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Survey Today's Political and Protest Songs with Melody Walker's Songs of Consequence

Melody Walker of Front Country

Songs of Consequence is a new Spotify playlist conceived and curated by Melody Walker, lead singer of the California-launched, Nashville-based progressive string band Front Country. Motivated in part by last weekend’s second annual Women’s March and her close eye on political and social life (she’s a provocative voice on social media), Walker started the list and asked her online community to chime in with songs of protest and pride that spoke directly about our uneasy political climate. It’s a work in progress, but even now it’s a pretty good survey of the state of social songwriting of the last two years.

Walker agreed to meet me to talk over her finds so far so we met up and recorded a conversation that appears on the new edition of The String, airing Sunday Jan. 28 (8 am) and Monday Jan. 29 (9 pm). In part she says:

"It's so inspiring to see people saying things, each in their own unique way, resisting, standing up for what they think is right. I made this playlist so I could listen to it and get pumped up to write more protest songs, and I encourage everyone else to do that too. It doesn't have to be a protest song as a complaint or grievance. It can be empowering. It can be hopeful. I've really been trying to write more in affirmations - things that everyone can nod their head along to, conservative and liberal, so everyone in the audience can find shared values. Maybe somewhere down the line it'll kind of sink in that there is a threat to those values and there has to be a solution and that it's up to all of us to act."

Listen to the full interview here.