CHICAGO — To hear him tell it, local singer-songwriter Michael McDermott didn’t set out specifically to write songs about the current political climate.
“I write about the politics of the heart and the soul more than I talk about the politics of politics,” he said. “But I wouldn’t be doing my job if I didn’t write these observational songs.”
Given all that’s happening in the city lately — and because, he said, “I can’t keep my Irish mouth shut” — McDermott’s most recent track is “The Future,” a ditty with an upbeat groove that belies its foreboding lyrics: “All they wanna do is keep you distracted / At least until martial law is enacted / And Jefferson would roll over in his grave / If he saw how these people behave.”
In case the targets of McDermott’s ire aren’t clear, a video he quickly cut together for the song includes footage of President Donald Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and masked Border Patrol agents.
McDermott came to prominence in the Chicago music scene of the ’90s; he famously named his debut album after his then-address “620 W. Surf,” and now lives in south suburban Orland Park with his wife and teenage daughter, who are also musicians. He still tours regularly and recently performed “The Future” while in the South despite some initial trepidation about how people might receive it.
But he said, “I would get standing ovations singing the song — in Alabama! When the chorus says, ‘Here we don’t bow to any kings / And certainly not a clown from Queens,’ people went crazy.”
The enthusiastic responses convinced McDermott to release “The Future” ahead of the nationwide No Kings protests on Oct. 18. The song earned McDermott an invitation to play at The Hideout for Indivisible Chicago’s monthly community gathering, and it’s extending his reach into surprising places. According to his Spotify data, he said, the song has “been bigger than a lot of my past releases, for sure — getting plays in Australia, in France, in places I don’t usually get.”
The Old Town’s School’s previous home and current annex at 909 W. Armitage Ave. Credit: Facebook
The Old Town School Impact
A self-admitted “folkie” who grew up listening to Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen, McDermott once studied at Chicago’s Old Town School of Folk Music, an institution connected to protest music since its founding 68 years ago.
“The idea of American folk music as a genre of music — you know, folk music with a capital F — comes out of the labor struggles and anti-fascism movements of the ’40s” and became more popular in the 1950s, explained John Huber, the Old Town School’s director of education.
The Old Town School was born in 1957. Founder Win Stracke, legendary broadcaster Studs Terkel and influential bluesman Big Bill Broonzy all filled significant roles — and embodied the school’s philosophy of “musical democracy,” ensuring it would be open to everyone regardless of class, race or gender.
From left: Studs Terkel, Win Stracke, Big Bill Broonzy and Lawrence Lane in the 1950 folk revue “I Come For To Sing.” Credit: Old Town School of Folk Music Resource Center
One of its earliest students was John Prine, the legendary musician who became known as the Mark Twain of songwriting. A native of suburban Maywood, he took classes at the Old Town School as a teenager in the 1960s and released his eponymous debut album in 1971. Its much-covered songs include the wistful “Hello in There,” about the loneliness of aging — and the utterly devastating “Sam Stone,” a brutal critique of how society failed traumatized Vietnam veterans.
Win Stracke at WFMT Studios. Credit: Old Town School of Folk Music Resource Center
“Every Veterans Day, it is absolutely de rigueur for every folk radio host in America to play ‘Sam Stone’,” said radio broadcaster Marilyn Rea Beyer, host of WFMT programs “Folkstage” and “Midnight Special.” The latter show, Chicago’s longest-running weekly radio program, began in 1953 and directly inspired the school’s founding four years later.
“‘Sam Stone’ is a riveting song about a Vietnam veteran who comes home to his family in ruins, with a heroin addiction,” Beyer said. “John Prine also wrote this fun little ditty in the ’70s called, ‘Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore’ — and by golly, it is so relevant these days, with the false patriotism of people who seek to subvert democracy.”
Fast forward 50 years, and the legacy of musicians like Dylan and Prine continues. McDermott is just one example of Chicago singers using their craft to push for change.
Al Scorch, who racked up views on Instagram for his informative and humorous reviews of Park District bathrooms, is also a musician with a monthly residency at the Hideout. His 2016 album “Circle Round the Signs” features songs that fit into the protest vein, like “Everybody Out” and a cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Slipknot.”
“Al Scorch’s music is very political,” Huber said. “He’s writing and performing and also attending protests. When he sings his political songs, people are singing along with him — they’ve learned the lyrics because his music resonates so deeply with them.”
From Gospel To Punk, Protest Music’s Big Umbrella
A common misconception about protest music is that it overlaps perfectly with folk. But protest music is less a genre of music and more about intention in lyrics, and its artists cut across all demographics and genres.
From left: Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert and Mahalia Jackson perform at the Old Town School’s first home at 333 W. North Ave. Credit: Old Town School of Folk Music Resource Center
Gospel, soul, punk and rap are all styles of music that also have long, proud histories of protest songs. A long list of performers from greater Chicago provide the proof, including Mahalia Jackson, Mavis Staples and The Staple Singers, Curtis Mayfield, Ella Jenkins and Rage Against the Machine’s Tom Morello.
“Antifascist movements attract artists, poets and musicians,” Huber said — but that’s not all. “The Black churches are part of this big picture,” he added.
“Gospel music has a strong vein of protest against the persecution of minorities,” Beyer said. The genre “was essentially born here with Thomas Dorsey, who wrote music for Mahalia Jackson.”
The first gospel artist to sign with Columbia Records, Jackson’s “Rusty Old Halo” was her first single for that label.
“That’s what you get if you are a greedy robber baron when you get to heaven,” Beyer said, referencing the lyrics. “You get a rusty old halo, a skinny white cloud and a robe so woolly, it scratches.”
From their start at Progressive Baptist Church in Armour Square, the Bronzeville-born gospel group The Staple Singers came to be close allies with Martin Luther King Jr., and their protest songs went on to soundtrack the Civil Rights movement.
Of course, artists can adjust their musical form to match a protest song’s intended function. One of Scorch’s political bops is 2023’s “Paul Vallas Hates House Music,” which pokes fun at the conservative mayoral candidate while paying homage to the Chicago-born musical genre. The song isn’t Scorch’s typical musical mode, but it certainly suited the scenario.
This summer, local punk band Smoking Popes released the single “Allegiance,” with an assist from Local H’s Scott Lucas, which rages, “I pledge allegiance but not to this / Administration of ugliness / The fear and loathing, the seething hate / I don’t believe this is making us great.”
“There’s all kinds of protest music,” McDermott said. “It’s just the attitude.”
Rage Against ‘Desperate Times’
One of the best to do it, McDermott said, is a band that rose to prominence in the early ’90s.
“Rage Against the Machine are amazing. I love Rage,” he said.
Founding member Tom Morello, who grew up in north suburban Libertyville, provided the music to Goodman Theatre’s recent world premiere “Revolution(s).” The punk/metal/hip-hop musical about a soldier who returns to his South Side home after a tour in Afghanistan only to find his city occupied, was written by Zayd Ayers Dohrn, whose parents were activists in the Weather Underground in the ’70s.
(L-R, back) Aaron James McKenzie, Alysia Velez and Billy Rude. (L-R, front) Jarais Musgrove, Christopher Kelley, AJ Paramo and Kendal Marie Wilson in “Revolution(s)” at the Goodman Theatre. Credit: Brett Beiner
In speaking about the show and current affairs while in Chicago, Morello didn’t mince words.
“The world is not going to change itself. That is up to you, especially in desperate times like this,” he said.
“In this moment, every act of art is an act of resistance. In a time where they’re criminalizing skin color, where they’re criminalizing speech, where they’re criminalizing art … standing up in your place, in your time — and what you do as a songwriter, as a playwright, as a carpenter, as a student, as a whatever — that is the duty set before us.”
It’s a duty felt by many, and one McDermott and other musicians take seriously.
“Nina Simone would say, ‘The responsibility of the artist is to reflect their time,’” he said. “That’s all we’re really doing.”
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