War and Music Today

Much has been made of today's generation apathy to making and listening to music relevant to our times. Others have taken great issue with his indictment, citing many examples of today's protest music.

An article in the New York Times by JON PARELES examines the issue of music during our time of war:

"Songs that touched on the war in 2006 were suffused with the mournful and resentful knowledge that — as Neil Young titled the album he made and rush-released in the spring — we are “Living With War,” and will be for some time. Awareness of the war throbs like a chronic headache behind more pleasant distractions.

The cultural response to war in Iraq and the war on terrorism — one protracted, the other possibly endless — doesn’t have an exact historical parallel. Unlike World War II, the current situation has brought little national unity; unlike the Vietnam era, ours has no appreciable domestic support for America’s opponents. Iraq may be turning into a quagmire and civil war like Vietnam, but the current war has not inspired talk of generationwide rebellion (perhaps because there’s no draft to pit young against old) or any colorful, psychedelically defiant counterculture. The war songs of the 21st century have been sober and earnest, pragmatic rather than fanciful.

The 2000s are not the late 1960s, culturally or ideologically, but the musical repercussions of the Vietnam War may hint at what comes next. As that war dragged on, the delirious late 1960s gave way to not only the sodden early 1970s of technique-obsessed rock and self-absorbed singer-songwriters, but also to a flowering of socially conscious, musically innovative soul, the music that John Legend and John Mayer now deliberately invoke. It’s as if this wartime era has simply skipped the giddy phase — which didn’t, in the end, turn bombers into butterflies — and gone directly to the brooding. The end of the Vietnam War in 1975 was quickly followed by the rejuvenating energy of punk and hip-hop; there’s no telling what disengagement from Iraq might spark."

Certainly, Neil Young has tried to make a difference. Since he was accused of being wrong about this generation's lack of protest music, he has reversed himself and established the Songs of the Times page, which invites musicians to post their protest songs.

For more, see A New Generation Seeks Pop Music With Meaning, Where are the young voices in political debate?, Rocker's political message is Censored, Tell Us The Truth Tour and Politics & Music.