NEW JERSEY ROCK NERD

Ted Leo
Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead EP
(Lookout, 2003)

By Sean Horan


Protest music, the protest singer. Woody Guthrie, Bob Dylan- these guys were mad as hell and could articulate that anger with impassioned pleas for peace, righteousness, and common sense. Guthrie emblazoned his guitar with its skill at killing fascists; Dylan decried the “Masters of War.” Each man saw his music as a means of expressing moral outrage, personal politics and social criticism.

These prototypical protest singers gave way to myriad styles of protest music, from Bob Marley’s songs of freedom, to the socially-conscious hip-hop of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions, to the leftist punk rock of the Dead Kennedys. All of these artists voiced the oft-ignored, oft-maligned, dissenting opinion in the American socio-political landscape, yet they played to increasingly smaller crowds, often preaching to the converted. No longer were these musicians looking to attract a more diverse audience, their visions were lowered to match their reach.

Already known in the indie-rock world for his work with Chisel, Ted Leo has released two fantastic solo discs in the past few years, garnering greater acclaim with his passionate, literate songwriting and pleading vocals. To call the man a protest singer on the basis of these two albums, however, would be far-reaching at best. He writes a kickass indie-rock tune, but keeps the politics subtle.

A quick follow-up EP to last year’s excellent Hearts of Oak full-length, Tell Balgeary, Balgury is Dead finds Leo assuming the role of protest singer, albeit in an updated sense and style. The album is mostly Leo solo (only the title track features a full band), but the stripped-down atmosphere does nothing to lessen the impact each song. The urgency in Leo’s voice imbues each phrase with a power that commands your attention. Even the cover songs on the album, including tracks by The Jam and Split Enz, are made personal by his vocal performance and lyrics, in which there is desperation (but not despair), guarded idealism, and the hope that a guy with a guitar can still bring the ruckus.

Sean Horan takes a break from composing
his first column for The Manifest.

Several songs on this EP make reference to war, and though none are specifically anti-war anthems, one gets the feeling that Leo finds our current political situation quite repugnant. In “The High Party,” he wails:

And if there’s a war, another shitty war to fight for Babylon
Then it’s the perfect storm in a teacup, but you must drink it down.

And later:

So I’m lifting up that poison cup to drink a draught of propaganda
Or I’m giving up that other stuff in the hopes that it’s gonna make me madder.

Leo blends this commentary seamlessly into his songwriting: the message succeeds because his tone is not didactic …unlike Billy Bragg, another contemporary protest singer, whose songs often seem like sermons. Leo captures the bitter mistrust of those in charge, and the dismay of living under their rule, without sounding like he’s preaching from an altar. His words may teem with anger, but he is restrained enough in his delivery to avoid becoming a caricature.

Enter Bruce Springsteen. Like Leo, a Jersey boy and a songwriter “for the people,” Springsteen dabbled with protest songs during his commercial peak in the mid-80s. Go back and read the lyrics to “Born in the USA” (I won’t insist you listen to the song), and then tell me that ol’ Bruce wasn’t bemoaning the plight of the common man after the fallout of the Vietnam War. I mean, sure, Bruce was always bemoaning the plight of the common man, but he was able to depict the bewildered despair of a veteran returning home to find that his country had forgotten him. If that’s not an anti-war anthem…hell, I’ll go enlist right now.

Springsteen’s overwrought emoting is the main reason many write him off, but I imagine he and Ted Leo as kindred spirits…and this isn’t just my rah-rah Jersey attitude taking over. Springsteen could effectively critique his country because he loved it so much; he was not a blind disciple to the American Way.

Though Leo is not a rabid patriot, it is obvious he longs for the time when his home did not condemn free thought. In “Loyal to my Sorrowful Country,” the only true protest song on the EP, he sings:

In the days when we were young, we were free, we were free.
With each new day that’s begun, we won’t be, we can’t be, so
No more shall I be loyal to my sorrowful country.
No more shall I be loyal to my sorrowful country.

The protest singer succeeds in expressing his love of country through calling to our attention the problems he sees with it. Otherwise, his songs would be mere hate-filled rants. Leo expresses the desire to change the land in this last song, a desire to remake his world how it once was and how he wishes it to be. How lucky we are to have such an intelligent voice to speak for us.




Sean Horan, a native of the fetid industrial wastelands of New Jersey, woke up in a puddle of his own vomit one morning to discover he was living in the fresh air and wide-open spaces of Boulder, Colorado. He will write about music and other sundry topics for The Manifest until he has earned enough money for a bottle of Jack, a bucket of salted cashews, and a bus ticket back to Teaneck.