Do you mean “why write a blog called This Machine Births Change” or are you asking why this machine births change? Or even possibly, and much more importantly, how? Or perhaps you’re asking why I’m devoting all my musical energy this year to making music in protest? Big questions. I’m glad you asked.
You probably know the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists”, which Woody Guthrie (often credited as the artist who created protest music as a genre) painted on every single one of his guitars. The meaning? Simple:
“This machine” = The guitar
Folk musicians use guitars to the sing songs of the people
“Kills fascists” = Fascism cannot live whilst the music of the people thrives
Is the music of the people thriving today? Try turning on the (UK) radio and see if you hear any protest songs… anything? Ok, well, try leaving it on all day… anything? Do you hear songs like Bob Marley’s Get Up Stand Up (for your rights), Woody Guthrie’s This Land is Your Land? Probably not. In fact, definitely not. Where is the soundtrack to this revolution? Where is the soundtrack to the climate crisis?
Sure this soundtrack exists, and since you’re the kind of person to be reading this blog, you’re probably already listing all the underground activist artists you can think of right now. But this soundtrack is not coming through mainstream channels anymore, whereas it was before. Yes it’s true that in 1977 The Sex Pistols’ God Save The Queen was banned by the BBC, but by that time it had already reached no.2 in the UK charts, meaning that it was being broadcast on mainstream channels until the ban. Whether you like the song or not (God save the queen, the fascist regime…) can you imagine hearing a song like that on Radio 1 today?
Why am I devoting this year to making climate protest music? Well, because we need it. And, because the system is so broken that songs about things that really matter to us are not able to thrive. When it’s plain for all to see that climate change is the biggest issue we face today and yet it’s almost impossible to find a song about it on the Radio/TV/Streaming Charts, then something is seriously wrong. Every day, people in the UK also worry about the energy crisis and the impossibly skyrocketing cost of living, but these issues too are entirely missing from the charts.
Looking through the Streaming Top 100 earlier today, I thought for a moment that I had found a climate themed song after all! Could Big Energy by Latto possibly be a political rant against Shell’s criminally out of control profits and polluting of the planet? Er.. no, turns out it’s a song about enormous psychic genitals.
So where is the soundtrack for this revolution? If it isn’t coming through the Major Labels, or even through 99% of the Minor ones, then it’s up to us independent artists and grassroots musicians to make it. And so I’m making a start.
Apart from anything else, I need protest music. I also need songs about anything besides love, sex and enormous genitals to stop being called ‘protest music’ or ‘activism’ and start being called just ‘music’. And I don’t need all songs to be about climate change, I just want to see a response that’s proportional to what a big deal the issue is, otherwise the entire music industry becomes like the jazz singer crooning My Funny Valentine on the deck of the sinking Titanic.
So, for all of the above reasons, I’m devoting 2023 to writing and performing music for protest. I chose the phrase “This Machine Births Change” (to paint on my guitar and as the title of this blog) instead of “This Machine Kills Fascists” because what we’re facing today isn’t as clear cut as the idea of fighting fascism was in the 1940s. It’s not as simple as finding your enemy and eliminating them. The reality is that we live in a broken system like fish in water, unable to see another way of living. We’re watching the water get murkier and cloudier because we’re polluting it, but the more polluted it gets, the harder it gets for us to see clearly and see what to do to put it right. Our problem is not one that can be solved by killing an enemy. Instead, every single thing about how we all live our lives must change. We have to imagine, feel and birth something entirely new. We as musicians must strive to make music that feels like we want the future to feel – music that births change for the better. It’s ok to promise to do that without knowing how – in fact, we have to. We have to trust that along the way we will find the way. Who’s with me?
This Machine Births Change 
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