Ian Watson Quotes

We read our own political content into The Clash, and they accepted it.

In the '60s and '70s, a protest song was a genre in music.

If I ever hear "Power to the people" again, I'llà I just found out that John Lennon wrote that song, "All we are saying is give peace a chance." I couldn't believe it. I thought it was terrible; I hated that song. They used to bring out the Pete Seeger wind-up toy to sing it. Tiresome.

The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning.

Reggae music is not an easy music to like when it comes to the power in society. 'Cause it talks about changing society. You won't find it readily accepted.

A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit.

I was listening 'Plastic Ono Band,' the John Lennon album a lot, and that might have had some inspiration on me.

There's a lot of anger in 'Queen of Denmark,' and that's me getting political.

Social justice has always been a part of my inspiration. For example, when the Vietnam War was going on, I wrote a song about that.

I made records purely for fun - songs that made you feel good. I left the message songs to people like John Lennon.

Marvin Gaye's 'What's Going On' slows the world down.

I think that there are artists of different genres whose calling is to use their art to hope to affect and better the human condition - whether it's System of a Down, or Rage Against the Machine, or Public Enemy, or the Clash, Bruce Springsteen, or Pete Seeger. It's a group that I'm proud to be counted among.

Most of my stuff was sort of of-the-time. 'The Crazies' was, basically, we were angry about Vietnam, and it had a reason for being.

I always make this comparison between Bob Dylan and David Simon. Not in the most flattering way possible - these two intellectual Jews who totally identify with the black man's struggle!

I think at some point there may be artists who will get fed up, and they deliberately want to use their art as a means to rock the waves a little bit. And instead of doing the status quo, they'll deliberately go out to really make a change. I think Kendrick Lamar is an example of that.

Because of my song 'Sam Stone,' a lot of people thought I was interested in writing protest songs. Writing protest songs always struck me as patting yourself on the back.

If rock criticism is to be a political calling, which has always been my angle, that's obviously not because it's a fountainhead of protest songs.

I am a politically motivated person, and that will come through in the music. I'm not sure if every song will be 'Take Me to Church,' but I can only hope that people enjoy the body of work that I have ahead of me.

What Public Enemy and Underground Resistance had in common was a rejection of the idea of music as entertainment.

The Stop The War Coalition is a sort of home to Jew-haters because its hate music about Israel is so catchy.

The only person out there worthy of mixing political views and music is Jello Biafra.

A lot of songs we've written have been political, but they're also personally political.

I don't like political rappers.

When George W. Bush was up for re-election, we took part in Rock Against Bush.

The protest songs of the 1960s and 70s managed to blend political and societal views with music from the heart.