Dorian Lynskey

Dorian Lynskey is a writer who has managed to find interesting and useful ways to write about song.

Dorian Lynskey is a music writer for the Guardian. He was the Big Issue's music critic for three years and has freelanced for a host of magazines, currently including Word and Blender.

His recent book,

33 Revolutions Per Minute

by Dorian Lynskey

published by Faber & Faber, 2011

explores the history and the practice of what he calls the 'protest song'...

Some links and extracts, pasted in below...

1.

What makes a great protest song?

In this extract from his new history of the genre, Dorian Lynskey looks at the ingredients needed to make a great protest song

The phrase "protest song" is problematic. Many artists have seen it as a box in which they might find themselves trapped. Barry McGuire, who sang the genre-defining 1965 hit Eve of Destruction, protested: "It's not exactly a protest song. It's merely a song about current events." Bob Dylan told his audience, shortly before performing Blowin' in the Wind for the first time: "This here ain't a protest song."

There are good reasons why the term is regarded with suspicion. Protest songs are rendered a disservice as much by undiscerning fans as by their harshest critics. While detractors dismiss all examples as didactic, crass or plain boring, enthusiasts are prone to acting as if virtuous intent suspends the usual standards of musical quality, when any music lover knows that people make bad records for the right reasons and good records for the wrong ones.

It makes sense to treat protest songs first and foremost as pop music. ..

SOURCE AND FULL TEXT AT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/16/what-makes-a-great-protest-song

2.

Dorian Lynskey's blog page

http://33revolutionsperminute.wordpress.com/

3.

An extract from the 33 Revolutions Per Minute book, giving a good idea of his approach...

Strange Fruit: the first great protest song

Billie Holiday's 1939 song about racist lynchings stunned audiences and redefined popular music. In an extract from 33 Revolutions Per Minute, his history of protest songs, Dorian Lynskey explores the chilling power of Strange Fruit

It is a clear, fresh New York night in March 1939. You're on a date and you've decided to investigate a new club in a former speakeasy on West 4th Street: Cafe Society, which calls itself "The Wrong Place for the Right People". Even if you don't get the gag on the way in – the doormen wear tattered clothes – then the penny drops when you enter the L-shaped, 200-capacity basement and see the satirical murals spoofing Manhattan's high-society swells. Unusually for a New York nightclub, black patrons are not just welcomed but privileged with the best seats in the house.

You've heard the buzz about the resident singer, a 23-year-old black woman called Billie Holiday who made her name up in Harlem with Count Basie's band. She has golden-brown, almost Polynesian skin, a ripe figure and a single gardenia in her hair. She has a way of owning the room, but she's not flashy. Her voice is plump and pleasure-seeking, prodding and caressing a song until it yields more delights than its author had intended, bringing a spark of vivacity and a measure of cool to even the hokier material.

And then it happens. The house lights go down, leaving Holiday illuminated by the hard, white beam of a single spotlight.

She begins her final number.

"Southern trees bear a strange fruit."

SOURCE AND FULL TEXT AT

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/feb/16/protest-songs-billie-holiday-strange-fruit?INTCMP=SRCH