By Chris Macias
McClatchy Newspapers

The Dixie Chicks nearly lost their careers after bad-mouthing President Bush on the eve of the war in Iraq, but today there is a surge in protest songs by popular artists. And they're not just penned by the people you'd expect to be topical, such as Neil Young, Eddie Vedder from Pearl Jam or Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine.

Photo by Lionel Hahn/Abaca Press/MCT John Legend

Songs with anti-war sentiments are popping up from some unlikely places in the pop music marketplace:

With a casual listen, you might think Mat Kearney's "Girl America" is just another acoustic hip-hop song about a girl gone bad. But the "girl" is a metaphor for the United States, and she's "dying while she's trying just to stop this fight."

Pink once primed listeners to "Get the Party Started," but she blasts Bush on her latest album with "Dear Mr. President," singing, "How do you dream when a mother has no chance to say goodbye?"

John Mayer's "Waiting on the World To Change" laments his generation's political powerlessness and inaction _ a topical change of pace from the voice behind "Your Body Is a Wonderland."

"Coming Home" by John Legend is an R&B slow jam about a homesick soldier. This from a singer who specializes in songs about breaking up and making out.

The difference between the protest songs of the 1960s _ think "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire or Edwin Starr's "War" _ and today's is that these newer messages tend to come in more subtle musical packages. And they can be so hummable that people may mouth the words and never know they're dissing the president.

"Particularly in the '60s, artists tended to just come out with much stronger messages with less fear of upsetting anybody," says Lee Abrams, the chief creative officer for XM satellite radio. "Jim Morrison and Bob Dylan didn't give a damn. When the Dixie Chicks came out with their Bush statement, a lot of country radio stations stopped playing them. A lot of record companies don't want anything over the top. It's symbolic of the era we're in."

Norah Jones' piano and breathy vocals are so soothing that the music could be a theme for Bed Bath & Beyond. But at the piano stool, the singer's taking a stand against the current political state in "My Dear Country":

"'Cause we believed in our candidate

"But even more it's the one we hate

"I needed someone I could shake

"On Election Day."

Artists like Linkin Park say they do a balancing act, especially on Linkin Park's latest album, which features a detour into politics with "Hands Held High."

"We're not a band that wants to be political or preach to fans," says Linkin Park drummer Rob Bourdon, by phone from Los Angeles. "All of us are very involved in all of the lyrics, especially critiquing them, and were very aware that it didn't come off that we had a political agenda or were preaching. We don't like that ourselves when we're listening to music."

The rock band has sold millions of records with songs about self-loathing and inner angst, but "Hands Held High" wouldn't play so well in the red states:

"Like this war's really just a different brand of war

"Like it doesn't cater the rich and abandon poor ...

"For a leader so nervous in an obvious way

"Stuttering and mumbling for nightly news to replay."

All Top 40 music with a message depends on a common denominator: a tune that sticks in your head. Minus the scathing lyrics, Pink's "Dear Mr. President" sounds like a campfire song. The song is built on strummy acoustic guitars and harmony vocals from the Indigo Girls. Think of it as "Kumbaya" for the anti-Bush set.

"The best protest songs have melodies that are simple enough to be sung by almost anyone," says Christopher Reynolds, a music professor at the University of California, Davis. "`We Shall Overcome' is probably best in this regard. But in some cases the tune is why the song survives. The popularity of the Christmas carol `It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,' which almost no one realizes originated as an anti-war song, is the reason why that song is still sung."