Rock ‘n’ Responsibility : More than ever, rock’s creative pulse centers on conscience and heart

For anyone just looking for a party record or head-banging noise, rock ‘n’ roll can be a puzzling place to be these days.

Why are all these people singing about peace, love and understanding? What’s going on here? Is this 1988 or 1968?

U2, whose “Rattle and Hum” album has been the best seller for six weeks, explores questions of temptation and faith.

Tracy Chapman, who has emerged as the year’s most acclaimed newcomer, sings about society’s underclass--people who have been battered by racism or economic deprivation.

In a song from a debut album that has sold more than 6 million copies, Chapman speaks about a town torn by racial strife: “Choose sides/ Or run for your life/ Tonight the riots begin/ On back streets of America/ They kill the dream of America. “

Bruce Springsteen, who headed Amnesty International’s unprecedented five-continent “Human Rights Now!” tour, warned crowds (50,000 night after night) about the dangers of blind faith in governments.

In one of the tour’s most moving moments, Sting saluted women in Chile who dance the “Gueca Solo” in protest to the murder and imprisonment of their husbands and sons because of their political opposition. He calls (in the song “They Dance Alone”) for an end to foreign money that supports the Pinochet regime: “No wages for your torturers/ No budget for your guns/ Can you think of your own mother/ Dancin’ with her invisible son?”

More than any other time in the rock’s four-decade history, the music’s creative and--to a remarkable degree--commercial pulse centers on matters of conscience and heart.

Explained Peter Gabriel during the Amnesty tour, “If rock is the first universal language, which I believe it is, and . . . the majority of the world’s population is under 25, you can shape and mold and direct (young people’s) intentions positively with music. Music itself doesn’t change the world, people change the world, but music can be a powerful instrument of information.”

Welcome to the Age of Responsibility in rock.

Since the ‘60s, musicians have been nervous about mixing message and music. They saw much of the ‘60s protest music as boring and ineffective, and worried about stepping on a soapbox themselves.

But a significant number of performers are now beginning to speak of positive or uplifting music in terms of their obligations as artists. This large and diverse group includes best sellers and cult figures, newcomers and veterans.

Among them: Jackson Browne, Prince, Don Henley, John Mellencamp, Simple Minds, John Hiatt, Ruben Blades, the Waterboys, Patti Smith, Hothouse Flowers, Lou Reed, Sonic Youth, R.E.M., Public Enemy, Metallica, Midnight Oil, Billy Bragg, Michelle Shocked, 10,000 Maniacs.

The irony is that all this activity is occurring during a time when rock has been under intense attack by parent groups and even some legislators who see rock ‘n’ roll chiefly as a bad influence on youth.

The positive forces don’t simply represent a revival of ‘60s activism or hippie idealism, but a wider exploration of social concerns, from world peace to homelessness to the environment.

Jackson Browne, in an interview in Rolling Stone magazine’s 20th-anniversary look at the state of rock on the edge of the ‘90s, differentiated between what is happening today and in the ‘60s.

“People are fond of pointing out that there was a lot of activism in the ‘60s and then the ‘70s were sort of dormant,” he said. “Now in the ‘80s, there seems to be a lot of concern again. Maybe things work in cycles. But I would say that there is a progression.

“Within a year or two of an event that centered on extreme hunger and starvation in Africa, you were also having events with many of the same artists discussing human rights. . . . Rock ‘n’ roll is one of the main communications mediums. It’s one that people really care about and are attuned to a lot more than to the six o’clock news.”

Crucially, it’s not just veteran artists who speak of rock in social terms.

Liam O’Maonlai, the 23-year-old leader of Ireland’s highly regarded new Hothouse Flowers, includes these lines in the band’s “People” album: “I believe in these people/ I believe in this age.”

Didn’t he think that the lines were naive in an age whose apathy and greed is telegraphed daily in headlines? O’Maonlai said forcefully, “Music should encourage people. I still meet people who are from all sections of society who are worth believing in. There are still saints everywhere. . . . , people struggling . . . and I believe in those people. I put my faith in hope--not in despair.”

And the catalyst for much of today’s social idealism: Live Aid.

Attitude Change

Bob Geldof, the Irish rock star who organized the Live Aid concerts in 1985, resisted attempts by reporters for an instant analysis in the days after Live Aid.

Even as British tabloids dubbed him Saint Bob and politicians nominated him for knighthood, Geldof said it would take a least a year to determine the success or failure of the concerts, which raised more than $82 million for African famine victims.

The eventual test, he said, was not in the amount of money raised; even $200 million would have been a thimbleful of what was needed to correct conditions in Ethiopia and other parts of Africa. Live Aid’s impact, he said, would be measured by whether attitudes were changed--whether musicians, governments and the public became more sensitive to human needs.

As it turned out, it has taken longer than a year to make that measurement. The initial signals were mixed: a flurry of other benefits, including the much publicized Farm Aid, but then signs of backlash and apathy that suggested the public and the pop world were aided-out.

After 3 1/2 years, however, it is clear that rock ‘n’ roll has been profoundly affected by what happened on July 13, 1985, when the concerts in London and Philadelphia were televised live to more than 100 countries around the world.

Not everyone has been affected. The airwaves are still ripe with the normal business of pop: the always bankable love songs as well as cartoonish rebellion, bland background music or simply the latest wrinkle on rock’s hedonistic or nihilistic traditions.

But there is a positivism and idealism in the music--attitudes that can be traced to Live Aid.

Whereas Woodstock represented the cultural coming of age of rock, Live Aid served as an equally dramatic demonstration of of rock’s socio-political potential.

Explained Peter Gabriel recently, “Live Aid, for many musicians, was the first time we had any real sense of the real reach of music. I was very excited by it. Even if some of the money went astray, if some of the food lorries got taken over by the military, if some of it was naively spent, there are still thousands of people that are alive today who wouldn’t have been if it weren’t for Live Aid.

“It illustrated that music could focus the world audience on an issue. That inspired me greatly.”

U2’s Bono Hewson also spoke about the impact of that day: “I noticed there was a unique feeling of good will backstage at Live Aid. I could see it on the faces of the performers. That’s a lot different from the face of rock ‘n’ roll in the ‘70s when it was so empty, so hollowed out, covered by black eye shadow.

“At Live Aid, I saw these people giving and getting back. They were discovering that music is a gift and it is more blessed to give than receive.”

Still, it took a second Irishman and a second cause to fully cement the imagination stirred by Geldof and Live Aid. That man was Jack Healey and the cause was Amnesty International.

Second Wind

Healey, a former Franciscan monk and Peace Corps official, realized as soon as he joined Amnesty International as its executive director in 1981 that the human rights organization was badly in need of a higher profile in this country.

Even before Live Aid and the “We Are the World” recording project in 1985, he saw rock as a way to raise awareness of the organization. For years, however, he had run into dead ends trying to enlist the support of rock musicians in this country. The impasse ended in 1984 when he saw U2 in concert at Madison Square Garden.

“When I heard the song ‘Pride’ and saw them flash pictures of Martin Luther King Jr. and American Indians on the screen, I knew I had my (band),” Healey has said.

U2 agreed to do a series of six U.S. shows for Amnesty and helped Healey enlist such other pop-rock stars as Gabriel, Sting, Bryan Adams, Lou Reed and Joan Baez. The timing of the 1986 tour was significant in terms of the campaign to reintroduce social consciousness onthe rock agenda.

In June of 1986, there was grumbling in the pop world that we had gone through enough of these benefits. It was time to simply rock ‘n’ roll again.

But the phenomenal success of that tour shattered the argument. Not only did it demonstrate to rock merchants that audiences were willing to listen to social concerns (U2, which had been growingly dramatically in popularity, suddenly became the biggest band in rock), but it also worked for the organization. Amnesty netted $2.1 million in box-office receipts and 34,000 new members.

During the tour, U2’s Bono Hewson saw the significance of what was happening, “This tour came at precisely the right moment. There are those in the rock ‘n’ roll business who wish that the doors that were opened with phenomena such as Band Aid and Live Aid would close. They told me, ‘Can’t we just get this charity business over with?’

“But a lot of us want to keep those doors open. Our goal is to have these events not considered big deals any more. . . . but a routine part of the rock ‘n’ roll life.”

Baez, who served on the tour as a sort of an ambassador from the ‘60s activist contingent, was impressed by the musicians’ dedication on the tour.

“I would say I am definitely less skeptical and cynical than I was two years ago when the beginnings of it seemed like great big picnics and practically zero commitment--except for Geldof, who had 200% commitment,” she said at the time.

“I was impressed on this tour by how everyone handled themselves at press conferences and how deeply they seemed to delve into the issues away from the cameras. . . . I’m not predicting that it is already a revolution . . . but it is a start.”

The promise was fulfilled in a variety of ways after Amnesty, but none more dramatically than during a second Amnesty tour this fall.

Again designed by Healey and San Francisco concert producer Bill Graham, the six-week, five-continent tour--featuring Springsteen, Gabriel, Sting, Tracy Chapman and Youssou D’Nour--took the Amnesty message to Third World countries, where the illiteracy rate renders most of the organization’s printed material useless.

It was clearly the most ambitious and, in many ways, the most distinguished rock tour ever staged.

Afterwards, some viewed the whole process cynically. They argued that it’s “in” now to sing about social issues, and that the artists were getting more benefit out of the tour in the long run than Amnesty.

Most certainly, record companies that would have once been nervous about socially conscious acts are now rushing to sign them, and thousands of ambitious young bands across the country that might have been ready to follow Iron Maiden or Motley Crue to the top are now thinking about trying to become the new U2.

The undeniable element in all of this, however, is that pop audiences are willing once again to listen to music with a message.

Soapbox Fears

One of the biggest hurdles to the return of social consciousness in rock was cynicism.

For every person who thinks the ‘60s counter-culture helped end the Vietnam war, there are those who point to the election of Ronald Reagan and George Bush and ask what difference all that “Flower Power” zeal really made.

Cynicism was so heavily ingrained that some artists--for instance, Jackson Browne--became the butt of jokes because they always seemed to be stepping on a soap box. Even U2 has been the target of this cynicism. Suspecting a “holier than thou” attitude, some critics and rock fans have given the nickname “God” to Bono Hewson.

Hewson hasn’t retreated from putting his views in his music, but he did avoid doing interviews in connection with the new “Rattle and Hum” album, letting other members of the Irish rock quartet do the talking this time.

Guitarist Dave Evans, who prefers to be called simply Edge, acknowledged the danger in a band becoming known only for its messages.

“You don’t want to be so predictable that it gets boring,” he said. “I suppose that’s the big responsibility of musicians who get into politics, that they don’t become boring to the point where people lose interest in the issues themselves. . . . First and foremost we’re a band, and for me all other considerations are secondary.”

On the same topic, Don Henley has said, “you can’t climb on a soapbox on your record and rail all the time, because that turns people off. When caring becomes a fad, when activism becomes fashionable, look out--because people are going to turn away from it. . . . At the same time, I get up every day and think about it: Am I doing too much on this side, or too little?”

Personal Themes

Most of the musicians who see in their work the potential to comfort or inspire say they believe in the power of music.

During the recent Amnesty International tour, Springsteen said: “What I try to do in my music is to get people to walk a little while in another man’s shoes--maybe somebody who’s got it a little tougher than you do. Hopefully, the best of my music challenges people to respond to both their own feelings and the world they live in.”

In the 20th-anniversary issue of Rolling Stone, Sting said he wouldn’t have known about the civil rights movement as a youngster in England without listening to Bob Dylan. “America, to me, was like heaven . . . the home of the brave . . . the land of the free,” he said. “Any idea that it wasn’t was a shock. It was rarely on the news in England that there were disturbances in Birmingham, Alabama.”

Hewson said he first learned about Amnesty International by attending a 1981 benefit concert in London. “I went there just to have a good time the way you go to most concerts . . . but I was intrigued by just what Amnesty International was all about and why these musicians were supporting it.”

Lou Reed--whose rebellious and exotic stance in the ‘60s and ‘70s is epitomized by his tune, “Walk on the Wild Side”--speaks of the impact of the 1986 Amnesty tour on his music.

“Meeting Jack Healey is quite an experience,” he said recently. “I’m not prone to being part of a group, but Jack and Amnesty can make you want to be part of one. My problem was I couldn’t imagine how it could work, but it was proved to me that it could work. I’ve met people who have been helped by it . . . that was an astonishing experience.”

Reed’s next album, titled “New York” and due in January, is a striking departure--one filled with social comment. The easy assumption is that the album’s sentiments were an outgrowth of his participation with the Amnesty tour.

“Everything contributes to the feelings I have on this album,” he said. “I’m a writer and I react to what I see and feel. I have a little house out of town and I’ve run into some environmental things that happen which are really disturbing.

“(And) there was the meeting of these prisoners of conscience on the Amnesty tour, and there is the everyday experience of watching the city go down the tubes, so to speak, and the state of national politics.”

Personal Themes

Though politics is the most dramatic theme in this period of social consciousness in pop, rock today is also graced by the more personal themes that have always been at the heart of the most absorbing art--tales of people simply coping with everyday struggles and tensions in their lives. But--more than ever--artists are speaking about how they hope their music encourages people.

It’s an approach shared by two very different artists: John Hiatt, a Nashville-based writer in his late 30s, and Hothouse Flowers’ O’Maonlai, a Dublin-based rocker in his early 20s.

For years, Hiatt wrote cynical and even vindictive songs that frequently dealt with such matters as romantic manipulation and betrayal. But his last two albums, including the current “Slow Turning,” offer song after song about the virtues of such wholesome and traditional values as family and love. They are artful, not sappy works.

Hiatt, who lived in Los Angeles for almost a decade before moving to Nashville, now believes much of his early work was the outgrowth of his self-doubts and insecurities--factors that contributed to a major alcohol dependence.

He explains: “I feel a certain responsibility now to make an attempt to elevate as much as possible, and I don’t mean to be presumptuous and say something like ‘I can uplift people or take a weight off them,’ but I think the idea behind at least the kind of music that I write deals with that. . . .”

In a separate interview, Hothouse Flowers’ O’Maonlai spoke in remarkably similar terms about his duty as an artist.

“Mike Scott (of the Waterboys) talks a lot about the healing power of music and there is no doubt that, even in the simpliest form, music is healing and has healing possibilities--even if it means it helps you cry or it helps you make it through the night,” he said.

But what about those who see rock ‘n’ roll only in terms of rebellion and its outlaw tradition?

“Rebellion doesn’t mean you have to raise your fist and be angry and put everybody down,” he said. “There’s all sorts of rebellion in our music and in U2’s music and in the Waterboys’ music because we’re all talking about things we want changed.

“Being a rebel just means you have to follow your own beliefs, rather than what someone else says for you. Isn’t that what taking responsibility is all about?”