Will Fly wrote: There's nothing that puts me off music more than an overt political message...

Although we have never discussed politics, knowing you as I do Will, I suspect that we share a broadly similar world view but I think you are being dogmatic here. There is a tide in the affairs of men etc. and a time too, when dissenting voices must be heard - including those of musicians.

This has an honourable tradition in Britain, exemplified by venerable examples such as The World Turned Upside Down and The Diggers' Song from the mid-17th century. And the German Die Gedanken Sind Frei predates that by at least four centuries.

What everyone would agree on is is that the "message" alone is not enough to make a good protest song: The Streets of London works because it oblique rather than declamatory.

But sometimes a blunt, direct approach works best - I mean how influential in the anti Vietnam protest movement was Country Joe McDonald's wake-up call of, "One, two, three, what are we fighting for?" to the stoned youth of Woodstock?

I'll own up here to having recorded a couple of Critics Group songs in the 70s, neither of which pulled any political punches but it was at a time when political movements were less sophisticated and, apart from street demonstrations and marches, the folk music world was a crucial area of influence.

The band I played in had a broad repertoire which included some pretty cheesy, crowd pleasing stuff, but we could follow Whisky in the Jar with, say, the Critics' Grey October and get a huge reponse, even with its (to use your word) overt slogan, "Children die, while we stand by and shake the killers by the hand."