Inspired by Olivia Rodrigo: My 5 Favorite Examples of Musicians Standing Up for their Political Beliefs
Olivia Rodrigo, 2022
This week, Olivia Rodrigo spoke out in support of abortion rights onstage during her concert in Washington, D.C., addressing the intention of the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn Roe v. Wade. Since the initial draft majority opinion document was leaked and published by Politico last Monday, there have been protests and marches in major cities such as Nashville, Boston, New York, Dallas, and, of course, Washington D.C.; after demonstrating in front of the Supreme Court, pro-choice advocates organized protest outside conservative Supreme Court Justices’ homes. Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook have all been in an uproar, with celebrities, politicians, advocates, and everyone else all joining in on the rapidly escalating battle over women’s reproductive rights.
The 19-year old singer, who is definitely one of the posterchildren for TikTok’s impact on the music industry and its ability to launch users into stardom, addressed her sold-out crowd at the Anthem.
“Because we’re in D.C., I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to talk about how heartbroken I am over the Supreme Court’s potential decision,” Rodrigo said. “What a woman does with her body should never be in the hands of politicians.”
Rodrigo’s fanbase is primarily young women, so she’s preaching to the right crowd. However, once a video began circulating on Twitter, backlash surfaced. Aside from pro-lifers telling Rodrigo that her views supported murder and that it’s women’s fault for not ‘being responsible’, there were a number of critics who objected not to her views, but her choice to express them as an entertainer, at her own concert.
Twitter user @kenenbasha objected to the political interjection into a night meant for music.
Another user, @SeanDabomb2, expressed annoyance at a musical artist weighing in on politics.
Still yet another user expressed it even more succinctly:
These critics must have not realized that musicians taking political stands is a time-honored practice. Between the black artists who provided anthems for the civil rights movement, to the folk artists who created anti-Vietnam protest songs, to the anti-establishment garage rock bands of the ‘90s, artists have been expressing their political opinions and interweaving political messages into their songwriting for generations.
Here are my top five favorite examples of artists either speaking out about their beliefs, or incorporating their politics into their music.
Number One: Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” – 1939
This song, written as a poem by Jewish communist teacher and civil rights activist from the Bronx, Abel Meeropol, and performed by Billie Holiday, is a powerful protest anthem against the lynching of black people in the South. Holiday’s record label, Columbia, wouldn’t agree to record the song, so she went to the independent jazz record label Commodore Records in 1939. Despite radios in the South refusing to play the song, it sold one million copies and became the best-selling record of her career.
The song’s message, emphasized by its brutal and haunting lines, such as “Pastoral scene of the gallant South, the bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,” was extremely controversial. The song, and Holiday’s persistence in performing it, irked conservatives in the government, particularly Federal Bureau of Narcotics commissioner, Harry Anslinger. This man made it his mission to shut Holiday, and her song’s message, down. He ordered her to stop, and when she refused, he and his team set a series of domino effects in motion that would ultimately led to her early death at 44.
While the suffering of the black experience in America has been expressed through music since the times of slavery, “Strange Fruit” was the first major recorded song to deal with such issues. Ahmet Ertegun, the legendary music executive, hailed it as “a declaration of war” and “the beginning of the civil rights movement.”
Number Two: The Chicks, 2003 Denouncement of Bush and Invasion of Iraq during their Top of the World tour
The Chicks Entertainment Weekly cover, 2003
The Chicks, formally known as The Dixie Chicks, are a badass female pop/rock/country group that my mom raised me on. In March of 2003, the trio — frontwoman Natalie Maines and multi-instrumentalist sisters Martie Maguire and Emily Strayer — were starting off their Top of the World tour at the Shepherd's Bush Empire theater in London, England. Onstage, Maines addressed their London audience and said, “We're ashamed that the president of the United States is from Texas.”
This set off a storm of controversy and backlash; the group was blacklisted by thousands of radio stations, practically exiled from country music, and the members received death threats and hate. Maines issued an apology, but only a month later The Chicks posed for the cover of Entertainment Weekly, nude, with the slurs and names people had been hurling at them scrawled on their bodies; “Saddam’s Angels” and “Dixie Sluts” are two examples of the vitriol emblazoned across their skin.
Their next album to come out was 2006’s Taking the Long Way, preceded by its debut single “Not Ready to Make Nice”. Both the album and the single were fueled by the controversy; and as “Not Ready to Make Nice” clearly states, they were not apologetic for their anti-war and anti-Bush stance. The album was clearly a ‘F*ck You’ to their haters, and the sweetest part?
The album received the Grammy Award for Album of the Year, and its single "Not Ready to Make Nice" received the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and the Grammy Award for Song of the Year.
Number three: Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” – 1988
Bobby McFerrin, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” Vinyl single.
Bobby McFerrin was less than pleased when President George W. H. Bush used his song, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy”, during his 1988 election campaigning. McFerrin asked the Bush campaign to cut it out, only for Bush to express his personal love for the song. The president followed that up with an invitation to dinner, as well as to join the campaign trail. McFerrin not only rebuffed both of these invitations, but he actually stopped performing “Don’t Worry, Be Happy” altogether. In 2018, the artist gave an interview to Minnesota’s The StarTribune wherein he confirmed that he hadn’t performed the song for 30 years.
Along with Bruce Springsteen speaking out against Ronald Reagan using his song, “Born in the U.S.A”, during the prior presidential election cycle, McFerrin paved the way for musicians objecting to politicians using their songs, especially by taking it further than simply asking them to stop.
Number four: Gretchen Peters, “Independence Day” – 2008
Gretchen Peters, 2016
Another great example of the aforementioned ‘musicians taking their objection further than a simple request’ would be during the 2008 presidential campaign, when Gretchen Peters, songwriter of the powerful country ballad “Independence Day”, took action against her song being used to introduce Sarah Palin at a John McCain/Palin rally. The singer pointed out the horrible irony of a song about an abused woman taking back her freedom being used by a woman who would ban abortion, even in the cases of rape or incest, as her walk-on song. However, rather than sue the campaign to make them stop, Peters made the brilliant decision to donate all of the election season royalties from “Independence Day” to Planned Parenthood. She also encouraged others to make donations under Sarah Palin’s name. The organization raised over one million dollars during that period.
Number five: Neil Young, “Rockin’ in the Free World” – 2015
Neil Young, 2016
Donald Trump was playing Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World” during the beginning of his presidential campaign, and Young immediately hit back with a statement declaring that Trump was not authorized to use the song. Additionally, the statement said, “Neil Young, a Canadian citizen, is a supporter of Bernie Sanders for President of the United States of America.” The Trump administration stopped using the song out of respect for Young, but after that, Young turned around and offered use of the song to Bernie Sanders, who accepted. Sanders walked into a town hall meeting to the song that was denied to Donald Trump. It was a beautifully orchestrated move by Young, clearly demonstrating his preference for Sanders over Trump.