The first protest songs David Byrne ever loved: “Something to realise at a young age”

David Byrne has said that protest music helped shape his early understanding of what songs could do. Though his own work is often satirical or politically observant rather than a direct call to action, he grew up hearing folk songs that carried clear viewpoints and stories.

In a 2018 interview, Byrne recalled that his Scottish immigrant parents read The New York Times and played records by Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. He listened to Guthrie’s children’s album *Songs to Grow on for Mother and Child* before discovering the artists’ more explicitly political songs, which showed him from a young age that music could express a point of view.