Other than loving The 1975 since I was a teenager, their albums became more and more political as time went on. Matt Healy in particular is known to advocate for social and political issues publicly on social media. I would like to propose two songs by them, “Love It If We Made It” or “People”. Both of these songs are protest songs because they critique societal norms and are extremely relevant to their release dates.

“Love It If We Made It” was released in 2018 and discusses a multitude of social issues. The song is an accumulation of numerous issues and the chorus announces that “I’d love it if we made it,”… a clear critique on our world and how we live in America. To sum up the song, Matt Healy sings about how “Modernity has failed us”.  It’s ironic because Matt Healy critiques America despite being from the UK. He has an outside view on our society and the issues that we either don’t acknowledge or don’t recognize.

“People” by The 1975 was released in 2020, amist Greta Thunberg’s peaking activism on the discussion of climate change. The song starts off with “Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! It’s Monday morning, and we’ve only got a thousand of them left”. Similarly to Love It If We Made It, Matt Healy touches on the absurdity of humankind as a society. Though it is directed towards the issue of climate change. Matt Healy emphasizes that “People love people! We want alive people!” which will not be plausible on a dying Earth.

I want to cover these songs because I feel like it speaks to the targeted audience. Matt Healy and The 1975 went from being sex icons, a boy band that sang about messy love and drugs to teenagers in their tumblr era, to now a group that speaks on more elaborate conflicts to young adults.

Some concerns I have about these two songs are how vague they are. Matt Healy is very general with his criticisms, not to mention the amount of social issues he brings up in both songs.

Another song I think would be interesting to study is PJ Harvey’s “The Words That Maketh Murder,” because of it’s juxapositing musical composition and lyrics. The contents of the song are anti-war and discuss the consequences of violence, but the form is upbeat and catchy. I’m very intrigued with this song because I am for the most part a pacifist, and feel strongly on this issue.