So many amazing folk songs came out in the 1960s that became iconic and long-enduring protest anthems; but some of those amazing songs were just too strange to earn the kind of longevity that others earned. Let’s take a look at a few folk songs from the 1960s that are considered protest songs. However, they were too strange to become anthems of the era in the grand sense.
“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” by Arlo Guthrie (1967)
“He said, ‘Kid, we found your name on an envelope at the bottom of a—a half a ton of garbage, and just wanted to know if you had any information about it.’ / And I said, ‘Yes, sir, Officer Obie, I cannot tell a lie. I put that envelope under that garbage.’”
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“Alice’s Restaurant Massacree” comes straight from Arlo Guthrie, the famed similarly musical son of protest singer Woody Guthrie. This folk song is certainly strange. It’s basically a very long talking blues monologue about a Thanksgiving dinner that touches on dumping trash illegally, getting arrested for littering, etc. But if you read between the lines, it makes sense why this song became a niche Vietnam War protest song, particularly about the draft. It deserved to be bigger, in my opinion.
“Talking World War III Blues” by Bob Dylan (1963)
“Well, I rung me fallout shelter bell / And I leaned my head and I gave a yell / ‘Give me a string bean, I’m a hungry man’ / Shotgun fired and away I ran.”
This early work from Bob Dylan slipped through the cracks in favor of his majorly famous protest songs. It’s a shame, because this odd folk song really is poignant and interesting. In this song, Dylan has a dream that he survived a nuclear war. He wanders through town, meets other survivors, and is met with immediate distrust. It’s absurdly comical and touches on the paranoia felt at the time.
“Cement Octopus” by Pete Seeger (1966)
“That octopus grows like a science-fiction blight / The Bay and the Ferry building are out of sight / The trees that stood for a thousand years / We watch them falling through our tears.”
This song was written by Malvina Reynolds and recorded by Pete Seeger on his 1966 album God Bless The Grass. The whole of this album is an environmental protest record, and “Cement Octopus” stands out for being quite unique. This entry on our list of strange folk songs from the 1960s anthropomorphizes a freeway in Sacramento as a giant cement octopus. It eats up resources, from gasoline taxes to flora that lines the freeway. It’s very well-written, honestly. And it’s a fascinating take on how excessive deforestation for the sake of freeways hurts everything from wildlife to people.
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