We all want to change the world. Really?

Listening to Solomon Burke this rainy Sunday morning and was thinking while "None of us are free" was playing about how things have changed, at least for me, in my outlook, in my mind. Do you still believe in the power of music, or more particularly, in the power of lyrics in popular song to change the world, or at least put a dent in its miseries? In this bleak neo-conservative landscape where everything is up on the block, seems to me that songs of hope, of freedom, of solidarity are as we say in French "un coup d'épée dans l'eau". Sorry I can't find an English equivalent (try "like thrusting a sword in the water", for want of a better translation). Must be my age, but didn't a lot of people once believe that song did have the power to do it? Now it's either "kill the bitch" type lyrics or else words are mouthed with the simply cynical view of collecting the cash to live where the in-crowd lives, eat where the in-crowd eats and drive what the in-crowd drives. Probably also to listen on the high-end equipment the in-crowd uses to get all the fine inner detail and micro-dynamics of "protest songs". How many people slept in their beat-up cars last night? Better days are coming for sure, the GDP told me so.