Music, Protest, and Sanctity




Musician/composers whose music is so closely identified with the 1960s and 1970s, have done more with their lyrics to raise our consciousness about peace and mutual understanding than many of those more closely associated with holiness in the twentieth century.

Melanie, Country Joe, Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan, Pete Seeger, Phil Ochs, Peter Paul & Mary, Crosby Stills & Nash, and so many others, became the poetic conscience of America in a time when bigotry and discrimination were the accepted standards for our society, when it was still considered just in some circles to “kill a Commie for Christ.”

Some were one-hit wonders; some looked scruffy and poor; some used the vernacular in their lyrics, to the consternation of those who wanted civility in entertainment. Others led personal lives that bordered on the dissolute. But their lyrics and their rhythms forced us to examine our collective conscience about war, segregation, oppression, our duty to the planet, and the myriad views we had accepted as normal.

In a time when the rhetoric of hate is once again being ratcheted up, not only in the media but also from the pulpit, it might be time for us to rethink the definition of sainthood.

As the vanguard of these folk- and protest singers begins to drop off, perhaps we could begin to acknowledge their goodness and the holiness of what they taught us, by redefining what it takes to be a saint