Tom Dunne: Carsie Blanton keeps the flame burning for protest songs
Carsie Blanton's song, Little Flame, mentions such figures as Bobby Sands, Bobby Seale and Joe Hill. Picture: Grattan Aikins
“Too many protest singers, not enough protest songs” sang Edwyn Collins in his 1994 hit It’s always hard to be sure what a writer has in his head, but I felt Edwyn was suggesting that there were performers in music who looked like they had something to say but really didn’t.
I got that. The 1990s was the age of the lad mags that fetishised footballers, expensive cars, fashion and Kate Moss. People were too busy having it large to register any political complaint. And with the Berlin Wall gone weren’t we living in the post-political age anyway? Just live in your house, your very big house in the country, and leave it at that.
