I’ve been wondering if conservative people who like The Beatles even bother to listen to the lyrics. Found this Tom Lehrer quote in a brilliant diveIntoMark article that really sums it up.
Tom Lehrer’s description of folk singers as “the people who get up on stage and come out in favor of all the things that everyone else in the audience is against, like peace and justice and brotherhood and so on”
Phil Ochs called the sight of seeing someone hum his subversive songs “musical brainwashing.”