Heh! Well, it's a matter of personal taste, right? He has sung in so many different voices by this late date that one would wonder which one of them bothers you more...or less....

Now, if protest songs bother you, then does Buffy Sainte-Marie get on your nerves too? What about Joan Baez? They have both done plenty of protest material in their time. Judy Collins did too. All a protest songs is....it's a political or social comment on something that is going on in our lives, suggesting that there is need of a change.

Given the fact that we all discuss such things amongst one another on a reasonably frequent basis, I don't see why we can't write songs about them too. A song can be about anything.

It is undoubtedly true that many protest songs have been poorly written, make their point in a strident and clumsy fashion, and therefore are not very good songs. That can be irritating to listen to. Some, however, have been exceedingly well written and are very good songs.

If you look back through the catalog of trad songs of Scotland, England, Ireland, and America you will find a simply vast number of songs in which things are protested....because people then were very concerned about the political and social issues of their day, just as they are now. You will find protests against the rich, protests against English colonialism, protests against war, protests against the cutting down of old forests, protests against both petty and great tyrants of all sorts during those times. Those are trad songs, Insane Beard, and those are among the songs you apparently like, correct?

Why then does it become a problem for you when the protest song is moved into the present era?