Well, there are ways of making your political point in a song that don't involve hitting your audience with it between the eyes. Woody Guthrie made many a hard-hitting political point by doing no more than describing, in his own brand of poetry, the lives of downtrodden people, not a hint of preachy bitterness in sight. I've been to the gigs of some pretty eminent "political" folk singers in my time whose views I entirely agree with but who had me gritting me teeth and clenching me buttocks at their clumsy lack of subtlety; of, er, artistry. I'm all for the killing off of capitalism but I don't want to hear that naked message thrown at me in a song. There are better ways. I'm against any kind of restriction at all on abortion and I don't want to hear someone's proselytising against it in a song, especially when it entails tugging at the heartstrings over little innocents, etc. There is a better way of making us think than chucking emotion in our faces. Yes, it's his gig, it's a free country, etc., but songs making debating points sung in front of an audience who can't debate back are not the right way of going about it. That is not legitimate, and of course we can walk out, but I reckon we should get our money back for that. Make the buggers listen to a Woody collection and learn the right way to do it. Here ya go:

Woody Guthrie, "Ludlow Massacre":

And the red neck miners mowed down them troopers
You should have seen those poor boys run

Christy Moore's interpretation of the same words:

And the red neck miners they shot the soldiers
You should have seen them bastards run

You decide who got the message right.