ABSTRACT
The generic term “protest song” establishes a syntactic relationship between the “song” class, and the “protest” species, forming a united meaning. The song is “a composition in verse accompanied by music” (Moliner 1992, 489), with the verse being the smallest unit of poetic language. Due to the “regular repetition of equivalent units,” rhyme and rhythm are created, and in them “the timing of linguistic fluency is experienced, as it is … with musical timing” (Jakobson 1981, 361). The materiality of sound and the principle of repetition, as common features of music and oral poetry, gave rise to the historical synthesis of both languages in popular song lyrics that form portions of protest songs (→ Popular, I/37).
