Illusion of Life: Music With a Message and a Mission

                                                

                                                                   Getty Images

While reading about the Illusion of Life in this module's reading material I came across congruent intensity patterns. The songs used to talk about congruent intensity patterns reminded me of protest songs. The songs I've chosen for this post use congruent intensity patterns to serve as types of protest songs for a variety of causes. Hozier's "Nina Cried Power", Miley Cyrus's "Mother's Daughter", and Robbie Robertson's "Ghost Dance".

All three of these songs talk about causes important to the artists and even though they are tied to causes connected to the times they were released, they can also be timeless. All three of these songs also contain "in-group" messages to rally people around a cause or mission. Hozier's "Nina Cried Power" is from the Nina Cried Power EP and was released in 2018. The song is reminiscent of protest songs from the 1960s and even shouts out artists like Nina Simone, Woody Guthrie, and John Lennon, and features Mavis Staples on vocals.

                                                    

                                                            Label: Columbia Records

Miley Cyrus's "Mother's Daughter" is from Cyrus's album She Is Coming which was released in 2019. The song centers around feminism and the plights of the LGBTQ+ community. Both are causes that are important to Miley Cyrus. Donations to her Happy Hippie Foundation go to fund programs that support homeless youth, LGBTQ+ youth, and other vulnerable populations. The song was released during a time when abortion rights were and still are under attack.

                                        

                                                               Label: RCA Records

Robbie Robertson's "Ghost Dance" is from the album companion to the television documentary The Native Americans in 1994. The song talks about the Ghost Dance and the government's reaction to it. The Ghost Dance, according to Britannica.com, is "Part of two distinct cults in a complex of late 19th-century movements that represented an attempt of Native Americans in the western United States to rehabilitate their traditional cultures. Both cults arose from northern Paiute prophet-dreamers who announced the imminent return of the dead, the ousting of the whites, and the restoration of Native American lands, etc."

                                                    

                                                                Label: Capitol Records

What are some of your favorite protest songs?