This Is Pop (2021) s01e07 Episode Script
What Can a Song Do?
[police sirens wailing]
[crowd shouting faintly]
[shouting swells]
["Nina Cried Power" by Hozier playing]
It's not the wakin', it's the risin' ♪
It is the groundin'
Of a foot uncompromisin' ♪
[man 1] There are
always people who abuse power.
Not just people on the right,
people on the left,
people in the middle, anywhere.
[clamoring]
[man 1] But there are people
who don't want to be part of this
and who are fighting back.
And one of the ways of fighting back
is to write and sing songs.
It's not the song, it is the singin' ♪
It's the heaven
Of the human spirit ringin' ♪
[man 2] By itself,
a song is not going to stop
racism or violence and hatred.
We're in a moment now in which
violence and racism are back on the rise.
- Oh, I could cry power ♪
- Power ♪
[crowd yelling]
[man 3] It'd be great
if a song could change the world.
I know, everyone would love that,
but that's not what it does.
Music has no agency.
Only people have agency.
So, okay,
what can a song do?
Billie, power
Dylan, power ♪
Woody, power ♪
Nina cried power ♪
- [sirens wailing]
- [shouting]
[screaming echoes]
- [siren wails]
- [cars honk]
[traffic sounds]
[Hozier] Writing songs
and putting them out there into the world
is serious business.
When you think about a song as a vehicle
and what that vehicle can carry,
a song can be
a very, very important medium
for spreading a message.
For example,
it can remind institutionalized power
where true power lies.
That it's with the people.
[spray paint can softly rattling]
["Fight the Power"
by Public Enemy playing]
[crowd chanting] Go, go, go, go, go!
- 1989 the number another summer ♪
- Get down ♪
Sound of the funky drummer ♪
Music hitting your heart
'Cause I know you got soul ♪
- Brothers and sisters ♪
- Hey ♪
Listen if you're missing, y'all ♪
- Swinging while I'm singing ♪
- Hey ♪
Giving what you're getting ♪
Knowing what I know
And while the Black band's sweating ♪
And the rhythm rhymes rolling ♪
- Got to give us what we want ♪
- Uh! ♪
- Gotta give us what we need ♪
- Hey ♪
Our freedom of speech
Is freedom or death ♪
We got to fight the powers that be ♪
Fight the power ♪
[Chuck D] In the '80s in New York,
we had our own circumstances
and situations.
When Black people screamed
and said that this was a problem,
white America, like it always does,
doesn't pick up on it
because they don't care about it
until it becomes a problem.
You can scream as loud as you want,
but until you break some windows,
that's when they say,
"Oh, we've gotta do something about this."
It's like American pie.
No we're not the same
'Cause we don't know the game ♪
What we need is awareness
We can't get careless ♪
You say, "What is this?" ♪
With the racial and ethnic strife
happening under the mayoralty of Ed Koch
in the '80s New York City,
there were a number of prominent incidents
that we all remember and were ignited by.
There was a graffiti writer
by the name of Michael Stewart
who engaged in a confrontation with NYPD
and he wound up dead.
There was also an incident
with a young man named Michael Griffith
whose car had engine trouble
and had to walk around
an Italian American section of Queens,
and they were chased to the point
where Michael Griffith
ran on to the highway
and was hit by a car and killed.
- I will never forget
- [crowd echoing] I will never forget
- Michael Griffith.
- [crowd] Michael Griffith.
[Stephany] There are
so many things that were going on
that stoked the tensions
of 1980s New York.
So, Spike Lee gets on his bicycle
and rides from his apartment
to my apartment and says,
"I have this film script
you've got to check out."
"It's called Do the Right Thing."
"It's about the hottest day
in New York City
when all sorts of stuff jumps off,
and I need Public Enemy
to do a great song for it."
"Fight the Power" was, um
was purely on the power of Spike Lee
taking sight and sound
and making it happen.
I mean, "Fight the Power"
was already a big hit
with The Isley Brothers in 1975
as a protest record.
It said something to protest the power
and how Black folks weren't getting ours.
Coming up with an anthem for Spike Lee's
movie Do the Right Thing in 1989,
all I have to do is think back
to that song 14 years earlier,
how I was hit,
and come up with my own interpretation
of fighting the power,
three words that say a lot.
Fight the power
You gotta fight the powers that be ♪
Chuck, in his hip-hop kind of way,
was trying to reach back
and grab that sense of energy
that the Isley Brothers had been
trying to push back in the '70s,
but bringing it up to date
for, uh, a new generation.
For a generation that was
facing increased racism,
in which it doesn't seem like
traditional politics is the answer.
It was the '80s,
in which everything seemed
to be aligned against young people,
particularly young people of color.
"Fight the Power" happened to capture
through music, lyrics and rhythm,
a deep-seated feeling
that needed to be expressed.
[Chuck D] That's why Public Enemy
came out with the songs that we had.
We're gonna use rap music,
'cause we're not into
complacent, sorry,
sleepy-ass syrupy music out of context.
"Fight The Power" means, like,
if there's a foot that's on your shoulder
keeping you from going forward,
pushing you back,
you've got to fight that that gravity.
Let's get this party started ♪
- Right on ♪
- Come on ♪
What we got to say? ♪
Power to the people, no delay ♪
Make everybody see ♪
In order to fight the powers that be ♪
Fight the power ♪
Fight the power ♪
Fight the power ♪
- [man on bullhorn] What do we do?
- [crowd] Fight the power!
- [man on bullhorn] What do we do?
- [crowd] Fight the power!
I think the song resonates 30 years later
because we're in a moment
that's not unlike 1989.
- [crowd chanting]
- [Chang] To hear that song now,
it does to us
the same thing that it did in 1989,
it gets us to think about
what we need to do.
[reporter] Across the country,
hundreds were arrested
in continual protests
over police shootings of Black citizens.
- [man] Hands up.
- [crowd] Don't shoot.
- [man] Hands up.
- [crowd] Don't shoot.
[Stephany] Sadly, the current politics
mirror 30, 40 years ago.
So, is it troubling
that we're still addressing
many of the same issues in our music
that we did in "Fight The Power"
and Do the Right Thing?
Yeah, it's troubling,
but it's also energizing
that we still have art
that responds to it.
["Fight the Power" continues playing]
I'm gonna end up talking
about these things until the day I die
because it's the job.
The job of an artist
is to try to make the roads better
for those generations coming up.
I came in this world not knowing
what the hell was going on.
I lived, paid attention, listened,
and see what I can do about doing my part.
[indistinct chanting]
["Fight the Power" fades]
- [sirens wail in distance]
- [car horns honk]
[Hozier] Of course, a song matters
and has always mattered.
Nina Simone, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan.
Woody Guthrie.
They sang about the times
that they lived in in their work,
they did so as honestly as possible,
they put their values into their work.
And I suppose the questions
that they posed will always be relevant.
The questions of
what it means to be a person
and what does it mean to be free?
And what does it mean
to live without shame in this society?
Those will always be relevant.
["This Land Is Your Land"
by Woody Guthrie playing]
This land is your land ♪
And this land is my land ♪
From California
To the New York island ♪
From the redwood forest ♪
To the Gulf Stream waters ♪
This land was made for you and me ♪
As I went walking
That ribbon of highway ♪
I saw above me that endless skyway ♪
Saw below me that golden valley ♪
[Arlo] My dad used to say that,
"The job of a folk singer
is to disturb the comfortable
and comfort the disturbed."
Underlying it is the belief
that you can't be afraid
to affront some people
and you can't be afraid to comfort others.
The primary focus of folk music
has always been
to bring the news of one place
to somewhere else.
And to get people
talking about it and thinking about it
and laughing about it, or crying about it,
or angry about it, or whatever.
That's the culture that I grew up in
because my father was doing that.
All around me a voice was sounding ♪
This land was made for you and me ♪
When I first came to America in 1984,
I knew who Woody Guthrie was
because I'd been a Bob Dylan fan
and I'd read in biographies that Dylan
was hugely influenced by Woody.
But you really couldn't find Woody's
records in the late '70s in England
unless you went to a specialist shop.
So, I'd never really heard
his whole catalog.
So, coming to
the United States of America on tour,
being able to find Woody's music
and taking that home
was quite significant for me.
You know, I was trying to find out
if music could change the world.
To the New York island ♪
[Arlo] I've seen a lot of speculation
about the origins
of "This Land is Your Land,"
trying to say that my father
wasn't patriotic
and didn't like the song
"God Bless America."
As matter of fact, the original title
for "This Land Is Your Land"
is "God Blessed America."
So, to suggest that
he didn't like "God Bless America"
is a little far-fetched.
I mean, yeah, you can probably
make an argument for it,
but you can make an argument
for a ham sandwich, you know.
[woman singing]
As I went walking I saw a sign there ♪
And on the sign said
"No Trespassing" ♪
♪ But on the other side
It didn't say nothing ♪
That side was made for you and me ♪
[Arlo] I think my dad's experience
is what led him to write the song.
That he had actually gone from California
to the West Coast to the East Coast.
And what he saw inspired him.
That the people had an ideal
that they would strive for,
not just an economic ideal,
but a political ideal:
that if we all could just
work together a little more
we could do amazing things.
[newsreel announcer] Down on
the Rio Grande, on the Mexican border,
Mexicans mostly do the work.
And, yes, we will build the wall.
We've already started planning.
- It will be built.
- [crowd cheering]
Nobody living
Can ever make me turn back ♪
This land was made for ♪
The idea that the world itself
was made for everybody
not only resonates,
but is still controversial.
[crowd singing]
From California to the New York island ♪
From the redwood forest
To the Gulf Stream waters ♪
This land was made for you and me ♪
[crowd chanting] You will not replace us!
You will not replace us!
- You will not replace us!
- White power!
- You will not replace us!
- White power!
- You will not replace us!
- White power.
- [dogs barking]
- [men shouting]
["Strange Fruit"
by Billie Holiday playing]
Southern trees ♪
Bear a strange fruit ♪
Blood on the leaves ♪
And blood at the root ♪
Black bodies swinging ♪
In the Southern breeze ♪
Strange fruit hanging ♪
From the poplar trees ♪
[Lordi] "Strange Fruit"
is not automatically
included in the canon
of American protest music
because it's not
an explicit call to community.
It's not a "we can do this." It's not,
"This land was made for you and me."
It doesn't issue a call to action.
Instead, it's an invitation to mourn
and to make something
of Black oppression in the US.
[man] Christ himself was
the greatest teacher of segregation.
You never yet found a blackbird
in a bluebird's nest.
Unless he was there to steal the eggs.
You mix with your own kind.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South ♪
The bulging eyes ♪
And the twisted mouth ♪
[Lordi] In 1930,
there is an infamous photograph
that circulates of a lynching.
Two Black men
were lynched in a town in Indiana.
And there is a white,
Jewish school teacher in the Bronx,
named Abel Meeropol,
who's one of many people
who sees this photograph.
He composes this poetic protest
against contemporary lynching.
Then the sudden smell ♪
Of burning flesh ♪
[Lordi] The way Billie Holiday
performed "Strange Fruit"
was very understated
but also very dramatic.
It was always the last song in her set.
They insisted on
stopping the café service.
Everyone would be silent
and they would have
just a single spotlight on Billie Holiday,
who would just stand still
confronting the audience
and sing these lyrics.
She kind of created a space
between herself
and the song and the audience,
and invited people to come in, you know,
and to care about this issue
and its broader resonances.
For Billie Holiday
to be singing "Strange Fruit"
is to say, "Here's racism."
"Here's what you have done
with the history of slavery
to us and our people."
What "Strange Fruit" is,
is an invitation to say,
"All of you who do not live this pain
are invited now to understand
what this pain is about."
Here is a fruit ♪
For the crows to pluck ♪
"Strange Fruit" definitely
still has relevance today
as one of the first songs to speak to
the reality of the brutalization
of Black people:
physical, emotional, psychic, spiritual.
This is what they represent.
[crowd shouting loudly]
Black people will continue
to speak truth to power
and perform a kind of resilience
in the face of
this incredibly brutal experience.
Here is a strange ♪
And bitter ♪
Crop ♪
[audience applauds]
["Ball Of Confusion"
by The Temptations playing]
People moving out, people moving in ♪
Why?
Because of the color of their skin ♪
Run, run, run but you sure can't hide ♪
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ♪
Vote for me and I'll set you free ♪
Rap on, brother, rap on ♪
I didn't really grow up
in a political family.
In some ways I was politicized
by the music I was listening to.
Early on, when I was 11, 12, 13 years old,
I really got into the music of Motown
through their
compilation albums of hit singles.
Smokey Robinson, Four Tops,
The Supremes, Marvin Gaye.
Although Motown
was an African American label,
it was a label that sought
a white mainstream audience.
[Lordi] Motown Records in Detroit
was not known as being
the most politically engaged label.
On the contrary, Motown owner Berry Gordy
tended to want his artists
not to speak about
or engage with the pressing
social issues of the moment,
namely the civil rights movement.
[King] It is humiliating
for anybody to say to me
that I have got to live
in some segregated place
because of the color of my skin.
And I'm saying to America
that we as Negroes
are going to live anywhere
that we want to live,
just like other people.
[crowd applauds]
[Robert F. Kennedy]
I have some very sad news for all of you
and people who love peace
all over the world.
And that is that Martin Luther King
was shot and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.
[crowd screams]
Dr. King has been assassinated
and the civil rights movement
has come to boiling point
in the United States of America.
There was a change of tone
and this has been reflected through
the mainstream pop music of Motown.
And there was a song by Edwin Starr
called "War."
Marvin Gaye is singing
"Abraham, Martin and John."
The Temptations
were singing "Ball of Confusion."
[crowd clamoring]
Aggravation, humiliation,
Obligation to our nation ♪
Ball of confusion ♪
- [siren wails]
- [crowd shouts loudly]
That's what the world is today
Hey, hey ♪
[interviewer] What about racism?
That was an era of civil rights movements.
[Otis Williams]
It was very prevalent, I mean,
because we encountered quite a bit of it.
You know? And so, we found it
kind of hard to perform.
But once we started performing,
they listened to us
beyond the music that we made.
[interviewer] Yeah.
And it shows you that music
can be used for a far-reaching platform
rather than just getting out there,
doing what we're noted to do.
Evolution, revolution,
Gun control, sound of soul ♪
Shooting rockets to the moon
Kids growing up too soon ♪
Politicians say more taxes
Will solve everything ♪
And the band played on ♪
[Bragg] It was the whole turmoil
of late '60s America
was coming through into the mainstream,
spilling into the mainstream music.
Not from the outside.
This was the mainstream itself
expressing the frustration,
the struggle, the anger.
The fact that the troubles
of the civil rights movement
had permeated all the way through
to me being able
to discern something had happened
as a twelve-year-old in London
Obviously, I knew Dr. King
had been murdered, I'd heard about that,
but here it was changing the tone
of the music that I loved.
Artists couldn't ignore
what was happening in their own community.
We've all seen it
in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
They're fighting back through music
and we still see that today.
Oh, great googamooga
Can't you hear me talking to you? ♪
Ball of confusion ♪
That's what the world is today
Hey, hey ♪
[audience cheers]
[Hozier] There is something about song
that sticks to people.
It sticks with their experience
and follows them through generations.
What I'm fascinated about song
is it as a vehicle for storytelling,
as a vehicle for the immortalizing
of the human experience
and of a shared experience of people
in that community.
["Stadium Pow Wow"
by A Tribe Called Red playing]
[reporter] It isn't often
a musical group can be credited with
creating real social change.
But that's just what these DJs are doing,
honoring their communities
within Canada's Indigenous culture
and representing them along with people
of all backgrounds on the dance floor.
[DJ 1] Within electronic music
we're taking that next step
to really bring home a message.
But also,
it's always about representation.
The origin story of Tribe
goes back to a club night
in Ottawa in 2008.
You know, we're all working DJs
and decided to come together,
throw a party as Indigenous DJs
for our community.
[DJ 2] We had started something
that people wanted,
that people felt was necessary,
a safe inclusive space
within the club environment,
within the urban environment,
for Indigenous people to gather.
[music intensifies]
There was a time where we weren't allowed
to sing any of our traditional songs
or do any of our traditional dances.
There was a cultural ban in Canada.
[reporter] The reasons behind
the residential school system
were simple and sinister.
To take children away from their homes,
families, and traditions,
and to assimilate them
into a culture that was not their own.
After that,
when people started reclaiming culture,
any song became a protest song.
[all vocalizing]
[DJ 1] By asserting your connection
to your culture and your history
through music was a protest
because everything was being done
to stop that from happening.
[singing]
[trilling]
[DJ 2] We were supposed
to be annihilated hundreds of years ago.
So, the fact that we're alive right now
and just living and breathing
is a political statement in itself.
The greatest political acts that we do,
is just because we're Indigenous dudes
DJing on a stage in front of people.
["Stadium Pow Wow" playing]
[DJ 1] What we could do and what
we could affect the most as performers
is how we're represented, how we're seen,
showing ourselves the way that
our community looks and acts today.
If you look back at history,
Indigenous people have never
had control of their own image.
It's always been through the lens
of somebody else.
Making it okay for people of our community
to come out and enjoy themselves
and be seen having a good time,
we discovered, is very political. [laughs]
- [music intensifies]
- [crowd cheering]
[Bear] The first time that we ever played
a show that was predominantly white
was the first time we went to Europe.
And we very quickly had to figure out
what that meant to us.
So when we're playing
to a non-Indigenous audience
then that's what we're there to do,
to show ourselves
in the way that we want to be seen.
[music intensifies]
[DJ 1] I never want to be the person
standing up here saying,
"You're racist,
the way you think is wrong."
I want to be able to show people things
that then they can
go through their own experiences.
That begins to be the basis
of having a conversation
because we start to see these things
through each other's eyes.
[Hill] Especially in the club environment,
especially where people
are there to have a good time,
you hit them with these messages,
and in the moment it might feel funny
and it might feel light,
but, at some point,
if you let them think about it themselves,
that actually creates a real change.
[loud cheering]
["Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill playing]
That girl thinks she's the queen
Of the neighborhood ♪
She's got the hottest trike in town ♪
That girl
She holds her head up so high ♪
I think I wanna be
Her best friend, yeah ♪
Rebel girl, rebel girl ♪
Rebel girl
You are the queen of my world ♪
[Wolfe] In the space within punk music
that is usually dominated by total bros,
the Riot Grrrl scene was about
creating the community you want to see.
We realized that it was important to
take DIY from punk and do it ourselves.
If you want to have a say, if you want
to have a voice, you have to create it.
[crowd shouting]
[Wolfe] You don't like
that it's boy dominated?
Then, okay, let's make
a girl gang within the punk scene.
We're like,
"Let's really fight the power here
to make a safe space for women."
There's revolution ♪
When she talks, I hear the revolution ♪
In her kiss, I taste the revolution ♪
The Riot Grrrl movement
started in the summer of 1991
and this was a really important time
for women's issues
in American politics, especially.
At this point,
there's been almost 12 years
of backlash against feminism.
This came to a head in 1991
with the Anita Hill hearings.
[reporter 1] All eyes have been
on Washington and Capitol Hill this week
as Clarence Thomas seeks a seat
on the Supreme Court.
Professor Anita Hill has testified
she was sexually harassed by Thomas,
allegations he denies.
[reporter 2] Thomas supporters celebrated.
It was the narrowest victory
in the Supreme Court's history.
[Marcus] This really woke up
the nation's consciousness
to the problem of sexual harassment,
the fact that sexism was not dead.
A number of feminist bands,
including Bratmobile and Bikini Kill,
got together and responded
to the political forces
that were trying to control their lives,
through music.
That girl thinks
She's the queen of the neighborhood ♪
I got news for you, she is! ♪
They say she's a slut, but I know ♪
[guitar picking]
[woman cheering]
[Wolfe] Bikini Kill,
and Kathleen especially,
was the person
who started saying at their shows,
"Girls to the front,"
and create this safe space for women,
because shows
were a lot more violent then.
It was a scary place to jump into the pit
unless you were a tough girl.
I wasn't a tough girl.
I loved going to shows,
but I was always kind of in the background
and a wallflower and whatnot. And
finally, I thought,
"You know, I can participate in this."
So, pretty much everyone
in the Riot Grrrl scene
was advocating for that.
Sometimes people
were passing out flyers, explaining,
"Please make a safe space for women."
And sometimes we'd say it on stage.
There's a lot of backlash
with stuff like that.
Like, sometimes the guys in the scene
were just kind of trying to bro us out
with, "Their politics
are more important than ours."
But that's kind of
how you start change, I think,
is on a community level.
[chuckles] When I would go and see
Bikini Kill as a teenager,
just this amazing sense
of, like, anything's possible.
You can take up the space,
make as much noise as you want,
and there was just a sea of feminists
on every side of you. [chuckles]
It felt so amazing.
[music intensifies]
[Wolfe] Sometimes people will say,
"Well, Riot Grrrl is dead."
And I do think, to a certain extent,
Riot Grrrl was part of
a certain time and place.
But I think some of the concepts
can live on and can be updated.
And we've always been proponents of that.
Take the stuff and use it
to whatever speaks to you. You know?
Like, whatever speaks to you,
take it and use it. Change it.
I think as long as sexism exists,
so must Riot Grrrl.
She is my best friend, yeah ♪
Rebel girl, rebel girl ♪
Rebel girl
You are the queen of my world ♪
- [chanting] We believe
- [chanting] Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
- We believe
- Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
- We believe
- Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
- We believe
- Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
[song fades]
[Hozier] It's that thing
of the personal being political.
Everything that is personally experienced
has a political dimension to it.
If you're struggling to pay the rent,
to pay for the clothes you wear,
the food that you eat,
they all have a very important
political dimension to them.
You absolutely can put the essence
of the bigger questions,
of the bigger issues, into a song.
[crowd softly chattering]
[crowd chanting indistinctly]
[woman singing "Quiet"]
♪scare them all away ♪
If I let them hear ♪
What I have to say ♪
- I can't keep quiet ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
[MILCK] Writing "Quiet"
was a very personal journey for me.
I think I had been trying to write a song
to release this tension
that had been building in my body
over the course of my entire lifetime.
When I started to understand
that my sexual assault was not my fault
Because I spent 10 years
feeling like, "Oh, my goodness."
"I have brought shame and badness"
"I've attracted it
'cause something is wrong
and broken within me,
and that's why that happened to me."
So, for years I just blamed myself.
But there was a moment where I was like,
"What if this this ugliness in my life
was not my fault? It just happened."
When I was writing "Quiet,"
I didn't have a conscious awareness
that I'm writing a protest song.
I wrote a song to heal myself,
and I wrote a song to free myself.
- I can't keep quiet ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
- A one-woman riot ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
[MILCK] The Women's March
on January 21st, 2017
was just mobs of people
charged with emotions.
And when we sang,
the people gathered around,
people pulled out their phones
and started filming and we'd cry,
and then we'd go
to the next group of people and sing.
It was just an offering.
I can't keep quiet ♪
I think "Quiet" resonated with people
because I wrote it from a place
of not feeling safe,
seen, or heard in my own life.
And I think I was a micro reflection
of what was happening on a macro scale.
If I don't say something ♪
Take that dry blue pill ♪
They may see a monster ♪
They may run away ♪
But I have to do this ♪
- I can't keep quiet ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
We happened to intersect
with a woman named Alma Har'el,
who filmed the performance on her phone.
The video got 14 million views
in a couple of days.
After the song went viral,
that's when all the stories
of sexual assault and abuse
started coming in.
Hundreds of emails.
I'm still going through
stories of people's struggles
and how they related to "Quiet."
[singing "Quiet"]
[MILCK] And three weeks later,
1,500 people in Gothenburg
and 1,500 people in Stockholm,
a choir in Ghana,
they just started rising on their own.
If I don't say something ♪
Take that dry blue pill ♪
They may see that monster ♪
They may run away ♪
But I have to do this ♪
[Marcus] A song can create
a sense of not being alone
in the way you feel about
how things are going on in the world.
You might think that you're
the only person who is having trouble
with the pervasive sexism
in your high school, in your town.
And then listening to a song
makes you realize that
there are other people
who feel the way you do.
That can make you feel more emboldened
to take some kind of action.
I feel like artists
don't really have power
unless we are also part of a movement.
And I think I was just
surfing the beginning tides.
But, lo and behold, months later
the Me Too Movement started bubbling.
Women will be silent no more!
That we've come
to this moment of justice is staggering,
but it will mean the most
to the brave women testifying
and to all of us silence-breakers.
I thank those testifying
for standing not just for themselves,
but for all of us who will never
have even one day in court.
[crowd] Me too!
- [woman] Me too!
- [crowd] Me too.
[crowd] Ooh-ah ♪
[MILCK] I can't keep quiet ♪
[crowd]
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK] No, I can't keep quiet ♪
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK]
Must be someone who understands ♪
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK] One thing I've learned is that
the gift of melody that comes from a song
helps people get transported to a place
where they can access pain and trauma.
I know the power of music
and how it can do such beautiful things.
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK] Yeah ♪
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[silence]
[loud cheering]
[producer] Okay, this is Hozier, take one.
- ["Take Me To Church" by Hozier playing]
- My lover's got humor ♪
She's the giggle at a funeral ♪
Knows everybody's disapproval ♪
An act of protest can be many things
and especially nowadays,
and increasingly so, I'm sorry to say,
you know, it's true that
telling the truth and just being honest
can be a radical act.
Telling an uncomfortable truth
can be a very,
very important and radical act.
My church offers no absolutes ♪
She tells me,
"Worship in the bedroom" ♪
The only heaven I'll be sent to ♪
Is when I'm alone with you ♪
I was born sick, but I love it ♪
Command me to be well ♪
Amen ♪
Amen, Amen ♪
Take me to church ♪
I'll worship like a dog
At the shrine of your lies ♪
"Take Me to Church"
was first a series of lyrical ideas
where I was reflecting quite a bit
on the legacy of the institutionalized
Roman Catholic Church at home in Ireland.
How it had treated people, etc.
How The soft power that it had held
over people's lives for so long.
Here was this organization that had
managed to instill in a society
this matrix of thought and values
which was deeply hypocritical
and incredibly damaging.
[soft hymnal singing]
[Hozier] To use the Church's own words,
they view homosexuality as something
that is intrinsically disordered,
something that is unnatural.
When you have
an organization of that power,
that provides this sort of
God-given justification
for alienating and othering
and persecuting people
of that sexual orientation.
If I'm a pagan of the good times ♪
My lover's the sunlight ♪
To keep the goddess on my side ♪
She demands a sacrifice ♪
[Hozier] At the time,
there were these horrendous attacks
that were taking place against
members of the LGBTQ community in Russia.
There had been an increase
in attacks carried out
by essentially neo-Nazi gangs
against LGBTQ youths.
They posed as other young people
in chat rooms and message boards
to lure 14, 15, 16-year-olds to places
where they thought they would be safe
and they attacked them
and filmed those attacks,
uh, and would torture them on camera
and post those on social media.
[reporter 1] The gay pride march
in Moscow is banned by police
and gay activists are
prevented from demonstrating.
They are protesting against the new law
voted in several regions.
The bill outlaws so-called
homosexual propaganda
to be used against any gay action.
[reporter 2] Many feel this is
quite simply a crackdown on gays.
The inevitable arrests
have become almost routine.
No masters or kings
When the ritual begins ♪
♪ There is no sweeter innocence ♪
Than our gentle sin ♪
[Hozier] That was where
"Take Me to Church" came from.
It was discrimination
against people in same-sex relationships
and that song managed to cross borders.
And it seemed to resonate
with people across
yeah, across a wide space.
If you're writing songs
and you are honest with it,
and you believe in
what it is you are writing,
and you're willing to live and die by it,
surely your hope is that
the more people
that hear that, the better.
Take me to church ♪
I'll worship like a dog
At the shrine of your lies ♪
I'll tell you my sins
And you can sharpen your knife ♪
I didn't expect it
to translate to audiences
of the size that it did.
I thought maybe it would be appreciated
by a very, very small audience.
I thought my music as a whole would be
- Quite a big audience.
- Yeah yeah, it did.
It grew, it really did. [laughs]
It just kept growing and growing.
Awards are amazing
and I'm absolutely bowled over
by the fact that I won,
but for me the motivation
is always just to be honest with the music
and I think I've been fortunate
people connected with that.
Why write about one thing
as opposed to just writing pop bangers?
Um
I just find it more interesting,
if nothing else.
It's a fascinating world out there.
Not always not always a pretty world.
In fact, a terrifyingly, uh,
uh, a terrifyingly brutal world at times.
It's not the wall
But what's behind it ♪
["Nina Cried Power" by Hozier playing]
Oh, the fear of fellow men
His mere assignment ♪
And everything that we're denied ♪
By keepin' the divide ♪
It's not the wakin'
It's the risin' ♪
[Hozier] We find ourselves in music
and we feel less alone.
To me, that is the North Star
and the guiding light
of what a song can do.
If you have a song
that articulates something
that you can't yourself put into words,
and a thousand other people
are singing it and you're singing it,
you feel that your feelings are something
that the other people understand.
And that solidarity of song
is a real important part
of how music
can make a difference to people.
Hearing a song makes you feel like
you're capable of more than you thought.
That you're capable of surviving
more than you might've thought.
And that also you have a community
that's bigger and stronger
than you might have ever
had cause to believe.
That to me is really the power of music.
And I could cry power ♪
Power has been cried
By those stronger than me ♪
Straight into the face that tells you
To rattle your chains ♪
If you love bein' free ♪
[Hozier] When you're in a collective space
and you're all sharing and listening
and singing a song you found yourself in,
you found your own sorrow in,
or you found your own loss,
your own grief in,
you found your own joy in,
it's something, ultimately,
that makes us feel less alone.
Nina cried power ♪
[song ends]
- [siren wails in distance]
- [cars softly honking]
[street noises continue]
[faint chanting, clapping]
[crowd shouting faintly]
[shouting swells]
["Nina Cried Power" by Hozier playing]
It's not the wakin', it's the risin' ♪
It is the groundin'
Of a foot uncompromisin' ♪
[man 1] There are
always people who abuse power.
Not just people on the right,
people on the left,
people in the middle, anywhere.
[clamoring]
[man 1] But there are people
who don't want to be part of this
and who are fighting back.
And one of the ways of fighting back
is to write and sing songs.
It's not the song, it is the singin' ♪
It's the heaven
Of the human spirit ringin' ♪
[man 2] By itself,
a song is not going to stop
racism or violence and hatred.
We're in a moment now in which
violence and racism are back on the rise.
- Oh, I could cry power ♪
- Power ♪
[crowd yelling]
[man 3] It'd be great
if a song could change the world.
I know, everyone would love that,
but that's not what it does.
Music has no agency.
Only people have agency.
So, okay,
what can a song do?
Billie, power
Dylan, power ♪
Woody, power ♪
Nina cried power ♪
- [sirens wailing]
- [shouting]
[screaming echoes]
- [siren wails]
- [cars honk]
[traffic sounds]
[Hozier] Writing songs
and putting them out there into the world
is serious business.
When you think about a song as a vehicle
and what that vehicle can carry,
a song can be
a very, very important medium
for spreading a message.
For example,
it can remind institutionalized power
where true power lies.
That it's with the people.
[spray paint can softly rattling]
["Fight the Power"
by Public Enemy playing]
[crowd chanting] Go, go, go, go, go!
- 1989 the number another summer ♪
- Get down ♪
Sound of the funky drummer ♪
Music hitting your heart
'Cause I know you got soul ♪
- Brothers and sisters ♪
- Hey ♪
Listen if you're missing, y'all ♪
- Swinging while I'm singing ♪
- Hey ♪
Giving what you're getting ♪
Knowing what I know
And while the Black band's sweating ♪
And the rhythm rhymes rolling ♪
- Got to give us what we want ♪
- Uh! ♪
- Gotta give us what we need ♪
- Hey ♪
Our freedom of speech
Is freedom or death ♪
We got to fight the powers that be ♪
Fight the power ♪
[Chuck D] In the '80s in New York,
we had our own circumstances
and situations.
When Black people screamed
and said that this was a problem,
white America, like it always does,
doesn't pick up on it
because they don't care about it
until it becomes a problem.
You can scream as loud as you want,
but until you break some windows,
that's when they say,
"Oh, we've gotta do something about this."
It's like American pie.
No we're not the same
'Cause we don't know the game ♪
What we need is awareness
We can't get careless ♪
You say, "What is this?" ♪
With the racial and ethnic strife
happening under the mayoralty of Ed Koch
in the '80s New York City,
there were a number of prominent incidents
that we all remember and were ignited by.
There was a graffiti writer
by the name of Michael Stewart
who engaged in a confrontation with NYPD
and he wound up dead.
There was also an incident
with a young man named Michael Griffith
whose car had engine trouble
and had to walk around
an Italian American section of Queens,
and they were chased to the point
where Michael Griffith
ran on to the highway
and was hit by a car and killed.
- I will never forget
- [crowd echoing] I will never forget
- Michael Griffith.
- [crowd] Michael Griffith.
[Stephany] There are
so many things that were going on
that stoked the tensions
of 1980s New York.
So, Spike Lee gets on his bicycle
and rides from his apartment
to my apartment and says,
"I have this film script
you've got to check out."
"It's called Do the Right Thing."
"It's about the hottest day
in New York City
when all sorts of stuff jumps off,
and I need Public Enemy
to do a great song for it."
"Fight the Power" was, um
was purely on the power of Spike Lee
taking sight and sound
and making it happen.
I mean, "Fight the Power"
was already a big hit
with The Isley Brothers in 1975
as a protest record.
It said something to protest the power
and how Black folks weren't getting ours.
Coming up with an anthem for Spike Lee's
movie Do the Right Thing in 1989,
all I have to do is think back
to that song 14 years earlier,
how I was hit,
and come up with my own interpretation
of fighting the power,
three words that say a lot.
Fight the power
You gotta fight the powers that be ♪
Chuck, in his hip-hop kind of way,
was trying to reach back
and grab that sense of energy
that the Isley Brothers had been
trying to push back in the '70s,
but bringing it up to date
for, uh, a new generation.
For a generation that was
facing increased racism,
in which it doesn't seem like
traditional politics is the answer.
It was the '80s,
in which everything seemed
to be aligned against young people,
particularly young people of color.
"Fight the Power" happened to capture
through music, lyrics and rhythm,
a deep-seated feeling
that needed to be expressed.
[Chuck D] That's why Public Enemy
came out with the songs that we had.
We're gonna use rap music,
'cause we're not into
complacent, sorry,
sleepy-ass syrupy music out of context.
"Fight The Power" means, like,
if there's a foot that's on your shoulder
keeping you from going forward,
pushing you back,
you've got to fight that that gravity.
Let's get this party started ♪
- Right on ♪
- Come on ♪
What we got to say? ♪
Power to the people, no delay ♪
Make everybody see ♪
In order to fight the powers that be ♪
Fight the power ♪
Fight the power ♪
Fight the power ♪
- [man on bullhorn] What do we do?
- [crowd] Fight the power!
- [man on bullhorn] What do we do?
- [crowd] Fight the power!
I think the song resonates 30 years later
because we're in a moment
that's not unlike 1989.
- [crowd chanting]
- [Chang] To hear that song now,
it does to us
the same thing that it did in 1989,
it gets us to think about
what we need to do.
[reporter] Across the country,
hundreds were arrested
in continual protests
over police shootings of Black citizens.
- [man] Hands up.
- [crowd] Don't shoot.
- [man] Hands up.
- [crowd] Don't shoot.
[Stephany] Sadly, the current politics
mirror 30, 40 years ago.
So, is it troubling
that we're still addressing
many of the same issues in our music
that we did in "Fight The Power"
and Do the Right Thing?
Yeah, it's troubling,
but it's also energizing
that we still have art
that responds to it.
["Fight the Power" continues playing]
I'm gonna end up talking
about these things until the day I die
because it's the job.
The job of an artist
is to try to make the roads better
for those generations coming up.
I came in this world not knowing
what the hell was going on.
I lived, paid attention, listened,
and see what I can do about doing my part.
[indistinct chanting]
["Fight the Power" fades]
- [sirens wail in distance]
- [car horns honk]
[Hozier] Of course, a song matters
and has always mattered.
Nina Simone, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan.
Woody Guthrie.
They sang about the times
that they lived in in their work,
they did so as honestly as possible,
they put their values into their work.
And I suppose the questions
that they posed will always be relevant.
The questions of
what it means to be a person
and what does it mean to be free?
And what does it mean
to live without shame in this society?
Those will always be relevant.
["This Land Is Your Land"
by Woody Guthrie playing]
This land is your land ♪
And this land is my land ♪
From California
To the New York island ♪
From the redwood forest ♪
To the Gulf Stream waters ♪
This land was made for you and me ♪
As I went walking
That ribbon of highway ♪
I saw above me that endless skyway ♪
Saw below me that golden valley ♪
[Arlo] My dad used to say that,
"The job of a folk singer
is to disturb the comfortable
and comfort the disturbed."
Underlying it is the belief
that you can't be afraid
to affront some people
and you can't be afraid to comfort others.
The primary focus of folk music
has always been
to bring the news of one place
to somewhere else.
And to get people
talking about it and thinking about it
and laughing about it, or crying about it,
or angry about it, or whatever.
That's the culture that I grew up in
because my father was doing that.
All around me a voice was sounding ♪
This land was made for you and me ♪
When I first came to America in 1984,
I knew who Woody Guthrie was
because I'd been a Bob Dylan fan
and I'd read in biographies that Dylan
was hugely influenced by Woody.
But you really couldn't find Woody's
records in the late '70s in England
unless you went to a specialist shop.
So, I'd never really heard
his whole catalog.
So, coming to
the United States of America on tour,
being able to find Woody's music
and taking that home
was quite significant for me.
You know, I was trying to find out
if music could change the world.
To the New York island ♪
[Arlo] I've seen a lot of speculation
about the origins
of "This Land is Your Land,"
trying to say that my father
wasn't patriotic
and didn't like the song
"God Bless America."
As matter of fact, the original title
for "This Land Is Your Land"
is "God Blessed America."
So, to suggest that
he didn't like "God Bless America"
is a little far-fetched.
I mean, yeah, you can probably
make an argument for it,
but you can make an argument
for a ham sandwich, you know.
[woman singing]
As I went walking I saw a sign there ♪
And on the sign said
"No Trespassing" ♪
♪ But on the other side
It didn't say nothing ♪
That side was made for you and me ♪
[Arlo] I think my dad's experience
is what led him to write the song.
That he had actually gone from California
to the West Coast to the East Coast.
And what he saw inspired him.
That the people had an ideal
that they would strive for,
not just an economic ideal,
but a political ideal:
that if we all could just
work together a little more
we could do amazing things.
[newsreel announcer] Down on
the Rio Grande, on the Mexican border,
Mexicans mostly do the work.
And, yes, we will build the wall.
We've already started planning.
- It will be built.
- [crowd cheering]
Nobody living
Can ever make me turn back ♪
This land was made for ♪
The idea that the world itself
was made for everybody
not only resonates,
but is still controversial.
[crowd singing]
From California to the New York island ♪
From the redwood forest
To the Gulf Stream waters ♪
This land was made for you and me ♪
[crowd chanting] You will not replace us!
You will not replace us!
- You will not replace us!
- White power!
- You will not replace us!
- White power!
- You will not replace us!
- White power.
- [dogs barking]
- [men shouting]
["Strange Fruit"
by Billie Holiday playing]
Southern trees ♪
Bear a strange fruit ♪
Blood on the leaves ♪
And blood at the root ♪
Black bodies swinging ♪
In the Southern breeze ♪
Strange fruit hanging ♪
From the poplar trees ♪
[Lordi] "Strange Fruit"
is not automatically
included in the canon
of American protest music
because it's not
an explicit call to community.
It's not a "we can do this." It's not,
"This land was made for you and me."
It doesn't issue a call to action.
Instead, it's an invitation to mourn
and to make something
of Black oppression in the US.
[man] Christ himself was
the greatest teacher of segregation.
You never yet found a blackbird
in a bluebird's nest.
Unless he was there to steal the eggs.
You mix with your own kind.
Pastoral scene of the gallant South ♪
The bulging eyes ♪
And the twisted mouth ♪
[Lordi] In 1930,
there is an infamous photograph
that circulates of a lynching.
Two Black men
were lynched in a town in Indiana.
And there is a white,
Jewish school teacher in the Bronx,
named Abel Meeropol,
who's one of many people
who sees this photograph.
He composes this poetic protest
against contemporary lynching.
Then the sudden smell ♪
Of burning flesh ♪
[Lordi] The way Billie Holiday
performed "Strange Fruit"
was very understated
but also very dramatic.
It was always the last song in her set.
They insisted on
stopping the café service.
Everyone would be silent
and they would have
just a single spotlight on Billie Holiday,
who would just stand still
confronting the audience
and sing these lyrics.
She kind of created a space
between herself
and the song and the audience,
and invited people to come in, you know,
and to care about this issue
and its broader resonances.
For Billie Holiday
to be singing "Strange Fruit"
is to say, "Here's racism."
"Here's what you have done
with the history of slavery
to us and our people."
What "Strange Fruit" is,
is an invitation to say,
"All of you who do not live this pain
are invited now to understand
what this pain is about."
Here is a fruit ♪
For the crows to pluck ♪
"Strange Fruit" definitely
still has relevance today
as one of the first songs to speak to
the reality of the brutalization
of Black people:
physical, emotional, psychic, spiritual.
This is what they represent.
[crowd shouting loudly]
Black people will continue
to speak truth to power
and perform a kind of resilience
in the face of
this incredibly brutal experience.
Here is a strange ♪
And bitter ♪
Crop ♪
[audience applauds]
["Ball Of Confusion"
by The Temptations playing]
People moving out, people moving in ♪
Why?
Because of the color of their skin ♪
Run, run, run but you sure can't hide ♪
An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth ♪
Vote for me and I'll set you free ♪
Rap on, brother, rap on ♪
I didn't really grow up
in a political family.
In some ways I was politicized
by the music I was listening to.
Early on, when I was 11, 12, 13 years old,
I really got into the music of Motown
through their
compilation albums of hit singles.
Smokey Robinson, Four Tops,
The Supremes, Marvin Gaye.
Although Motown
was an African American label,
it was a label that sought
a white mainstream audience.
[Lordi] Motown Records in Detroit
was not known as being
the most politically engaged label.
On the contrary, Motown owner Berry Gordy
tended to want his artists
not to speak about
or engage with the pressing
social issues of the moment,
namely the civil rights movement.
[King] It is humiliating
for anybody to say to me
that I have got to live
in some segregated place
because of the color of my skin.
And I'm saying to America
that we as Negroes
are going to live anywhere
that we want to live,
just like other people.
[crowd applauds]
[Robert F. Kennedy]
I have some very sad news for all of you
and people who love peace
all over the world.
And that is that Martin Luther King
was shot and was killed tonight
in Memphis, Tennessee.
[crowd screams]
Dr. King has been assassinated
and the civil rights movement
has come to boiling point
in the United States of America.
There was a change of tone
and this has been reflected through
the mainstream pop music of Motown.
And there was a song by Edwin Starr
called "War."
Marvin Gaye is singing
"Abraham, Martin and John."
The Temptations
were singing "Ball of Confusion."
[crowd clamoring]
Aggravation, humiliation,
Obligation to our nation ♪
Ball of confusion ♪
- [siren wails]
- [crowd shouts loudly]
That's what the world is today
Hey, hey ♪
[interviewer] What about racism?
That was an era of civil rights movements.
[Otis Williams]
It was very prevalent, I mean,
because we encountered quite a bit of it.
You know? And so, we found it
kind of hard to perform.
But once we started performing,
they listened to us
beyond the music that we made.
[interviewer] Yeah.
And it shows you that music
can be used for a far-reaching platform
rather than just getting out there,
doing what we're noted to do.
Evolution, revolution,
Gun control, sound of soul ♪
Shooting rockets to the moon
Kids growing up too soon ♪
Politicians say more taxes
Will solve everything ♪
And the band played on ♪
[Bragg] It was the whole turmoil
of late '60s America
was coming through into the mainstream,
spilling into the mainstream music.
Not from the outside.
This was the mainstream itself
expressing the frustration,
the struggle, the anger.
The fact that the troubles
of the civil rights movement
had permeated all the way through
to me being able
to discern something had happened
as a twelve-year-old in London
Obviously, I knew Dr. King
had been murdered, I'd heard about that,
but here it was changing the tone
of the music that I loved.
Artists couldn't ignore
what was happening in their own community.
We've all seen it
in the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960s.
They're fighting back through music
and we still see that today.
Oh, great googamooga
Can't you hear me talking to you? ♪
Ball of confusion ♪
That's what the world is today
Hey, hey ♪
[audience cheers]
[Hozier] There is something about song
that sticks to people.
It sticks with their experience
and follows them through generations.
What I'm fascinated about song
is it as a vehicle for storytelling,
as a vehicle for the immortalizing
of the human experience
and of a shared experience of people
in that community.
["Stadium Pow Wow"
by A Tribe Called Red playing]
[reporter] It isn't often
a musical group can be credited with
creating real social change.
But that's just what these DJs are doing,
honoring their communities
within Canada's Indigenous culture
and representing them along with people
of all backgrounds on the dance floor.
[DJ 1] Within electronic music
we're taking that next step
to really bring home a message.
But also,
it's always about representation.
The origin story of Tribe
goes back to a club night
in Ottawa in 2008.
You know, we're all working DJs
and decided to come together,
throw a party as Indigenous DJs
for our community.
[DJ 2] We had started something
that people wanted,
that people felt was necessary,
a safe inclusive space
within the club environment,
within the urban environment,
for Indigenous people to gather.
[music intensifies]
There was a time where we weren't allowed
to sing any of our traditional songs
or do any of our traditional dances.
There was a cultural ban in Canada.
[reporter] The reasons behind
the residential school system
were simple and sinister.
To take children away from their homes,
families, and traditions,
and to assimilate them
into a culture that was not their own.
After that,
when people started reclaiming culture,
any song became a protest song.
[all vocalizing]
[DJ 1] By asserting your connection
to your culture and your history
through music was a protest
because everything was being done
to stop that from happening.
[singing]
[trilling]
[DJ 2] We were supposed
to be annihilated hundreds of years ago.
So, the fact that we're alive right now
and just living and breathing
is a political statement in itself.
The greatest political acts that we do,
is just because we're Indigenous dudes
DJing on a stage in front of people.
["Stadium Pow Wow" playing]
[DJ 1] What we could do and what
we could affect the most as performers
is how we're represented, how we're seen,
showing ourselves the way that
our community looks and acts today.
If you look back at history,
Indigenous people have never
had control of their own image.
It's always been through the lens
of somebody else.
Making it okay for people of our community
to come out and enjoy themselves
and be seen having a good time,
we discovered, is very political. [laughs]
- [music intensifies]
- [crowd cheering]
[Bear] The first time that we ever played
a show that was predominantly white
was the first time we went to Europe.
And we very quickly had to figure out
what that meant to us.
So when we're playing
to a non-Indigenous audience
then that's what we're there to do,
to show ourselves
in the way that we want to be seen.
[music intensifies]
[DJ 1] I never want to be the person
standing up here saying,
"You're racist,
the way you think is wrong."
I want to be able to show people things
that then they can
go through their own experiences.
That begins to be the basis
of having a conversation
because we start to see these things
through each other's eyes.
[Hill] Especially in the club environment,
especially where people
are there to have a good time,
you hit them with these messages,
and in the moment it might feel funny
and it might feel light,
but, at some point,
if you let them think about it themselves,
that actually creates a real change.
[loud cheering]
["Rebel Girl" by Bikini Kill playing]
That girl thinks she's the queen
Of the neighborhood ♪
She's got the hottest trike in town ♪
That girl
She holds her head up so high ♪
I think I wanna be
Her best friend, yeah ♪
Rebel girl, rebel girl ♪
Rebel girl
You are the queen of my world ♪
[Wolfe] In the space within punk music
that is usually dominated by total bros,
the Riot Grrrl scene was about
creating the community you want to see.
We realized that it was important to
take DIY from punk and do it ourselves.
If you want to have a say, if you want
to have a voice, you have to create it.
[crowd shouting]
[Wolfe] You don't like
that it's boy dominated?
Then, okay, let's make
a girl gang within the punk scene.
We're like,
"Let's really fight the power here
to make a safe space for women."
There's revolution ♪
When she talks, I hear the revolution ♪
In her kiss, I taste the revolution ♪
The Riot Grrrl movement
started in the summer of 1991
and this was a really important time
for women's issues
in American politics, especially.
At this point,
there's been almost 12 years
of backlash against feminism.
This came to a head in 1991
with the Anita Hill hearings.
[reporter 1] All eyes have been
on Washington and Capitol Hill this week
as Clarence Thomas seeks a seat
on the Supreme Court.
Professor Anita Hill has testified
she was sexually harassed by Thomas,
allegations he denies.
[reporter 2] Thomas supporters celebrated.
It was the narrowest victory
in the Supreme Court's history.
[Marcus] This really woke up
the nation's consciousness
to the problem of sexual harassment,
the fact that sexism was not dead.
A number of feminist bands,
including Bratmobile and Bikini Kill,
got together and responded
to the political forces
that were trying to control their lives,
through music.
That girl thinks
She's the queen of the neighborhood ♪
I got news for you, she is! ♪
They say she's a slut, but I know ♪
[guitar picking]
[woman cheering]
[Wolfe] Bikini Kill,
and Kathleen especially,
was the person
who started saying at their shows,
"Girls to the front,"
and create this safe space for women,
because shows
were a lot more violent then.
It was a scary place to jump into the pit
unless you were a tough girl.
I wasn't a tough girl.
I loved going to shows,
but I was always kind of in the background
and a wallflower and whatnot. And
finally, I thought,
"You know, I can participate in this."
So, pretty much everyone
in the Riot Grrrl scene
was advocating for that.
Sometimes people
were passing out flyers, explaining,
"Please make a safe space for women."
And sometimes we'd say it on stage.
There's a lot of backlash
with stuff like that.
Like, sometimes the guys in the scene
were just kind of trying to bro us out
with, "Their politics
are more important than ours."
But that's kind of
how you start change, I think,
is on a community level.
[chuckles] When I would go and see
Bikini Kill as a teenager,
just this amazing sense
of, like, anything's possible.
You can take up the space,
make as much noise as you want,
and there was just a sea of feminists
on every side of you. [chuckles]
It felt so amazing.
[music intensifies]
[Wolfe] Sometimes people will say,
"Well, Riot Grrrl is dead."
And I do think, to a certain extent,
Riot Grrrl was part of
a certain time and place.
But I think some of the concepts
can live on and can be updated.
And we've always been proponents of that.
Take the stuff and use it
to whatever speaks to you. You know?
Like, whatever speaks to you,
take it and use it. Change it.
I think as long as sexism exists,
so must Riot Grrrl.
She is my best friend, yeah ♪
Rebel girl, rebel girl ♪
Rebel girl
You are the queen of my world ♪
- [chanting] We believe
- [chanting] Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
- We believe
- Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
- We believe
- Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
- We believe
- Anita Hill!
- We believe
- Christine Ford!
[song fades]
[Hozier] It's that thing
of the personal being political.
Everything that is personally experienced
has a political dimension to it.
If you're struggling to pay the rent,
to pay for the clothes you wear,
the food that you eat,
they all have a very important
political dimension to them.
You absolutely can put the essence
of the bigger questions,
of the bigger issues, into a song.
[crowd softly chattering]
[crowd chanting indistinctly]
[woman singing "Quiet"]
♪scare them all away ♪
If I let them hear ♪
What I have to say ♪
- I can't keep quiet ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
[MILCK] Writing "Quiet"
was a very personal journey for me.
I think I had been trying to write a song
to release this tension
that had been building in my body
over the course of my entire lifetime.
When I started to understand
that my sexual assault was not my fault
Because I spent 10 years
feeling like, "Oh, my goodness."
"I have brought shame and badness"
"I've attracted it
'cause something is wrong
and broken within me,
and that's why that happened to me."
So, for years I just blamed myself.
But there was a moment where I was like,
"What if this this ugliness in my life
was not my fault? It just happened."
When I was writing "Quiet,"
I didn't have a conscious awareness
that I'm writing a protest song.
I wrote a song to heal myself,
and I wrote a song to free myself.
- I can't keep quiet ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
- A one-woman riot ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
[MILCK] The Women's March
on January 21st, 2017
was just mobs of people
charged with emotions.
And when we sang,
the people gathered around,
people pulled out their phones
and started filming and we'd cry,
and then we'd go
to the next group of people and sing.
It was just an offering.
I can't keep quiet ♪
I think "Quiet" resonated with people
because I wrote it from a place
of not feeling safe,
seen, or heard in my own life.
And I think I was a micro reflection
of what was happening on a macro scale.
If I don't say something ♪
Take that dry blue pill ♪
They may see a monster ♪
They may run away ♪
But I have to do this ♪
- I can't keep quiet ♪
- No, no, no, no ♪
We happened to intersect
with a woman named Alma Har'el,
who filmed the performance on her phone.
The video got 14 million views
in a couple of days.
After the song went viral,
that's when all the stories
of sexual assault and abuse
started coming in.
Hundreds of emails.
I'm still going through
stories of people's struggles
and how they related to "Quiet."
[singing "Quiet"]
[MILCK] And three weeks later,
1,500 people in Gothenburg
and 1,500 people in Stockholm,
a choir in Ghana,
they just started rising on their own.
If I don't say something ♪
Take that dry blue pill ♪
They may see that monster ♪
They may run away ♪
But I have to do this ♪
[Marcus] A song can create
a sense of not being alone
in the way you feel about
how things are going on in the world.
You might think that you're
the only person who is having trouble
with the pervasive sexism
in your high school, in your town.
And then listening to a song
makes you realize that
there are other people
who feel the way you do.
That can make you feel more emboldened
to take some kind of action.
I feel like artists
don't really have power
unless we are also part of a movement.
And I think I was just
surfing the beginning tides.
But, lo and behold, months later
the Me Too Movement started bubbling.
Women will be silent no more!
That we've come
to this moment of justice is staggering,
but it will mean the most
to the brave women testifying
and to all of us silence-breakers.
I thank those testifying
for standing not just for themselves,
but for all of us who will never
have even one day in court.
[crowd] Me too!
- [woman] Me too!
- [crowd] Me too.
[crowd] Ooh-ah ♪
[MILCK] I can't keep quiet ♪
[crowd]
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK] No, I can't keep quiet ♪
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK]
Must be someone who understands ♪
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK] One thing I've learned is that
the gift of melody that comes from a song
helps people get transported to a place
where they can access pain and trauma.
I know the power of music
and how it can do such beautiful things.
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[MILCK] Yeah ♪
Let it out, let it out, let it out now ♪
[silence]
[loud cheering]
[producer] Okay, this is Hozier, take one.
- ["Take Me To Church" by Hozier playing]
- My lover's got humor ♪
She's the giggle at a funeral ♪
Knows everybody's disapproval ♪
An act of protest can be many things
and especially nowadays,
and increasingly so, I'm sorry to say,
you know, it's true that
telling the truth and just being honest
can be a radical act.
Telling an uncomfortable truth
can be a very,
very important and radical act.
My church offers no absolutes ♪
She tells me,
"Worship in the bedroom" ♪
The only heaven I'll be sent to ♪
Is when I'm alone with you ♪
I was born sick, but I love it ♪
Command me to be well ♪
Amen ♪
Amen, Amen ♪
Take me to church ♪
I'll worship like a dog
At the shrine of your lies ♪
"Take Me to Church"
was first a series of lyrical ideas
where I was reflecting quite a bit
on the legacy of the institutionalized
Roman Catholic Church at home in Ireland.
How it had treated people, etc.
How The soft power that it had held
over people's lives for so long.
Here was this organization that had
managed to instill in a society
this matrix of thought and values
which was deeply hypocritical
and incredibly damaging.
[soft hymnal singing]
[Hozier] To use the Church's own words,
they view homosexuality as something
that is intrinsically disordered,
something that is unnatural.
When you have
an organization of that power,
that provides this sort of
God-given justification
for alienating and othering
and persecuting people
of that sexual orientation.
If I'm a pagan of the good times ♪
My lover's the sunlight ♪
To keep the goddess on my side ♪
She demands a sacrifice ♪
[Hozier] At the time,
there were these horrendous attacks
that were taking place against
members of the LGBTQ community in Russia.
There had been an increase
in attacks carried out
by essentially neo-Nazi gangs
against LGBTQ youths.
They posed as other young people
in chat rooms and message boards
to lure 14, 15, 16-year-olds to places
where they thought they would be safe
and they attacked them
and filmed those attacks,
uh, and would torture them on camera
and post those on social media.
[reporter 1] The gay pride march
in Moscow is banned by police
and gay activists are
prevented from demonstrating.
They are protesting against the new law
voted in several regions.
The bill outlaws so-called
homosexual propaganda
to be used against any gay action.
[reporter 2] Many feel this is
quite simply a crackdown on gays.
The inevitable arrests
have become almost routine.
No masters or kings
When the ritual begins ♪
♪ There is no sweeter innocence ♪
Than our gentle sin ♪
[Hozier] That was where
"Take Me to Church" came from.
It was discrimination
against people in same-sex relationships
and that song managed to cross borders.
And it seemed to resonate
with people across
yeah, across a wide space.
If you're writing songs
and you are honest with it,
and you believe in
what it is you are writing,
and you're willing to live and die by it,
surely your hope is that
the more people
that hear that, the better.
Take me to church ♪
I'll worship like a dog
At the shrine of your lies ♪
I'll tell you my sins
And you can sharpen your knife ♪
I didn't expect it
to translate to audiences
of the size that it did.
I thought maybe it would be appreciated
by a very, very small audience.
I thought my music as a whole would be
- Quite a big audience.
- Yeah yeah, it did.
It grew, it really did. [laughs]
It just kept growing and growing.
Awards are amazing
and I'm absolutely bowled over
by the fact that I won,
but for me the motivation
is always just to be honest with the music
and I think I've been fortunate
people connected with that.
Why write about one thing
as opposed to just writing pop bangers?
Um
I just find it more interesting,
if nothing else.
It's a fascinating world out there.
Not always not always a pretty world.
In fact, a terrifyingly, uh,
uh, a terrifyingly brutal world at times.
It's not the wall
But what's behind it ♪
["Nina Cried Power" by Hozier playing]
Oh, the fear of fellow men
His mere assignment ♪
And everything that we're denied ♪
By keepin' the divide ♪
It's not the wakin'
It's the risin' ♪
[Hozier] We find ourselves in music
and we feel less alone.
To me, that is the North Star
and the guiding light
of what a song can do.
If you have a song
that articulates something
that you can't yourself put into words,
and a thousand other people
are singing it and you're singing it,
you feel that your feelings are something
that the other people understand.
And that solidarity of song
is a real important part
of how music
can make a difference to people.
Hearing a song makes you feel like
you're capable of more than you thought.
That you're capable of surviving
more than you might've thought.
And that also you have a community
that's bigger and stronger
than you might have ever
had cause to believe.
That to me is really the power of music.
And I could cry power ♪
Power has been cried
By those stronger than me ♪
Straight into the face that tells you
To rattle your chains ♪
If you love bein' free ♪
[Hozier] When you're in a collective space
and you're all sharing and listening
and singing a song you found yourself in,
you found your own sorrow in,
or you found your own loss,
your own grief in,
you found your own joy in,
it's something, ultimately,
that makes us feel less alone.
Nina cried power ♪
[song ends]
- [siren wails in distance]
- [cars softly honking]
[street noises continue]
[faint chanting, clapping]