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On
10 July 2003, Big Hope: Miklos Erhardt and Dominic Hislop, recorded
a telephone interview with Glasgow based artist, Ross Birrell, for
the programme 'Protest
Songbook',
broadcast on Radio Helsinki, Graz on 11 July 2003. BH:
To what extent do you feel songs can be political? RB:
I suppose that depends on either the specific content of a song but
sometimes a song can become political or politicised through its appropriation
by a specific movement or in dealing with a specific context. BH:
Can you think of an example of that? RB:
No, not quite. Also those contexts are open so I think anything can
become potentially politicised, can be turned against its own meaning.
So you can play something which in one context can be taken straight
and in another context it might be ironised. I can't think of a specific
example at the moment but I think that the potential is always there
for either artwork or music to be recontextualised and politicised
in a different way and also artists and musicians do the same with
aspects of culture in general so I suppose one argument could be that
all art and all music is political regardless of its specific content
because its produced either in a capitalist society or that it's funded
or supported by a particular class or market or whatever. So you can't
escape politics from that particular point of view but I think that's
a structural analysis of the economic structure of art and culture
and music in this late capitalist western society. So I think if we're
going to think seriously about it as a question you would have to
come down on the fact that you can't escape the political context
of your work regardless of whether you feel you have a direct political
comment or voice. BH:
Do you think that political songs actually have an impact on people,
in shaping their political consciousness or they just reaffirm existing
values and views? RB:
I definitely think that songs that appeal to a broad sentiment for
change like say Lennon's songs - "Give Peace a Chance" or
"Power to the People" - simplistic, sloganistic songs that
are actually heartfelt emotions that can be chanted in any context
then they do definitely create an atmosphere where change or the potential
for change becomes realisable and therefore gives spirit to a movement.
I think all protest movements or all political forces for change need
to have an old fashioned thing called morale and an idea that an ideal
can be realised or else what's the point of getting involved in social
action. Having said that there is still a context in which protest
songs are produced and that they are an appeal for change but that
they also appeal to a market so they are recorded, packaged and sold
by an artist as a commodity in a particular market so even though
you are appealing to a broad based collective notion of change you
still have a notion of an individual creative subject which is actually
a reproduction of a subjectivity which is actually appealing
to a capitalist consumerist market so there is a contradiction latent
within that position. But both I think are effective within their
fields. One is effective for a broad collective social change when
it's performed in the street, and another one is effective in producing
a valuable commodity which maybe suggests that the person who's buying
it is attuned to social resistances, political movements outside their
bedroom, but they also effecively produce lots of money for people
like Lennon but that's twenty odd years ago. BH:
I can think of some examples of songs that changed people's behaviour
in some way, like for example The Smiths "Meat is Murder".
I remember from around that time a lot of people suddenly became very
conscious of eating meat and became vegetarians. Also another song
was Minor Threat's "Straight Edge" I remember quite a lot
of people took on this 'straight edge' identity that involved a strict
policy of no alcohol, drugs or casual sex so that the individual would
be more focussed on political tasks and not distracted by these excesses
typical of the rock and roll tradition. Do you think that these kind
of changes are just a part of forming an identity along with a pop
group that also happens in the same way with David Bowie wearing a
certain pair of trousers or Madonna getting a new haircut that thousands
of people would follow or on a smaller scale than the larger changes
aspired to in the Lennon songs you mentioned, are these examples that
some small changes can actually be inspired by songs? RB:
I suppose there is a relationship between pop and proselytizing. They
can be effective in single issue based politics or affecting lifestyle
changes particularly I suppose if you are an adolescent and you're
trying to assert difference, pop music is a conventional way that
people do that. It's also where you assert your economic difference
because you're buying a particular commodity which situates you either
differently from your schoolfriends or your parents and that can come
down to choices of vegetarianism or other things I suppose. Personally
I wouldn't proselytize against either alcohol, drugs, sex or meat
but then that's just where me and Morrissey differ. I suppose Jenny
Holzer's slogan:'the abuse of power comes as no surprise' comes to
mind when you think about pop stars taking the stage and peddling
their tuppenceworth in relation to politics. There was the example
during the recent anti-war protest and marches that were promoted
by members of Blur and Massive Attack. When you listen to the actual
political analysis that was involved, it was actually quite weak and
slogan led but having said that, there was at least an insistence
upon organisation and at least they had access to the media which
was a kind of feedback so that there is a role to be played - I think
we have to guard against ego continuously. BH:
Can you say that that is an abuse of power? You could argue that in
that position, there's a responsibility to use it. RB:
Good question. I think it's a difficult line to tread, I mean I'm
not in that position myself, so I wouldn't know the motivations...It
is a difficult question because if you're in that position yourself,
the choice is either silence and acquiesence with power or interruption
and resistance and you're always going to open yourself up to those
charges of egotism if you do speak up in those circumstances. Certainly
in response to an earlier question about songs that change you, there
were other artists in Britain like Billy Bragg, who was very important
and influential and especially throughout the Thatcher government
and the miners strike. He articulated in song some very important
criticisms of government policy in an ironic; way but he was also
a very good writer of love songs as well, so you can't kind of compartmentalise
creativity in relation to politics in that respect. so you wouldn't
associate Blur or Massive attack with political songs but when they
actually stand outside of their relationship to pop music, in terms
of organisers they maybe have some more political efficacy than their
music does. BH:
In some ways it's probably a bit of a sacrifice for some of these
guys because while I think it's important that the public can have
some well known figure taking an oppositional stance to identify with,
for a lot of these figures who take on that role by entering the everyday
world of politics they risk losing an aloof coolness and distance
from reality that could be part of their appeal. RB:
I suppose the question then is whether that direct articulation of
a political belief somehow destroys the aura or charisma of the artist
as somehow enigmatic and in a sense 'not of this world' and not engaged
in direct political questions, even at a regional or local level,
and they start to become politicians, not in an idealistic sense of
politics but in a mundane, everyday notion of politics. But I think
these people actually still enter into politics at a level of idealism,
and where art and creativity and music connects with politics most
'successfully' is at the level of idealism, because idealism I suppose
by definition can't necessarily be judged on notions of social efficacy
or political outcomes because idealism has to appeal beyond those
notions of outcomes and efficacy because idealism thrives upon notions
of attainability in the future or attainabiliy through collective
action which has to be willed into existence and that means focussing
on grand visions I suppose rather than particularities. BH:
The sense that great political change could be achieved that characterised
the political movements of the sixties and seventies seemed to dissipate
through the eighties and nineties. Do you think that's reflected in
popular music and are there less political songs around these days? RB:
I'm going to side-step that and say that certainly in the last couple
of years I've seen a reemergence of more politicised art practice
from a younger generation of artists, whereas certainly in Britain
during the late eighties and early nineties there was a high gloss,
object based, de-politicized practice which emerged contradictorily
to a highly politicised educational environment and a deeply entrenched,
divisive political and cultural field. Some sort of shift has taken
place, or maybe a watershed, I don't know what that point might have
been but political art was deemed to be uncool and then it's suddenly
come to the fore again. You can talk about politics and art again
whereas it seemed to be something tiresome and ideologically entrenched
when we were supposed to be in a post ideological age and it didn't
matter anymore, it was all just this liberal market. I suppose that
was after 1993 and the publication of Fukuyama's
text "The End of History" that ideology and politics didn't
matter anymore, you could forget about it, you could just bask in
the glory of capitalism. I think that now with a resurgence of anti-globalisation
and anti-capitalist movements then art is feeding into those discourses
and those agendas. Music is also part of that culture. I don't personally
tend to listen to overtly politicised music anymore, well not that
I ever did, but I come across direcly politicised songs like the Magnetic
Fields song "World Love" that I was listening to. It's just
this delicate, gentle song but it actually has quite subversive lyrics.
It's in an album called "69 Love Songs", so in an album
full of love songs you get this one song which is still about love,
but it's not a chant, it's not a slogan, it's just this delicate little
song which is quite close to the kind of political poetry that Paolo
Neruda wrote as well. There are differences in how you can look at
whether you're asking for a broad cultural shift to be discerned from
apolitical to overtly political music or art, I think it's difficult
to talk about that in any kind of degree of certainty. BH:
Yeah, I'm in a similar position to yourself there because my main
activity is being an artist and my work is usually within some sort
of social or political fields and I'm also a musician in a much more
amatuer way, but it's an important part of my creativity as well,
but I see the two things quite differently. I find it interesting
that I have this interest in social and political issues in the art
that I make and also the art that I'm interested in, but within that
other creative sphere of music, it's much more of an emotional outlet
for me. From the music that I listen to maybe 0.5% has some reference
to anything political. You also make art that refers to social political
contexts and write songs and lyrics. How do the two differ for you? RB:
Well, I suppose, first of all Nietzsche says "without music life
would be a mistake" and I suppose without art life would just
be...a bit longer. Yeah
I do write lyrics but not very many. I minimise the lyrics that I
write but when I write songs, only one or two seem to be directly
related to a political context or a social situation, it's more about
a good old fashioned thing of self expression and energy. I'm more
interested in sounds and noise, although I don't make experimental
avant-guarde music. The music I make, you would probably put in a
category of 'indie pop' which is probably where upper working-class,
lower middle-class white boys hang around in a garage and get depressed
and I suppose it's quite clearly something which relates to Britain
and America as a kind of angst-ridden suburban generation thing which
is kind of antagonistic towards the values of capitalism so it appeals
towards people to self produce this kind of music rather than consume
washed out urbane manufactured pop music, so it is political in relation
to the fact that it has an affiliation to a music that's produced
rather than being manufactured, so that's a kind of spirit that you
make or write music in. But even then, it's a misnomer to think that
it's not a marketed, highly commercialised product and has a market
and all the rest of it. I make music but like yourself I'm an amatuer,
I'm not involved in the music industry. I am involved I suppose in
the art industry in a small degree. The art I make is a lot more self
conscious. It's not freehand self expression. It's to do with appropriating
objects, titles, mainly books and things like that which have a political
context and are site specific, so it's kind of honed and self conscious
and filtered through a knowledge and tradition of aesthetics and politics
in conceptual art practice and the way that I make music isn't. I
suppose it's more raw. I would feel that but I suppose that's because
I'm just not talented. Jaques
Atali who wrote a book called "Noise, the Political Economy of
Music" said something interesting "music is a herald for
changes inscribed in noise faster than it transforms society. Listening
to music is listening to all noise, realising that its appropriation
and control is a reflection of power that is essentially political"
His is quite a strong economically driven analysis of the production
of music. I think his book's about 20 years old now but I think there
are positions out there which have been articulated quite clearly
where music can be a source for political reaction but more importantly
where it can be a source for political change and transformation and
how the definitions of music can be challenged and what constitutes
music is actually maybe more political than a political song. To challenge
what constitutes music in our culture can be equally as political
as writing a protest song in a traditional folk genre. BH:
You referred a bit earlier to boys in the garage producing their own
culture as being a political act in its stepping out of modes of consumption.
I always remember having a sense of injustice in the world from a
young age simply by watching 'Top of the Pops' and noticing that a
band that I really liked that had gone straight into the charts at
number 5 didn't appear and that some mainstream pop song was on instead.
I just remember a sense that mainstream culture was trying to block
some rougue elements - that I really identified with - that were a
bit independent from and outside the more controllable norms of the
industry. RB:
It's an old one, I don't think Lennon ever played 'Top of the Pops'.
The Clash too. I think there's a certain nobility in that tradition,
a kind of purist antagonistic position to blatant consumerism and
the commecialisation of creativity in mainstream capitalist culture.
That obviously that takes place, but at the same time, it is one of
things that when you come home from school, you would stick on 'Top
of the Pops' in the hope that some band like Echo and the Bunnymen
or something like that were on it, that you could identify with, that
were playing something that 'you could relate
to, that was remotely akin to to what you were attuned to.
So the retreat from that space, which is actually a communicative
space in that it has a market in every living room in the land, to
not take that stage, is problematic as well. It's a question of whether
you attack from the outside or whether you attack from the inside.
I suppose the KLF would be a primary example of a group who tried
to implode the music industry from the inside, at the same time as
making a lot of money, but when they entered into the art world as
the K-Foundation, they tried to attack it from the outside and both
strategies were equally futile but at the same time, it was very entertaining
watching them do it. It was like this feedback sysytem where it showed
the system to itself but to the viewers and the audience at the same
time. I think the real thing is about audience because what we're
talking about when we're talking about buying a guitar or whatever
instrument or buying a couple of decks, it moves you from a notion
of an audience and consumer to a producer of your own culture, and
that means finding your voice and articulating your voice. Even if
you emulate another voice at that age, I think that's fine, it's about
production of your culture rather than consumption of it. Any means
or mode or mechanism which enables that or catalyst towards that is
the first step towards transforming society. If you can transform
the culture around you, then you can transform the society around
you. BH:
What do you think about the role of the traditional protest song in
relation to contemporary pop music? RB:
Well, I suppose first of all we have to acknowledge that protest songs
are popular music. If they weren't popular, then they wouldn't be
effective as protest songs, so I think that's the first thing. That
then introduces a dialectic between the protest song as opposition
and the protest song as commodity for consumption in a market, so
if a protest song is antagonistic towards capitalism, say something
like Billy Bragg or John Lennon or a whole host of writers of protest
songs or bands that set themselves up as antagonistic, like say Chumbawumba
in Britain or Public Enemy which are antagonistic towards a particular
cultural condition, then they are on the one hand antagonistic and
on the other hand, they are commodities with a market, so they are
popular music. So first of all, we can't escape that, so I suppose
the effectiveness then is that they're inspirational. Protest songs
have to be inspirational. They have to inspire individuals to collective
action and they do that first of all through consciousness raising
by appealing to a vague sensation of social injustice and that somehow
captures a mood because music is very good at capturing moods and
emotions, far more so, I think than art. The immediacy of music is
unquestionable. I think that's why we like it so much. It's like a
drug, it gives an immediate mood swing. An upper or a downer and you
can adjust the level with music, in the same way that you can with
drugs or alcohol and I think that's it's efficacy in that way, so
protest songs do that on a collective scale. They also articulate
dissent and promote change through a kind of wide impact level, not
through the traditional voice of the politican but in a language which
can actually speak to a range of people on levels and in a vocabulary
that I think people can understand. I think that's another way that
they can articulate dissent in a different way. Another thing is that
the form in which the protest song is produced, I think is problematic,
or can be because of this relation to the market. My understanding,
and I suppose a lot of people's understanding of what is a protest
song is a guy in a woolly jumper with an acoustic guitar on his own
or a woman at Woodstock singing about parking lots, so the individual,
or the individualised creative subject is left intact. I think I said
that before. There is a contradiction in that then, that has a direct
equivalent to the unified subject who is interpolated by the ideology
of capitalism. So I think there is a contradiction about who is talking
to who and who's buying who, so even, you could say a band which uses
a mode or means of musical production which challenges the unified
subject is a political protest, so something like scratch music or
sampling questions the integrity of the unified authorial subject
and that's equally political but then I suppose you could say that
hip-hop and sampling are now the dominant modes of musical production
and they don't resist or react against the apparatus of capitalism,
they merely modify it and the modification of that apparatus does
not constitute the destruction of that apparatus. Where a real potential
for the destruction of, or to stand outside the apparatus of capitalism
is actually the chanting in the street. The singing of protest songs
collectively on a march, is not bought and sold as a commodity, it's
a shared experience, so some of these have roots in folk music traditions,
something which is actually quite conservative, but has subversive
potentials. I think what can be said there is that until relatively
recently, the folk song tradition was unrecorded and uncommodified,
in terms of an oral tradition, not in terms of a popular folk tradition
in America or something like that although it has it's definite efficacy
and strands there such as Woody Guthrie, etc. This idea of a collective
folk song actually stands outside the apparatus of capitalism and
it's real relationship is not to the commodity but to the gift and
to exchange and to a legacy, something that's freely exchanged, so
if you think the protest song on the one hand which is a record, a
seven inch single like "God Save the Queen" or something
like that could be seen as a critical commodity, it's still a commodity
on the one hand, it's blocked out at number one or it's seen as antagonistic
towards the establishment, so you've got a notion of critical commodity.
Or a hip-hop song song or something which is sampled and put together
which breaks every copyright law in the book, is also a critical commodity
in that it interupts and challenges the market in which it situates
itself. I think we cannot say there are critical commodities anymore,
there are only commodities, but by trying to stand outside the notion
of commodity, the protest song, when sung in the street maintains
its antagonistic relationship to the market. And that I think is a
potential source for change. It appeals to this logic of the gift. BH:
Earlier, when you were talking about your own art practice as having
a political element to its content and about music as being a much
more immediate thing where you want it to express something more emotional
or just experiment with sounds. In that sense those sounds and emotions
are the equivalent to something much more aesthetic and I just wanted
to ask why you find aesthetics tolerable in music but not in art? RB:
I suppose the answer to that is that I don't see it that way. I don't
see it as aesthetics, I know it is and maybe it's just bad faith on
my part that I don't see it as aesthetic because say somebody like
John Cage is experimenting with sound in a very formalist environment
and his politics resides in his aesthetics, I mean he says he's an
anarchist and for the liberation of noise and self determination of
sound as his principle. It is an aesthetic principle, but that's where
his politics reside and that's fair enough. I don't necessarily see
it that way. I don't frame it in that purist way and I suppose aesthetics
have to be framed in some respect. So, although, it's a good question,
I don't analyse it in the same way and criticise it in the same way
as I would be self critical before anything in the artwork got to
a public although some people might argue that 'you're not self critical
enough mate'. I also sing and it's not necessarily what I'm saying,
it's how you sing the emotions that you can put into the voice and
the body is very important in the performance of music. Although I
show artwork, I make performative actions which are recorded on video,
my body is absent, so that my absence is actually crucial to how something
is mediated, whereas when I'm trying to play music, I'm never happy
with recordings, I always want it to be a live event. I think it's
all about the expression you put towards an audience. Whereas I've
moved away from an inter-relationship with a live audience in art,
because I started off doing performances like that, I retain it in
music, I always want to play music before an audience, because it's
more of a shared thing where you can actually feel something in an
atmosphere, whereas in an artwork, I'm absent and deliberately so.
I think there's more of an old fashioned notion of walking into a
gallery and being contemplative and allowing yourself to be aesthetically
moved and think 'pure visual pleasure' but also maybe have something
to analyse and contemplate like a particular social or political concern
which the artist is trying to deal with in one way or another, more
or less successfully. But in music I think it's about engagement in
a different way. I think it's about being in the same place at the
same time and going through something like a live gig experience.
There's something about the way that you hear a particular note played,
analysis or contemplation is not the right thing, it's more an active
engagement with an audience. So I think that if something is being
played well, you know it, you feel it collectively in an atmosphere.
I suppose it's like theatre performances, I'm less interested in that
as a genre anyway but people say they can feel the audience. I suppose
it's more like stand up comedy. I suppose the next question you should
be looking at is stand up comics because that is an arena where you
have a similar notion of performance with an audience and you've got
stand up comics actually talking about political, cultural events,
analysing, satirising them and it's as much an art form as music or
visual art and stand-up acts like Lenny
Bruce'. I suppose that when we were growing up it was the alternative comics on Saturday Night Live, mixing
savage satire with cabaret entertainment, with bands playing
so there was a real vibrancy to it and an energy and I think that
energy is important. I suppose that's what protest songs do, they
give you an energy and a buzz in that way that sometimes a good stand
up comic will do. Ross
Birrell is a Glasgow based artist and lecturer of Critical and Historical
Studies at Glasgow School of Art. |