Most everyone has heard of Bob Dylan, but what about the many other folk protest singers just as famous in their respective countries: Victor Jara in Chile, Vladimir Vysotsky in the Russian-speaking world, or Wolf Biermann for the German. Here we explore the global folk protest singer as rooted in the existentialist philosophy of Albert Camus. The authenticity of the voice as the agency of the artist is nowhere clearer than in this musical genre once globally dominant.

The Folk Revival is the most iconic modern case of music and politics intertwined. It presents a vital master class in how music can advance and support political change. The dominant musical form of this era, the lone voice with a folk guitar, took on a global import and proved remarkably transferable, with leading figures in countries, from Chile to East Germany to Russia, far afield from the United States. Though tragically incapacitated at the time his form became dominant, Woody Guthrie did more to craft this musical form than any other. He set the template, and was imitated, some might say usurped by Bob Dylan and then those several others who became known as the “Bob Dylans” of their countries.

This musical form itself is a signal of a protest against industrial-technical modernity. The unadorned, basic folk acoustic guitar with an earnest, direct form of vocal delivery is the musical equivalent of walking barefoot. (The most renowned female singer of this movement, Joan Baez, was well known for doing just this actually.) It is a return to the earth and turning away from the electrical, to something more age old. Politically, it became tied to a recognition of the fundamental shortcomings of bourgeois liberalism and the emptiness of its civic and political promises of fulfillment, which necessitated the civil rights movement. This singular affinity of music to political program, is not merely due to the harmonically basic formula of “three chords and the truth,” but rather to the structure of the folk song itself.

The thesis I offer as to why the folk revival and civil rights, e.g. peaceful forms of civic disobedience became so inexorably tied, is that the folk song is the closest thing that exists musically to a thesis statement or political argument. Short, linear and single-minded, as E.L. Doctorow said, these elements of brevity makes it instantly accessible as no other form is. The structure of these songs exists to make a premise fundamentally more convincing. A specific position is presented and then reinforced in the chorus, often with the added connotation of an exhortation. The critical difference that distinguishes the folk song from the popular song is the absence of what is known as the “bridge” or “middle eight” (referring to 8 bars) a section of the popular song that departs from the standard verse-chorus transition. This bridge section is an interlude, a journey away or even a distraction from the pointedness of the verse and chorus. It has a theatrical function and effect, adds a degree of drama, harmonic unpredictability and surprise that is so characteristic of popular entertainment music. It provides a third space for meta-reflection, for a rethinking of the song text within itself. Folk, by contrast, is all about focus and concentration and generally eschews any concession to theatricality. Folk is word driven music, with a background that is calm and almost predictable, like a humming in instrumental form.