"Furthermore, if you want to change the world, you have to deal with the world first.

When I'm singing a song, I'm not trying to change the words, any more or less than when I'm talking.It's the same person when I'm talking or singing, the same politics, the same concerns.

I might be hoping to encourage people who think the same way I do, I might be hoping to let some people who don't think the same way I do understand my views understand them a bit better.

Sometimes singing might feed into something else, like a march or a demonstration or as picket. The same way carrying a banner might be. The songs are going to reflect the politics of the occasion. Orange marches have banners too, and songs and folk music. They aren't the kind of songs I sing or the kind of marches I go on.

What I'm getting at, singing songs and playing music isn't something added on to a human being, and nor are the important things that get called "political" (as opposed to what fat cat clamberfs there way onto the gravy train), they are both as natural as breathing.

One more point - the kind of things that get labelled as "leftist and "political" are often things which not really anything of the kind. Politics should be about things like how society is organised, how taxes are levied and paid, what things need to be arranged collectively, and how people can make sure they are run well and fairly. There's a lot of room for disagreement over these things.

But is being opposed to racism "politics"? Is being angry when police whom we employ misuse their power, and then cover up for each other "politics"? Resisting injustice and oppression is more basic than politics. So is making a judgement about moral issues like war and killing, and standing up for it - and on all those things yiou will find people who are "left wing" and "right wing" side by side. Probably singing "We shall overcome" at one time, maybe something else now.