Almanac Songs and Singers: Protest, <i>Détournement</i> and Incorporation

Abstract

This article deals with the practice of the radical leftist singing group The Almanac Singers (whose members included Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, among others) from their earliest anti-capitalist and anti-war songs to their later, more liberal contributions to negotiating a unified (war) effort against Fascism. Issues addressed herein include assessing strategies in the practices of musical performers who have political agendas, investigating the usefulness of Guy Debord’s terminology of détournement (“turning expressions of the capitalist system and its media culture against itself”), as well as the Birmingham School’s set of terms: commodification, familiarization and incorporation. The article progresses through a lyrics and performance analysis, and contextualizes these with attempts to situate The Almanac Singers culturally and politically in the turbulent public and clandestine discourse climate of the US in the late ‘30s and early ‘40s.