Music and Politics: from the message of The Beatles until today

Joanna M.
Joanna M.
Jul 30, 2017 · 4 min read

How American pop & rock influenced the Balkans and why that still matters today

In 2013 the protests in Bulgaria are culminating and Roger Waters uses the stage in Sofia to send a clear message, an answer to the question Mother: Should I trust the government?

RESIGN — the big, bright red letters are carved into the night of the concert, written in Bulgarian (or so the crowd sees). The crowd goes wild, tens of thousands begin to chant the words. Four years later: last week during the protests against the compromising of Poland’s judicial system by the state more than a hundred thousand people on the streets of Poland sang Pink Floyd alongside the national anthem and old anticommunist songs.

A proof that music and art with its electrifying force still have a role to play in the events of the hour, while forging an unbreakable bond within the hearts and convictions of millions.

Fifty years ago when The Beatles released All you need is Love, pop music was on the verge of turning into a tribune for voicing opinion on the world’s pains. And, boy, do they had them — the world has just been through two monstrous world wars, the Second one ending in a nuclear wreck. The War in Vietnam was only just beginning, the USSR was sending troops to China, Israel was in conflict with neighbors from the Arab world. The Berlin Wall was dividing Europe in two, and Europe itself was shaken by the frosty breath of the Cold War. While information was becoming more and more accessible with the development of Television, mankind was getting ready to conquer the Moon. And The Doors released the homonymous record in which an ever-obsessed by death Jim Morrison would resonate with the apocalyptic mood of the world, for This is the end, my only friend, the end.

67 proved to be a success for some but a staggering failure for others. The Velvet Underground breathed life into their collaboration with Nico. The record is a huge flop, drowning in Beatlemania and way ahead of its time, but in the dark depths of its content were seeded the future conflicts of the American nation and the world, which later turned it into a huge success.

In Heroin they’ll say: “I wish that I was born a thousand years ago/ I wish that I’d sailed the darkened seas”. That’s the face of music in the next decades: it will address fears, dreams, drugs, sex, the dissolution of the world, the war, politicians, peace, love. And The Beatles would christen the hyperbolized dream, for Love to cure the pains of humanity.

“The Soundtrack of the Summer of Love”, the record which would be a hit through the turbulent summer of 1967, presented love as a cure. A completely new concept, All you need is Love was criticized as a conscious intention to produce a pop-hit. What Lennon wanted was something entirely different — he needed to make it as simple as possible so that it can reach a wide audience in an ever-growing world in which physical borders seemed to tighten, but the digital ones were only just beginning their expansion.

Four satellites broadcasted the Our World gig to 24 countries while the audience held posters with the name of the song in different languages. In an era when world tours comprised of a handful of countries, this was considered quite the event. Beatles became the voice of a generation and the One World/One Love philosophy is a huge part of World history — both music and politics-wise.

What happens next? Soviet paranoia — the Communist regime was convinced that The Beatles are a weapon, developed specifically for the Cold War. The reason is their music — “the kids lost their interest in all Soviet unshakable dogmas and ideals and stopped thinking of English-speaking persons as the enemy”, stated Dr Yury Pelyoshonok, a Canadian doctor of Soviet studies who grew up in the Soviet Union.

American film director Milos Forman said: “I’m convinced the Beatles are partly responsible for the fall of communism.”

They would be the first in a long list of forbidden bands, which would be listened to in secrecy in the East and which, as proven by the protests in Poland, would become an anthem not only to a whole generation, but to an era, an idea for resistance and a dream for Democracy.

This dream lives on today. Some might argue that the utopian ideas of the 60s, 70s and 80s have failed us. And if the world sees such failure in the face of an ongoing crisis in the Middle East, illiberal far-right governments in Eastern Europe or Donald Trump — who Waters saluted as well at a gig in Mexico last year with the song Pigs based on Animal Farm by Orwell — maybe there is another side to the story.

Neil Young argues that “today music is presented as an entertainment […] not like a message to the soul.” And perhaps that’s true: today’s pop music is an escape from a reality many of us find too complicated, but a reality we should nevertheless face.

And when the moment for a revolution comes, it is inevitably a moment of rebirth. And once again we sing the music that will continue to start fires and turn them into firestorms. Half a century later.

Further reading & sources:

Roger Waters in a bold move agains the Bulgarian authorities (Bulgarian)

Anne Applebaum in a commentary on Polish protest for the Washington Post (English)

The Financial Times on the future of the utopian message of the Beatles and pop music (English)

The Beatles and Soviet Paranoia (English)

Neil Young’s thoughts

This article was originally published on Aug 30th 2017 in Bulgarian on www.terminal3.bg

Joanna M.

Written by

Joanna M.

A Bulgarian scribbling between the East and the West. International Relations/History @ Sorbonne University, Paris. Works @ Terminal3.bg

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