songs –

What this book is about

Protesting songs? Most people associate ‘protest songs’ with the ‘60s, but, young singers of that time like Bob Dylan freely admit that they’d learned from people like Woody Guthrie, a man who was writing that sort of song way back in the 1930s and ‘40s.

In fact, protesting songs have been around as long as people have been writing songs at all, and there are protesting songs from the 1600s and even Shakespeare’s time. We’ll be looking at examples from all eras in this book, as well as seeing that protesting songs from the modern era cover many different areas, topics and concerns. We’ll be talking about how such songs came to be written and how you can write them yourself.

More than anything, we’ll be talking about our own experiences, writing songs at home together and singing them in public – at clubs, fairs and festivals – both individually, and over 30 years as a duo – The Jane and Mike Band.

How we started

( Jane’s version)

Jane  writes:

Its hard to say when The Jane and Mike Band was born. We had been singing together for many years, since we met in the early 1980s, really. In fact, at a meeting of our neighbourhood cooperative I heard Mike talking about how he sang and played the guitar and that was it for me, despite him being a few inches shorter than myself. I had started playing guitar and singing when I was 28. Why 28 ? Well it was then I found out that I could play 3 chords on the guitar and that it took very little effort to string a few words together and make a tune. I sang in choirs at school and church when I was younger and loved it, but in early adulthood, while married to an accountant, I only listened to music. During the breakdown of that marriage, which incidentally took place in Tehran during the first revolution in 1979/80, song writing played a vital part in my grief, anger and  sorrow when my bastard husband went off with my best friend. However I never sang these songs in public, they were just for therapy, and the ex did me a great favour in leaving or I never would have met Mike.

The Jane and Mike Band has a page on Facebook:-

Facebook page click here

PROTESTING SONGS

Introduction

Leo Sayer was a pop singer in the 1970s, having lots of success. He wrote his own songs and sang them all over the world, later moving to Australia. When he was interviewed recently, he said that he didn't write love songs any more. He just wanted to write 'songs that mattered', he said. 'Songs that matter' ? That's protesting songs. They are songs about life, the world, the country we live, the struggles we're going through. They talk about ordinary people, sometimes heroes, who have to struggle with all the problems that face them. Woody Guthrie travelled around the States in the 1930s, meeting people and hearing and experiencing their problems. Buffy Saint Marie is a Native American, and knows all the problems her people face. Bob Dylan has said that he only wrote Protest Songs because 'everyone