Popular music, social protest and their semiotic implications

Abstract

The goal of this article is to discuss the relationship between popular music (song writing, in particular) and issues of social protest, as portrayed in the various repertoires. The interface of the analysis is of a semiotic type, and the steps will follow a path that goes from problematizing the issue as such (with an emphasis on the current difficulties of identifying protest songs in terms of "genre"), to the definition of those stylistic elements pertaining to the context (in/for which these songs are written and/or played), the themes (as appearing from the lyrics) and the music itself (with the implication that the latter aspect is normally underrated in its significance, within such a process).