The 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time

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When Chuck D of Public Enemy famously called hip-hop “the Black CNN,” he was touching on a universal truth that goes beyond genre: Music and protest have always been inextricably linked. For some marginalized groups, the simple act of creating music at all can be a form of speaking out against an unjust world. Our list of the 100 Best Protest Songs spans nearly a century and includes everything from pre-World War II jazz and Sixties folk to Eighties house music, 2000s R&B, and 2020s Cuban hip-hop.

Some of these songs decry oppression and demand justice, others are prayers for positive change; some grab you by the shoulders and shout in your face, others are personal, private attempts to subtly embody the contradictory nature of political struggle and change from the inside. Many of our selections are specific products of leftist political traditions (like Pete Seeger’s version of “We Shall Overcome”), but just as many are hits that slipped urgent messages into the pop marketplace (like Nena’s anti-nuclear war New Wave bop “99 Luftballons”).

This is probably the only Rolling Stone list to ever feature Phil Ochs, the Dead Kennedys, and Beyoncé side by side, but each of those artists is a vital participant in the long story of musicians using their voices to demand a better world.

Bonzo Goes to Washington, ‘Five Minutes (B-B-B Bombing Mix)’

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Nuclear anxiety never sounded so funky. Appearing in the lead-up to the 1984 election, the mysterious Bonzo Goes to Washington — actually Talking Heads guitarist Jerry Harrison teaming with P-Funk bassist Bootsy Collins — made mincemeat of a Reagan soundbite, turning the Gipper’s offhanded joke (“My fellow Americans, I’m pleased to tell you today that I’ve signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever. We begin bombing in five minutes”) into a stuttering parody. The song truly became a mutually assured dance-floor destructor after it was remixed by Sleeping Bag Records owner and dance-music visionary Arthur Russell.
Xenia Rubinos, ‘Mexican Chef’

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When most people think of resistance, they think of taking the streets. Xenia Rubinos — a Cuban Puerto Rican artist who grew up in Hartford, Connecticut — takes it inside the homes and kitchens of New York City’s elite: “Brown walks your baby/Brown walks your dog/Brown raised America in place of its mom,” she sings against the taut, funky groove and sharp guitars of “Mexican Chef,” a witty reminder that without the painstaking labor of Black and brown people, the United States would grind to a halt. The song is a highlight of Rubinos great album Black Terry Cat, which set politically charged lyrics to dance-party tracks that mixed R&B, rock, and Latin sounds.
Heaven 17, ‘(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang’

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What better way to protest Reaganism, Thatcherism, racism, nuclear anxiety, and the creep of fascism than with a raucous synth-pop hit that bleeps by at 150 bpm? Featuring two expats of electro-punk pioneers Human League, Heaven 17 were a socialist-pop concoction obsessed with American funk bands like Cameo, the Burroughsian “cut-up” technique, drum machines, disco slang, and criticizing capitalism. When combined, it yielded their first single, “Groove Thang,” which vocalist Martyn Ware called “this really bizarre hybrid of politics and dancing and comedy and Black American soul influence.” Something between arch protest and utter nonsense (“Counterforce will do no good/Hot U.S. I feel your power”), “Groove Thang” was banned by the BBC, but still lit up dance floors.
Midnight Oil, ‘Beds Are Burning’

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In 1986, Sydney college-rock band Midnight Oil and Aboriginal country-rock group Warumpi Band toured the Australian continent, bringing their music to some of its most remote and isolated settlements. Moved by the Aboriginal struggles for land rights, the band wrote a song that seemed focused on Australian geography (“Four-wheels scare the cockatoos/From Kintore east to Yuendumu”) but nonetheless ended up an international hit, hitting Number One in Canada and South Africa. Though the concern was local, the hooks about the fight for reparations — “It belongs to them, let’s give it back” — proved universal. “We were very determined that our band would be seen as an Australian band, in an international context,” drummer Rob Hirst told Songwriting Magazine. “Land rights are something that appear in so many countries around the world … but we were determined that Midnight Oil wouldn’t be seen as one of those international bands, writing songs that could have come from anywhere.”
McKinley Dixon, ‘Run, Run, Run’

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Inspired by Toni Morrison’s writings on memory and personal narrative, jazz-rap upstart McKinley Dixon mines his childhood for a rumination about running from the toy guns held by friends and running from real guns held by police. The ecstatic song teams his mix of trauma and hope with electric jazz-funk, Zora Neale Hurston references, and a shining chorus. “Holding heavy hearts really makes it worse,” he raps. “‘Til we found the only way for us to lift this curse/If we run to a place where they know our worth.”
The Byrds, ‘Deportee (Plane Wreck at Los Gatos)’

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Woody Guthrie was infuriated by the media coverage in 1948 after a plane deporting 28 migrant farm workers back to Mexico crashed in California — newspapers printed the names of the four Americans who died, but left the immigrants’ names a mystery. The folk icon penned an outraged poem: “Who are these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?/The radio says, ‘They are just deportees.'” A California schoolteacher gave it a melody, Pete Seeger gave it legs, but psychedelic folk icons the Byrds gave it the definitive performance, a languid country-rock arrangement wailing with mournful slide guitar.
Molotov, ‘Gimme tha Power’

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“¡Viva México, cabrones!” Rap-rock stalwarts Molotov became legends in their home country for a swagger that was profane, juvenile, sarcastic, and politically incorrect — their debut album, ¿Dónde Jugarán las Niñas?, wasn’t banned for its message, but for its risqué title and cover art. Yet their mosh-pit manners were hand in hand with a loud-and-proud revolutionary streak, as evidenced by their crowning achievement, “Gimme tha Power.” The track confronts Mexico’s economic inequality and places the aim squarely on the government, all in this band’s wry, booger-flicking style: “¿Por qué estar siguiendo a una bola de pendejos?” (“Why follow a bunch of assholes?”)
Team Dresch, ‘I’m Illegal’

Olympia, Washington, queercore rebels Team Dresch break down the intolerance, confusion, and daily hassle of lesbian life in the Nineties in this jangle-punk cry to be heard. In less than three minutes, guitarist Kaia Lynn Wilson dismantles the illegality of gay marriage (“You say you have a ban on affection, did I hear you right?”), opens up about the internal trauma of unwanted police attention (“Sometimes I think I’ve even done something wrong”), and navigates employment discrimination (“I’m not sure whether I didn’t get that job/Because my hair’s parted on the wrong side or because I’m a flaming S&M rubber dyke”).
Ani DiFranco, ‘Fuel’

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The death penalty, pop music, presidential elections, Hollywood blockbusters, marketing campaigns — to folk icon Ani DiFranco, it’s all just fuel to the fire of revolution. Mirroring the info overload of Y2K-era society, DiFranco’s stream-of-conscious rant mixes funky chatter, dramatic frustration, and casual raps; the sung coda (“There’s a fire just waiting for fuel”) offers the clarity of a solution. Part Allen Ginsberg, part Lauryn Hill, the song has evolved through the years without losing its sense of humor: “Maybe I should put a bucket over my head/And a marshmallow in each ear/And stumble around for another dumb-numb week/For another humdrum hit song to appear.”
Bright Eyes, ‘When the President Talks to God’

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In the deluge of anti-George Bush songs that appeared during W.’s eight-year administration, none were better than this short, violently strummed piece of sardonic talking blues. Already a seasoned indie-rock veteran at 25, Bright Eyes’ Conor Oberst provided a poetic meditation on the disconnect between the president’s religious beliefs and his policy, using incisive lines like “Does God suggest an oil hike?” Written in a burst of emotion with only three chords, Oberst’s song — and his solo performance on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno in a rhinestone suit — launched the songwriter into a period where he was touted as the heir to Bob Dylan.
Barry McGuire, ‘Eve of Destruction’

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The clear-eyed, apocalyptic folk-rock masterpiece “Eve of Destruction” provided a sober look at the chaos of the mid-Sixties — the escalating war in Vietnam, the Arab-Israeli conflict, Cold War nuclear anxiety, and the struggle to end American segregation. “The song contained a number of issues that were unbearable for me at the time,” said songwriter P.F. Sloan. “I wrote it as a prayer to God for an answer.” Neither Sloan nor raspy, impassioned singer Barry McGuire offer solutions, but people took the song’s anti-war sentiments seriously, causing it to be banned on radio stations, subjected to media scrutiny, and victimized by a snotty-answer record.
Crass, ‘Do They Owe Us a Living?’

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The big bang of anarchist punk, Essex County collective Crass were outspoken, profane, militaristic, Dadaist, and doggedly do-it-yourself Brits. Their signature 84-second gnash separates the pursuit of happiness from things like work, capitalist systems, and authority, asking the simple question “Do they owe us a living?” and providing the simple answer “Of course they fucking do.” Steve Ignorant borrowed the line from a poem left behind by a friend who used to live in their commune: “Do they owe the chicken whose neck they chopped for dinner a living?” Ignorant jokes that his contribution was adding the “fucking.”
Natalia Lafourcade, Carla Morrison, Julieta Venegas, Alan Ortiz, Pambo, Madame Récamier, and Manuel Torreblanca, ‘Un Derecho de Nacimiento’

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Led by Mexican singer-songwriter Natalia Lafourcade and her chicken-scratching cuatro, this joyous gathering of Mexican indie-pop musicians created the sound of the #YoSoy132 movement in 2012. The hope-filled, optimistic song was released in the run-up to Mexico’s election that year, in which the #YoSoy132 movement claimed media bias in favor of candidate Enrique Peña Nieto. When he was elected president, protests erupted around the country, and the beaming “Un Derecho de Nacimiento” became the anthem of what many dubbed the “Mexican Spring.”
The Stop the Violence Movement, ‘Self-Destruction’

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Led by Boogie Down Productions leader KRS-One, this summit of 14 of New York’s most formidable rap talents was an all-star overture for peace meant to decry violence and confront racist media. Kool Moe Dee gets the best line (“I never ever ran from the Ku Klux Klan/And I shouldn’t have to run from a Black man”), MC Lyte gets the best verse (co-written by LL Cool J, whose record label told him not to come to the session), and cleanup crew Public Enemy naturally got the final word, retaining their status as the unofficial voice of the hip-hop generation.
System of a Down, ‘B.Y.O.B.’

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As the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq blazed nightly on TV and George W. Bush embarked on his second presidential term, nu-metal eccentrics System of a Down released this ferocious blast that frontman Serj Tankian called “anti-fucking-imperialist.” Vacillating between manic thrash and sparkly disco metal, “B.Y.O.B.” (that’s “Bring Your Own Bombs”) made enlisting for the military sound like a night at the club: “Everybody’s going to the party, have a real good time/Dancing in the desert, blowing up the sunshine.” If the theme proved too arch, they provided a hardcore coda straight out of Black Sabbath’s “War Pigs”: “Why don’t presidents fight the war?/Why do they always send the poor?”
Fugazi, ‘Merchandise’

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The ultimate anti-consumerism statement came from the band truly that walked the walk: Fugazi refused to sell T-shirts, refused to sign with a major label, refused to make music videos, and, to the chagrin of many fans, still refuse to reunite. In their inimitable reggae-gone-hardcore style, “Merchandise” gave punk one of its most timeless slogans — “You are not what you own” — and a path forward for The Year Punk Broke. “I can sum it up in one sentence — we are a band and we play music,” guitarist-vocalist Ian Mackaye told One Small Seed. “That was our idea, the rest of it is just this carnival surrounding the music business.”
Dead Prez, ‘”They” Schools’

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One of the most scorching critiques from New York-via-Florida militants Dead Prez, “‘They’ Schools” offers an alternative education: decrying the American public-school system’s connection to prisons, tearing up its Eurocentric lesson plans, and pointing out its end goal of training children for jobs that will just get them exploited. One of the highlights of Let’s Get Free, a landmark of radical Afrocentric hip-hop, “‘They’ Schools” burns with rage, a systematic breakdown of societal ills in the verses, and a cathartic explosion in the chorus: “All my high school teachers can suck my dick/Telling me white man lies, straight bullshit.”
Tracy Chapman, ‘Talkin’ Bout a Revolution’

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“Talkin’ Bout a Revolution” uses the same soft strums and warm croon as Tracy Chapman’s previous single, the pop smash “Fast Car,” but its lyrics are as unforgiving as any Public Enemy record released in 1988: “Poor people gonna rise up/And get their share/Poor people gonna rise up/And take what’s theirs.” Chapman wrote the song as a teenager who encountered economic inequality while attending a Connecticut prep school on a scholarship. The song wasn’t as big a hit as “Fast Car,” but years later it would continue to soundtrack everything from Bernie Sanders rallies to radio playlists during the Arab Spring.
Thomas Mapfumo and the Acid Band, ‘Hokoyo!’

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The chiming electric guitar of Thomas Mapfumo mirrored the sounds of Shona thumb pianos, a sound at once traditional and future-minded, perfect for his lyrics urging the overthrow of the Rhodesian government. The title track of his debut LP, “Hokoyo!” was a Molotov cocktail sung in Shona and thrown at the white government, warning it that a battle for freedom was nigh: “Hokoyo!/Hokoyo!/Hona banga ndinaro/Hooo! Katemo ndinakoooo.” (“Watch out!/Watch out!/Look, I have a knife/Look, I have an axe.”) Subsequently, the song was banned and Mapfumo was jailed. “These policemen brought in a whole lot of singles they said were mine, but they actually belonged to other kids who were trying to follow in my footsteps,” Mapfumo told the Guardian. “I kept telling them it was the traditional music of the people of Zimbabwe. There was no way I wasn’t going to sing it.”
Iron Maiden, ‘Run to the Hills’

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Representing the new wave of British heavy metal, Iron Maiden penned one of the genre’s most evocative protest songs by turning their eyes to America. “Run to the Hills” documents Europe’s violent colonization of Native American land: “White man came across the sea/He brought us pain and misery/He killed our tribes, he killed our creed/He took our game for his own need.” In a literary twist, vocalist Bruce Dickinson sings from the perspectives of both fleeing Cree and bloodthirsty settlers. Bassist and songwriter Steve Harris took his inspiration from the frontier stories of novelist Louis L’Amour and intentionally made the riffs sound like galloping horses.
Johnny Cash, ‘The Ballad of Ira Hayes’

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Galvanized by the civil rights activism of the early Sixties and the belief that he was part Cherokee, Johnny Cash dedicated an entire concept album to the country’s many injustices against Native Americans. Called Bitter Tears: Ballads of the American Indian, it was “soft censored” by a scared label and banned at many radio stations. Cash published an open letter in Billboard that asked, “D.J.s, station managers, owners, etc., where are your guts?” Written by folk singer Peter La Farge, “Ballad” tells the true story of Hayes, an Akimel O’odham soldier who is pictured in the iconic photo of six Marines raising the American flag over Iwo Jima yet would end up an alcoholic and dead at 32. An indictment not only of the country’s vicious treatment of Native Americans but of its neglect of military veterans, “The Ballad of Ira Hayes” is a heartbreaking look at how one man’s government failed him and his people.
Isley Brothers, ‘Fight the Power (Part 1 & 2)’

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Back when Chuck D was still in high school, the Isley Brothers were fighting the powers that be on this hard-funking hit. Ronald Isley did not tell his brothers he was going to sing the swear word in the chorus — “And when I rolled with the punches, I got knocked on the ground/By all this bullshit going down” — giving a different type of urgency to a pop song about speaking up before it’s too late. “It wasn’t like you were cursin’,” Isley said, “it was like you were explaining to the max what it was all about.” Swears, slogans, and all, “Fight the Power” was a Top 10 hit.
The Coup, ‘Ride the Fence’

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For 25 years, Boots Riley of the Coup has been one of hip-hop’s most radical voices. “Ride the Fence” is notable for the sheer volume of his targets: Boots goes after imperialism, FBI operatives, La Migra, picket-line crossers, and expensive, watered-down drinks, among dozens of other ills. It’s not shiny sloganeering, either; Boots also mentions guns, revolution, and taking the system by the throat. The Coup’s Oakland-schooled funk makes Boots’ manifesto sound, as he puts it, “joyful like a jailbreak.”
Charly García, ‘Dinosaurios’

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In the final throes of Argentina’s military dictatorship, veteran iconoclast Charly García penned this proggy piano ballad that looks back at seven years of murder, torture, and forced disappearances with a message of hope: Friends, artists, and journalists may disappear, but the dinosaurios in charge will disappear too. Months later, Argentina would become a democracy again and rock nacional artists like García began garnering global attention.
Against Me!, ‘Transgender Dysphoria Blues’

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An unflinching look at Laura Jane Grace’s war with her own body, “Transgender Dysphoria Blues” grew from personal reflection to become a punk-rock battle cry for transgender liberation. Over a military snare drum and a Hüsker Dü-esque wall of guitar, Grace uses her heartland-punk howl to talk openly about years of struggle: “You’ve got no cunt in your strut/You’ve got no hips to shake/And you know it’s obvious/But we can’t choose how we’re made.” More than just a watershed moment for trans representation, it’s been a finding-themselves rallying point for a generation of kids.
Artists United Against Apartheid, ‘Sun City’

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The angrier, more pointed, more adventurous cousin to “We Are the World,” “Sun City” gathered the superstars of rock, hip-hop, punk, jazz, and more to promote awareness of South African apartheid and to provide a united force of musicians to uphold the U.N.’s cultural boycott. The track, written and organized by E Street Band guitarist Steven Van Zandt, was a syllabus compared to the vague platitudes of “We Are the World”: “Relocation to phony homelands/Separation of families I can’t understand/23 million can’t vote because they’re Black/We’re stabbing our brothers and our sisters in the back.” Musically, it went far beyond the segregated playlists of American pop radio, teaming the cutting-edge stutter funk of dance producer Arthur Baker with rock icons (Bono, Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan, Lou Reed), hip-hop stars (Run-D.M.C., Melle Mel, Kurtis Blow), and R&B royalty (Eddie Kendricks, Bobby Womack, Nona Hendryx).
The O’Jays, ‘Ship Ahoy’

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Fresh off the breakout moment of prismatically harmonized Philadelphia-soul smashes like “Backstabbers” and the giddy Number One pop crossover “Love Train,” the O’Jays immediately swerved into socially conscious material on 1973’s Ship Ahoy with songs like the anti-materialism classic “For the Love of Money,” the anti-pollution funk jam “This Air I Breathe,” and the seething “Don’t Call Me Brother.” Nothing cut deeper than the title track, a rumination on the horrors of American slavery. Pained, haunting, and punctuated by the sounds of whip cracks, “Ship Ahoy” was a chilling reminder of America’s past that raised questions about its present.
Helen Reddy, ‘I Am Woman’

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Decades before #MeToo got its hashtag, Australian soft rocker Helen Reddy channeled her anger from years of navigating a misogynistic, chauvinistic entertainment industry into this song. “I Am Woman” was merely an album track for a year, until it was picked up for use in the opening credits of the Jacqueline Bisset women’s-lib comedy Stand Up and Be Counted — the movie wasn’t a hit, but at least it inspired Capitol to release Reddy’s song as a single. After a long, slow crawl to Number One, it became the unofficial rallying cry of second-wave feminism: “I am woman, hear me roar/In numbers too big to ignore.” The invincible song would have a second, metaphorical seat at Number One after it inspired the chorus to Katy Perry’s 2013 smash “Roar.”
The Linda Lindas, ‘Racist, Sexist Boy’

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Teenage riot the Linda Lindas went nuclear-level viral in 2021 with less than two minutes of sludgy hardcore performed — of all places — at the Los Angeles Public Library. Inspired by drummer Mila de la Garza’s real-life experience with anti-Asian racism in the throes of the Covid-19 pandemic, the song — written by zoomers, over Zoom — was a proud middle finger from four girls who could probably get detention for using the middle finger. When they shout “Poser! Blockhead! Riff-raff! Jerkface!” it’s 40 years of hardcore and riot grrrl’s molten-hot rage boiled down to a simple (and family-friendly!) kiss-off that transcends generations.
Killer Mike, ‘Reagan’

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Twenty-three years after the end of the Ronald Reagan administration, Atlanta rabble-rouser Killer Mike travels to Washington to spit on its grave. Over the menacing Star Wars Defense System production of future Run the Jewels bandmate El-P, Killer Mike breaks down the ways that Reagan-era policies — the Iran-Contra affair, the War on Drugs, prison privatization — are still affecting Americans today. Crucially, the song points out the insidious ways Reagan’s ideals and allegiances continue to influence contemporary politicians on both sides of the ticket: “Why did Reagan and Obama both go after Gaddafi?/We invaded sovereign soil, going after oil/Taking countries is a hobby paid for by the oil lobby.” “Barack Obama compares himself to Reagan.” Killer Mike told HipHopDX. “So that’s not me, that’s just me saying, ‘I agree.'”
Los Tigres Del Norte, ‘Tres Veces Mojado’

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This narrative song from the norteño greats detail an immigrant’s journey from El Salvador to Guatemala, from Guatemala to Mexico, and then Mexico to the United States, confronting different biases and policies at each border: “El mismo idioma y el color reflexioné/¿Cómo es posible que me llamen extranjero?” (“The same language and the color I reflected/How is it possible that they call me a foreigner?”). Detailing the struggle to become “legal” in America, the song took on an extra-poignant meaning when they performed it at Folsom Prison in 2018, for the 50th anniversary of Johnny Cash’s famed concert.
Billy Bragg, ‘There Is Power in a Union’

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Borrowing the title of a 1910s labor tune by martyred activist Joe Hill and the melody of Civil War anthem “Battle Cry of Freedom,” British folk-punk icon Billy Bragg wrote an arm-in-arm solidarity singalong that has grown to be an essential anthem of labor movements around the world. He penned “There Is Power in a Union” after getting a crash course in front-lines socialism while doing shows for the United Kingdom miners’ strikes of 1984 and 1985. In later years, Bragg has been known to show up to union rallies and picket lines to sing it himself.
Janelle Monáe feat. Wondaland Records, ‘Hell You Talmbout’

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This cathartic 2015 chant is sophisticatedly arranged but remarkably simple — nothing more than a gospel chorus, some chattering marching-band drums, and a catchy shout. Janelle Monáe inserted the names of Black people who died at the hands of police and racially motivated violence: “Trayvon Martin, say his name/Trayvon Martin, say his name/Trayvon Martin, say his name/Trayvon Martin, won’t you say his name?” The format made the song endlessly malleable, appearing in David Byrne’s 2018 American Utopia with additions like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. A 17-minute version released in 2021 using the names of women killed in police-related incidents features Beyoncé standing up for Sandra Bland, Symone Marshall, and Yvette Smith.
Mecca Normal, ‘I Walk Alone’

Before the riot-grrrl movement fully emerged raging from the Pacific Northwest, there was Vancouver’s Mecca Normal, a drumless punk-poetry duo out to challenge the world with DIY energy, feminist lyrics, and a riveting, audience-baiting performance style. The dizzying cult classic “I Walk Alone” captures the unique fear of simply being a woman walking by herself in a city. Minimal and harrowing, it’s a shout for women to live in a world without feeling like a target. Vocalist Jean Smith added in live performances, “Because it’s my right to walk anywhere, any time of day, wearing whatever the fuck I want!”
Junior Murvin, ‘Police and Thieves’

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Junior Murvin’s unmistakable, Curtis Mayfield-modeled falsetto carries this lilting reggae classic about violence in the streets of Kingston, Jamaica, be it from police brutality or warring street gangs. Murvin, a one-time rocksteady singer, embarked on a new career as a roots-reggae truth-teller, thanks to dub cosmonaut Lee “Scratch” Perry — their first collaboration would be this indelible piece of street reportage. The song would take on a new life as it became the theme to the Notting Hill Carnival riots in 1976, when London youths clashed with police over the type of harassment detailed in the song. The Clash would be inspired to write “White Riot” for their first LP and would cover “Police and Thieves,” too, the first of the band’s many forays into reggae.
Kris Kristofferson, ‘They Killed Him’

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Still in the early years of Kris Kristofferson’s pivot to becoming country music’s most prominent lefty voice, “They Killed Him” was an ode to three great peacemakers who paid the ultimate price for their beliefs — Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Jesus Christ. The song, later covered by Bob Dylan, would presage decades of Kristofferson fighting for peace, disarmament, prisoner’s rights, and farm-workers unions in deed and song. “Kris used his stardom for the benefit of others,” former manager Mark Rothbaum told Rolling Stone. “I don’t think he gave a hoot one way or the other about what it temporarily might do to his stardom. He lent his hand to those who were being oppressed. He couldn’t stay out of it.”
Gil Scott-Heron, ‘Whitey on the Moon’

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The 1969 Apollo moon landing was hailed as a landmark achievement for mankind, but as Gil Scott-Heron pointed out on his 1970 spoken-word classic “Whitey on the Moon,” the multibillion-dollar space program did little to help struggling Americans or heal the nation’s racial divide. “A rat done bit my sister Nell/With Whitey on the moon,” he says at the top of the song. “Her face and arms began to swell/And Whitey’s on the moon.” The song is a highlight of Scott-Heron’s Small Talk at 125th and Lenox, best remembered for its opening track, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” But “Whitey on the Moon,” which clocks in at a mere 1:57, encapsulates that moment in history just as incisively.
The Special AKA, ‘Free Nelson Mandela’

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Inspired by the 1983 birthday concert for Nelson Mandela and the upbeat sound of South African mbaqanga making its way to London clubs, Jerry Dammers of the Special AKA wrote the catchiest anti-apartheid song of the 1980s. Produced by Elvis Costello and featuring vocals from members of the English Beat and a young Caron Wheeler (later of Soul II Soul), the song measures its serious subject matter — “His body abused, but his mind is still free/Are you so blind that you cannot see?” — with breezy two-tone ska, making it a Top 10 hit in the U.K.
YG feat. Nipsey Hussle, ‘FDT’

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Raised on Ice Cube and 2Pac, Compton firebrand YG knew how to cut right to the issue in a gangsta-rap song. The result was Black Lives Matter protesters across the country taking to the streets and chanting “Fuck Donald Trump” like it was “This Land Is Your Land.” Recording in the run-up to the 2016 election, YG and Nipsey Hussle were critical of the Republican candidate’s opinions of Mexicans and tired of just talking among themselves. Their scabrous attack brought the energy of vintage Nineties rap into the 21st century: “Have a rally out in L.A., we gon’ fuck it up,” rapped YG. “Home of the Rodney King riot, we don’t give a fuck.”
Emel Mathlouthi, ‘Kelmti Horra’

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Before Emel Mathlouthi’s career as a boundary-pushing avant-electronic auteur, she was a Tunisian Bob Dylan and Joan Baez acolyte who gained fame from a viral video, singing an a cappella version of “Kelmti Horra” in the middle of an Arab Spring demonstration. Her beaming song of defiance — “We are free peoples who are not afraid/We are secrets that never die/And for those who resist we are the voice/In their chaos we shine” — had been banned in Tunisia. However, after the 2011 video, it slowly became an anthem across the Middle East, the soundtrack to uprisings, protests, and, ultimately, regime change.
Carl Bean, ‘I Was Born This Way’

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Before Gaga even said “gaga,” gospel singer turned disco crooner Carl Bean was soaring on this luxurious and joyful acceptance anthem: “I’m happy, I’m carefree, and I’m gay/I was born this way.” Songwriter Bunny Jones witnessed how the world treated the gay employees of her Harlem hair salon and, with composer Chris Spierer, released the original Valentino version “I Was Born This Way” as the first release on her Gaiee label. After Motown commissioned Bean for a lush disco remake, one of the defining pride anthems was born, storming the charts in 1977 and remixed and reembraced by the dance community every few years since. “If you notice, I didn’t do any reference to shaking your tail feather or any of that stuff,” Bean told Vice. “I just closed my eyes and sang out of my heart about the journey of being sexually different in our society.”
Tupac feat. Talent, ‘Changes’

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Recorded in 1992, but a smash single upon its posthumous release in 1998, Tupac’s “Changes” played like “The Message” for a hip-hop generation in the shadows of the crack epidemic, the L.A. riots, and the Gulf War. Riding a wave of Bruce Hornsby piano keys (sampled from his 1986 Number One meditation on similar themes, “The Way It Is”), 2Pac runs through a tornado of woes — drugs, racism, police brutality, hunger, the prison-industrial complex, the murder of Huey P. Newton — in his inimitable mix of anguished pain and righteous anger: “Instead of war on poverty/They got a war on drugs so the police can bother me.”
Country Joe and the Fish, ‘The Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag’

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Few moments of Sixties counterculture are more iconic than Country Joe McDonald onstage at Woodstock in his Army uniform, guitar hanging from a rope, demanding to an audience of thousands, “Give me an F.…” The studio version is a little less inflammatory (they spell “F-I-S-H” instead), but the satirical skiffle “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” remains razor sharp, taking on America’s Vietnam-era war machine with the darkest of humor: “Come on, fathers don’t hesitate/Send them off before it’s too late/Be the first one on your block/To have your boy come home in a box.” The song ended up being played both at home and abroad, and one P.O.W. even told McDonald that it boosted the morale of the prisoners in the infamous “Hanoi Hilton.”
Nena, ‘99 Luftballons’

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The only Eighties Cold War smash about nuclear dread that could out-anxiety Prince’s “1999,” Nena’s “99 Luftballons” emerged after guitarist Carlo Karges watched balloons rise into the atmosphere at a Rolling Stones concert in West Berlin. He wondered what would happen if they crossed the Berlin wall, spawning the song’s narrative about balloons becoming the target of a military strike, ending the world. Pretty serious stuff, but it nonetheless anchored one of the most buoyant and giddy one-hit wonders of all time.
The Clash, ‘The Guns of Brixton’

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One of the most incendiary songs in a catalog built on them, “The Guns of Brixton” is a reggae-punk classic that describes London’s youths in conflict with both local police and economic hardship — a stew of discontent that resulted in the Brixton riots two years later. The first Clash song written and sung by bassist Paul Simonon, “Guns of Brixton” pulls no punches about police violence — “When they kick at your front door/How you gonna come?/With your hands on your head/Or on the trigger of your gun?” — but does so on a bass line so pop-ready that it resurfaced as Beats International’s global dance hit “Dub Be Good to Me.”
Loretta Lynn, ‘The Pill’

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Possibly the most controversial country song ever released, Loretta Lynn’s frank and funny tune about birth control and female independence brought unfiltered feminist politics to the “Rhinestone Cowboy” era. The Supreme Court decision that gave unmarried people the same access to birth control as married couples was only three years in the rearview mirror. Country radio stations throughout the U.S. banned it, but it would prove influential across generations of politically-minded country stars like the Chicks, Miranda Lambert, and Kacey Musgraves.
Peter Tosh, ‘Legalize It’

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Following the disbanding of the Wailers, Peter Tosh launched his solo career with what would become the most timeless pro-marijuana anthem of them all. More than an ode to the green stuff, “Legalize It” was a blow to the Jamaican “shitstem,” whose police arrested and brutalized Tosh in 1975 for partaking in Rastafari ceremonial smoking. Over a languid pulse, Tosh speaks of cannabis’ medicinal benefits and cross-cultural impact (“Judges smoke it, even the lawyer do”), creating a song and slogan that have lit up decriminalization movements across countries and decades.
Beyoncé feat. Kendrick Lamar, ‘Freedom’

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Beyoncé made a world-changing statement when she strode into the halftime show at Super Bowl 50 leading a phalanx of Black women in military garb that evoked the Black Panthers. Her liberated radicalism came through equally powerfully on “Freedom,” her most gripping political song, featuring a searing assist from Kendrick Lamar; when she sings “I can’t move,” the line echoes “I can’t breathe,” Eric Garner’s final words before being choked to death by police. “It is up to us to take a stand and demand that they ‘stop killing us,'” Bey said. Eight years after it was released on Lemonade, “Freedom” became the theme song of Kamala Harris’ 2024 presidential campaign.
Victor Jara, ‘Manifiesto’

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A leader of Chile’s nueva canción movement, singer-songwriter and activist Victor Jara mixed socialist ideas and personal observations, making him a voice to the country’s underclass and a folk sensation the world over. Gently plucked and tenderly sung, “Manifiesto” is an ode to music’s power of change when in the hands of the common man: “My guitar is not for the rich/No, nothing like that/My song is of the ladder/We are building to reach the stars.” The song was one of the last that Jara wrote before his detainment and murder under the Pinochet regime, forever living on as a symbol of music’s ability to illuminate, uplift, and challenge.
Dead Kennedys, ‘Nazi Punks Fuck Off’

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One of the most potent anti-racist rants of all time blows by in a mere 63 seconds in this indelible hardcore-punk classic. After mosh-pit bullies started showing up at Dead Kennedys shows in the early Eighties, the reliably provocative vocalist Jello Biafra penned this short and sharp letter. More than just an anti-racist kiss-off, “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” breaks down punk ideology, jock mentality, and even offers alternate sources to direct anger: “You still think swastikas look cool/The real Nazis run your schools/They’re coaches, businessmen, and cops/In the real Fourth Reich, you’ll be the first to go.” Naturally, the seven-inch came with a little SS-style armband where the swastika was dutifully crossed out by a red-circle-backslash.

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