Our Subversive Voice is a new book that traces the history of the English protest song over five centuries. It examines its rhetorical forms of the genre and explores the conditions of its genesis.
Whether accompanying a march, a sit-in or a confrontation with police, songs and protest are inextricably linked. As a tool for political activism the protest song spells out the issues at the heart of each cause. Over a surprisingly long history it has been used to spread ideas, inspire political imagination and motivate political action.
The protest song is – and has always been – a form of political oratory as vital to political representation as it is to performance. This examination shows how, over this time period, the protest song is not merely the preserve of singer-songwriters but a mode of political communication that has been used to confront many systems of oppression across its many forms, from street ballads to art song, grime to hymns, and music hall to punk. The book recounts how these songs have addressed discrimination and inequality, exploitation and the environment, and immigration and identity, and how institutions and organizations have sought both to facilitate and to suppress them.
Drawing on a large and diverse corpus of songwriters, this book argues that song does more than accompany protest: it choreographs and communicates it.
Our Subversive Voice shows, reveals establishes the protest song as an enduring, affecting and effective means of expression. It is an essential element in understanding the drive to create political change, both in the past and for the future.
McGill-Queen's University Press, 312pp, 15 x 23cm, illustrated hardcover, first edition, 2025
