The world’s many dystopian debacles including, poverty, war and capitalism are commonly disputed though the effective manipulation of protest songs. Cambridge Dictionary defines protest song as a song that expresses disapproval, typically regarding politics. Song-writers have manipulated stylised literacy conventions since the 1960s to empower mass populations, return voice to those who have been marginalised, influence people’s cultural perspectives and widen social ideologies. The songs “White Fella Black Fella” (1985) by Warumpi Band and “I Am Austrlian” (1987) by The Seekers both contain the literacy techniques of: meaning, imagery, language, tone, and style which have been effectively mastered to clearly convey their parallel protest messages.
Similarly both songs have a central …show more content…
In “I am Australian” stanza six, line three states, “I’m Clancy on his horse, I’m Ned Kelly on the run”. Clancy is the protagonist from the iconic Australian poem Clancy of the Overflow, which describes his imagined pleasures and adventurous life as a drover and a shearer. The reference to infamous bushranger Ned Kelly again allows the listener to imagine the audacious life of the Australian “bloke”. This effective manipulation of allusion enables listeners to create a connection with these Australian icons and imagine their intrepid lifestyles in the archetypal Australian bush adding interest to the imagery. Similarly the metaphor “ship is sinking” (stanza six, line four), allows listeners to literally imagine a boat drowning in the ocean, incommensurate with literal sense this statement also refers to Australia plummeting to a war like state if multiculturalism is not respected by all. Evidently both songs similarly manipulated poetic to techniques to create imagery which conveyed the protest ideology of the imperativeness of