3. Songs of Social Protest and Lyrics

The focus of this chapter is the lyrical dimension of SSPs, that is, the aspect that tends to be analyzed most often within existing research on these repertoires. It is claimed here that the historical development of SSPs (which departs from early 19th century, when an appropriate and modern idea of “popular music” is established) was brought to completion during the 1960s, with the final establishment and overall dominance of four main typologies of lyrics: an analytical type, which discusses a topic in a detailed, focused way (generally during the strophes) and then generally offers a “tagline”-styled prescription (generally in the refrain); a spiritual type, which is emotionally involved but operatively passive, where the main “action plan” is that of asking, praying, waiting or hoping for social change; a universalistic type, a less analytical type of song, with a general, metaphorical (and sometimes anti-ideological and nihilist) lyrical approach, that however gains more on the side of the adaptability to various contexts of the message; and a satirical type, a category that may use any of the above strategies, plus specific ones, to a comic, sarcastic effect: as we know from the whole history of human art, satires and parodies have been among the most effective vehicles for social protest.