This Land Is Their Land Too

Yesterday on CNN's Crossfire co-hosts Tucker Carlson and Donna Brazile had Vic Kamber, a democratic strategist, and L. Brent Boswell III, the founder of the conservative Media Research Center, on for a pseudo-lively discussion on whether or not songwriters should keep their mouths shut in regards to national politics.

BOZELL: I'm reminded that muzzles, dog muzzles, for people's mouths sometimes are a very good thing.

Following the recent forced controversey regarding Linda Ronstadt's remarks at the Alladin, there seems to be a desire from the political right to marginalize the opinions of artists or "entertainers" so that their thoughts are perceived as coming from an uninformed or possibly less-than-literate party who is merely trying to sell records or concert tickets. The fact that the twenty acts lined up for this MoveOn tour raising money for Democratic candidates are, artistically, a fairly hefty bunch is causing some consternation in conservatives who are not as able to counter in this particular arena with symetrical force.

But songwriters, singers, and musicians are always going to be avatars of social change. They travel the country in caravans not every election year but each and every year carrying large public address systems. In the words of Ronald Reagan, they "paid for this microphone." Part of the job of being onstage in front of a group of strangers is to create a sense of instant community and to try to make your art speak to and for the people as much as possible. Artists who have a body of work spanning more than 15 minutes inherently have achieved a position to speak from that is not easily discounted. Moreover, they risk alienating some fans and have more to lose in staking a position than the average citizen. But they needn't be muzzled or denigrated by speaking their views. It is part of their job and part of their tradition.

Woody Guthrie wrote on his guitar "This Instrument Kills Fascists", and he wrote of social injustice in songs, prose, poetry, and even in drawings. In doing so, he evoked the message of the troubadour who were perhaps the first pundits. When Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Brown, Bruce Springsteen, REM and others wish to address something about society that concerns them, the medium of song and the locale of the stage is altogether appropriate. When Bob Dylan wrote "With God On Our Side" and "Masters of War", he made an artistic statement that outlived all the speeches explaining the "domino effect." He lived up to a moral responsibility for artists to create consciousness out of chaos and to serve up something with a point of view rather than some treacle that will move product.

The Right shouldn't worry so much. If the policies of George Bush are sound and the nation is resolved in its present course, then all the minstrelsy in the world will fail to persuade The People. If songwriters are writing songs of discontent and finding a wide audience willing to listen, then there is something out there that probably needs to be spoken. The artists can only speak from the stage into a microphone connected to 15,000 to 20,000 watts of power; The People have the power of the ballot box which can transform a nation.