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- Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” This track has to be at the top of the list; it’s that influential. One of the first racism protest songs to be recorded in popular music, 1939’s “Strange Fruit” is based off a poem written by Abel Meeropol.
- Woody Guthrie, “This Land Is Your Land” One of the most iconic songs in American lore, “This Land Is Your Land” is actually such an important protest song for the verses that aren’t typically sung.
- “We Shall Overcome,” Pete Seeger. Written as a gospel hymn by a Methodist minister in 1900 and originally adapted during a tobacco workers strike in 1945, “We Shall Overcome” came to represent defiance, endurance, tenacity and sheer determination.
- Bob Dylan, “Blowin’ in the Wind” The tune that endeared Dylan to legions of card-carrying folkies, “Blowin’ in the Wind” remains the standard template for every protest song that’s come along ever since.
Jan 23, 2021 · The Best Protest Songs Represent the Universal Fighting Spirit of Music. Kendrick Lamar, Marvin Gaye, Bob Dylan, Jamila Woods and more music that has defined a century of...
- Tolly Wright
- “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday. When Billie Holiday recorded “Strange Fruit” in 1939, it became the first song by black artist to ever be released with such bold and explicit lyrics about racism.
- “We Shall Overcome” Based on the gospel song of the same name by Rev. Dr. Charles Albert Tindley, one of the most influential African American ministers of the turn of the 20th century, “We Shall Overcome” became synonymous with the black civil rights movement of the 1950s and ‘60s.
- “War” by Edwin Starr. “War,” as in “What is it good for? Absolutely nothing,” became a funky battle cry among the thousands of Vietnam War protesters on college campuses across the America.
- “Mississippi Goddam” by Nina Simone. Written in 1963 by Nina Simone in response to the assassination of Medgar Evers, a civil rights activist who fought to end segregation at the University of Mississippi, “Mississippi Goddam” is a song damning the racist actions of the Deep South.
- Radiohead – Idioteque (2000) Radiohead - Idioteque (Oficial video HD) Subs Español. In 2001, the Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change issued its third report and came to the conclusion: "There is new and stronger evidence that most of the [global] warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities".
- Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven (1989) Pixies - Monkey Gone To Heaven (Official Video) One of the more oblique protest songs on the list, Black Francis ponders the destruction of the ozone layer and the oncoming environmental apocalypse in terms of the Old Testament "numbers" for Man, God and the Devil.
- Rage Against The Machine – Killing In The Name (1992) Rage Against The Machine - Killing In the Name. Rodney King was savagely beaten by members of the Los Angeles police in March 1991, and the whole incident was caught on camera.
- Green Day - American Idiot (2004) Green Day - American Idiot [OFFICIAL VIDEO] The title track of Green Day’s 2004 album was o riginally written as a response to US President George W Bush and the war in Iraq that came out of the September 11 attacks.
- We Shall Overcome — Pete Seeger
- Solidarity Forever — Utah Phillips
- We Shall Not Be Moved — The Almanac Singers, Pete Seeger & The Song Swappers
- Keep Your Hand on The Plow — Mahalia Jackson
- War — Edwin Starr
- The Preacher and The Slave — Joe Glazer
- Bread and Roses — John Denver
- Dump The Bosses Off Your Back — Anne Feeney
- Union Maid — Woody Guthrie
- Where Have All The Flowers Gone — Peter, Paul and Mary
Originating as a gospel song, We Shall Overcome made its true cultural debut as a protest song. It was first sung in protest by striking tobacco workers in Charleston, South Carolinain 1945. Lucille Simmons, a black worker and activist, led the picketers in singing the hymn. The song is perhaps most famously performed by Pete Seeger, who learned it...
Written by Ralph Chaplin for the Industrial Workers of the World in 1915, Solidarity Foreverwent on to be adopted by countless other union movements. Chaplin wrote the song while working as a journalist covering the Paint Creek-Cabin Creek strike of 1912 in Kanawha County, West Virginia.
Originally an African-American spiritual composed by enslaved people as I Shall Not Be Moved, this song became a protest song as early as the 19th century. Scholars believe it was originally sung as a spiritual song during revivalist camp meetings. It gained notoriety in its modern form during the Civil Rights Movement.
Also known as Gospel Plow, a traditional African-American spiritual composed by enslaved people, this song became a major Labor and Civil Rights song in the 20th century. It has been performed by numerous artists including Bob Dylan in 1962, Screaming Trees, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Pete Seeger. The song is based on a reference from the Gospel o...
One of the most influential songs of the counterculture movement, War was first recorded by Edwin Starr in 1970. The opening lines cut right to the chase, asking “War — what is it good for, Absolutely nothing.” The song was originally used to protest the Vietnam War; after 9/11, it was placed on a no-play list to discourage public sentiment against...
Sometimes called Pie in the Sky, this Joe Hill song from 1911 is a parody of the old hymn In the Sweet By-and-By. The song significantly took the emotional and even spiritual resonance of the hymn but turned against religious and political conservatism. Hill initially wrote the parody to combat the Salvation Army — satirized as “the Starvation Army...
This song began as a political slogan based on a poem. Helen Todd, a women’s suffrage activist in the United States, gave a speech that included the line, “bread for all, and roses too!” This inspired James Oppenheim to write the poem, Bread and Roses, which was published in The American Magazinein 1911. The song appeals not only for just wages but...
This brief labor hymn asks forlorn workers to consider their poverty in comparison to the mighty amassed treasury of the rich. Originating from an old labor slogan popular in mines, factories, and fields across the United States, this song shows the stark difference between poverty and wealth. Anne Feeney’s version brings the song into the modern a...
This legendary labor protest song by Woody Guthrie honors the working women who upheld the American labor movement in the early 20th century. Women are still too often unsung, essential figures in the worldwide labor movement. The song praises a union woman who knows how company spies operate and isn’t afraid to strike. Next: The top female empower...
This modern folk-style song was inspired by the traditional Cossack folk song, Koloda-Duda. Pete Seeger first borrowed the Irish melody and the first three verses in 1955. Joe Hickerson added more verses in 1960. The song rests firmly in the meditative tradition on death called “ubi sunt.” It asks, in turn, where the young women, men, soldiers, and...
May 1, 2024 · The best protest songs take on the political issues of their day but also transcend their eras to speak to future generations.
Jun 11, 2020 · Listen to our civil rights and protest songs playlist on Spotify or Tidal. A Change Is Gonna Come by Sam Cooke This civil rights anthem – released in 1964 and inspired by a trip during which Sam Cooke and his family were turned away from a whites-only motel in Louisiana – proved its enduring ability to provide unlikely hope when ...
