Protest Song: Difference between revisions

Compare [[Hail to the Thief]], which can sound similar but is used to emphasize setting instead of make a direct political point.

{{examples}}

* [[The French Revolution|La Marseillaise]] is probably the [[Ur Example]] for modern protest songs. Nowadays [[Inverted Trope|inverted]], since it is the French [[National Anthem]].

* "L'Internationale" is another very famous and iconic example—probably the most translated protest song of all time (and one of the most translated songs ever). Reached the level of [[Zig-Zagging Trope]] when it was sung by the students at Tiananmen square in 1989. They protested the socialist-in-name government by singing ''the'' socialist protest song, but in part because this was the one song they all knew.

** And lest you think Dylan was just another hyper-serious protest singer, he also wrote some of the most hilarious protest songs ever written. Check out "Talkin' WWIII Blues" or "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues".

*** "My Back Pages" was specifically written to disown his earnest protest singing past.

* "Eve of Destruction" by Barry McGuire.

** Answered with "Dawn of Correction" by The Spokesmen.

* "One Tin Soldier" by Original Caste, covered on the ''Billy Jack'' soundtrack by Coven.

** Along with its B-side, "Find the Cost of Freedom".

** Crosby & Nash (sans Stills and Young) also recorded "To the Last Whale...", a [[Tear Jerker]] which depicts the last whale in the ocean being hunted and killed by whalers.

* "When the Levee Breaks" as covered by [[Led Zeppelin]], an apocalyptic blues-rock nightmare about the 1929 Mississippi floods and the resulting misery endured by the blacks (forced to work on the levees, abandoned once their properties were destroyed, attempting to leave to the Northern states to alleviate poverty).

** Aside from that remake, the members of Led Zeppelin have never been vocal about their political views.

* Malvina Reynolds' "Little Boxes", which satirizes suburban conformity and was famously covered by Pete Seeger. Tom Lehrer, apparently not a fan, once called it "the most sanctimonious song ever written".

* "[[Alice's Restaurant (music)||The Alice's Restaurant Massacree]]" (sic) by Arlo Guthrie, an 18-minute-long talking blues ballad that many classic rock stations traditionally play in its entirety on [[Thanksgiving Day]], is a song about the draft. You know it is, because [[Word of God|Guthrie says so]] about 7 minutes in. One of the big reasons it's still played on Thanksgiving, besides pure tradition, is to give DJs a chance to get some Thanksgiving food.

* His father, Woody Guthrie, also had his share of these, up to and including "This Land Is Your Land".

** Woody's guitar had a sign on it: "This Machine Kills Facists". And it's an odd commentary on the American Culture. "This Land Is Your Land" is sung by every kid in grade school, though they hardly ever get past the first verse and when we grow up it's dismissed as just a children's song. It was only as an adult that this troper realized just how subversive, how powerful and how it is even more relevant today:

{{quote|As I went walking I saw a sign there

And on the sign it said "No Trespassing."

But on the other side it didn't say nothing,

 

By the relief office I seen my people;

As they stood there hungry, I stood there asking

 

As I go walking that freedom highway;

Nobody living can ever make me turn back

* Country Joe And The Fish's "I-Think-I'm-Fixing-To-Die Rag" was about the Vietnam war. Famously featured in the film of [[Woodstock]].

* "It's Good News Week", by '60s British group Hedgehoppers Anonymous.

Comes back with flags on coffins and says

We won, oh, we won }}

* Nena's "99 Luftballoons".

** Though not as much as some other protest songs. Particularly considering that the inspiration came from an actual viewing of a mess of party balloons. At a concert.

* The majority of System of a Down's songs, and everything the members have released with their own bands. The only clear exceptions so far are their instrumentals (like ''Arto'') and ''Bounce''.

** [[Word of God]] (Malakian, the guitarist) says they have more non-political songs than political ones. This may be true, but a lot of their lyrics are open to [[Epileptic Trees|numerous]] [[Wild Mass Guessing|interpretations]], and most of their well-known songs are among their most [[Anvilicious]].

** Much earlier, of course, Fogerty penned "Fortunate Son" for [[Creedence Clearwater Revival]]. "Fortunate Son" was a working-class protest song against the Vietnam War, but today most people probably know it from Wrangler's [[Repurposed Pop Song|reprehensible ad]] that makes it sound like jingoistic propaganda by only using the first couple lines of the first verse, [[Isn't It Ironic?|which were intended ironically]].

* If the rock musical ''Hair'' doesn't count, then no work of musical theatre does. (Three-Five-Zero-Zero, anyone?)

** "Give Peace a Chance"

** "Happy Xmas (War Is Over)"

* Several songs from Peter Tägtgren's Pain, especially on the last couple of albums. Examples include The Third Wave'', ''Not Your Kind'', and ''Feed Us'', which are about corruption, evangelicalism, and the medias coverage of celebrities, respectively.

* [[Metallica]]'s sadly-underplayed "Disposable Heroes". The following album, ''...And Justice for All'', was described by Lars Ulrich as their "CNN years" - he and James would watch CNN, see what displeased them, and write a song about it.

** This has come full-circle in the form of Folk Punk, artists such as Evan Greer or Ghost Mice, who strip down punk rock as far as possible, and end up sounding like early Bob Dylan or Phil Ochs.

* Richard Thompson's "Dad's Gonna Kill Me" is a protest song written from the perspective of a soldier in Iraq, and using actual soldier slang ("dad" for Baghdad, etc.)

** "Mothers of the Disappeared" is actually about the Argentine Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo and the people who disappeared after the 1976 coup.

** "Peace on Earth" is also about [[the Troubles]] even naming specific victims of a then-recent bombing. "Please" is a particularly harrowing song protesting false religious piety in the face of poverty/injustice. Then there's "Love and Peace or Else," "Crumbs From Your Table," the list goes on...

* Wings' first single, "Give Ireland Back To The Irish". [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|Three guesses as to what it's about.]]

* Or "Bloody Sunday" by John Lennon, at the same time...

* Boris Vians [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WukbQ9ldsdc "Le Deserteur"] written during the French war in Vietnam, and later sung in America by Joan Baez.

* The song "[[Spell My Name with an "S"|Bangla Desh]]" by George Harrison. The lyrics are actually notably apolitical, but at the time it was written and performed, merely calling the country "Bangladesh" was a political act. The Pakistani government, which at the time most Western countries were allied with, insisted it be called East Pakistan (in fact the Nixon administration was selling arms to the Pakistani government, so the song was a direct contradiction of American foreign policy).

* Straightforwardly enough, [[Exactly What It Says on the Tin|"Protest Song"]] by Eric Himan, mostly about gay rights.

* "16 Military Wives" by [[The Decemberists]] is fairly transparently about the Iraq War, [[George W. Bush]]'s bully-like foreign policy, and celebrities who could barely come up with even the wishy-washiest of stances on the topic. The music video features a [[Model United Nations]] conference gone completely insane, with Colin Meloy (the lead singer) as the United States beating up on Luxembourg (multi-instrumentalist Chris Funk) before eventually Luxembourg leads a (musical) revolt, joined by Ireland (keyboardist Jenny Conlee). Like I said, wacky.

* Subversion: "Politics In Space" by Kate Miller-Heidke.

** "The 60's were fifty years ago, you know. Get over it."

* [[Green Day]]'s ''[[American Idiot]]'', and "Holiday" and the title track in particular, were heavily critical of the George W. Bush government.

* [[Maroon 5]]'s "Makes Me Wonder" is a bit less blatant than most, probably because it was first conceived ''strictly'' to be about [[Break Up Song|failed relationships]], but was shelved and then revisited for a later album, at which point lead singer/songwriter Adam Levine noticed that some of the lines could just as easily apply to the way Bush sent troops into Iraq under dubious pretenses and reworked the song to have a double meaning.

* "Child's Play" by [[TNT]] was written by singer Tony Harnell as a protest against nuclear weapons.

* Pretty much everything by Harry Chapin, with songs about poverty in the third world ("Shortest Story") about rich people and poor people ("Odd-Job Man"), and numerous other, although not actually the song "Basic Protest song" which instead picks apart the idea of protesting.

* [[Guns N' Roses]], "Civil War".

* [[Iron Maiden]] has "Holy Smoke" (on televangelists), "Be Quick Or Be Dead", "Face in the Sand", "Age of Innocence", "Two Minutes to Midnight" and their latest song, "El Dorado". Some of their historic battle-inspired songs which enter [[War Is Hell]] territory might count.

** Also, "7 O' Clock News/Silent Night", which juxtaposes the peaceful Christmas carol with a series of downbeat newscasts relating to then-current events.

* [[Thin Lizzy]], "Genocide (The Killing Of The Buffalo)"

** Also "Born in the U.S.A.", though many people [[Misaimed Fandom|fail to recognize it as one]].

** Several of his albums are essentially made of these, especially ''The Ghost of Tom Joad''.

* [[The Rolling Stones]] have tried their hand at a few of these: "Undercover of the Night", "High Wire", "Sweet Neo-Con".

** "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" has some protest-song elements, particularly in the first two verses (with their still-on-target jabs at the media and advertising worlds).

* Butch Walker's "Paid to Get Excited" is a protest song against Bush-era politics and societal mindset. He finds it a little embarrassing to sing now.

** Folk-rocker Dan Bern released a whole album of anti-Bush protest songs in 2004 entitled ''My Country II'' and an accompanying EP ''Anthems''.

* One song by [[Skinny Puppy]] is appropriately titled "Pro-Test". "Hit me in the streets!"

* The Nice's hard rock version of [[Leonard Bernstein]]'s ''America'' was described by keyboard player/arranger Keith Emerson as "the world's only ''instrumental'' protest song".

* [[Linkin Park]] has three on their appropriately-titled album ''Minutes to Midnight'': "Hands Held High", which is the boringly obvious and explicit one about the war; "No More Sorrow", which is a somewhat subtler [[Take That]] to the Bush administration; and "The Little Things Give You Away", which is likewise clearly but not explicitly about the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

* Several [[Mitch Benn]] songs, especially the ones on ''[[The Now Show]]''. They're usually funny about it though.

* "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nd-__QZZOW4 Long Live Egypt]" and "[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fgw_zfLLvh8 Sout Al Horeya]" probably make [[Middle East Uprising 2011|Egypt's 2011 Revolution]] the first one in history to have a [[Soft Rock]] soundtrack.

* [[Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer]] humorously protests laws banning smoking in pubs in his song, "Let Me Smoke My Pipe!"

* Many of [[Midnight Oil]]'s songs.

* A lot of people thought Russel Morris' [[Mind Screw]] "The Real Thing" was [[What Do You Mean It's Not Political?|a protest song about]] [[The Vietnam War]]. According to [[Word of God]], it was actually a whimsical musing about Coca-Cola's slogan.

* ''[[Matthew Good]]'' likewise doesn't protest against specific things (he uses his blog for that), but many of his songs carry anti-war messages, such as "Black Helicopter" (with the eminently-quotable line "Only killers call killing progress"), "Silent Army In The Trees" (about how war veterans can be abandoned by their country when they return home broken and suffering from PTSD), and "If I Was A Tidal Wave" (talks about washing the world clean of the problems that afflict it, mostly man-made).

** He also has the song "Sort of a Protest Song", which isn't really against anything in particular, but can be applied to the general apathy modern people apply to third-world problems.

* A number of songs by Ewan MacColl, including against the death penalty (''Go Down Ye Murderers'' and ''Derek Bentley''), Vietnam (''Brother Did You Weep'') and Apartheid (''Black and White'')

* Parodied in [[Camper Van Beethoven]]'s "Club Med Sucks", which uses the same kind of rhetoric as political [[Hardcore Punk]] songs of the time to describe a teenager's parents [[What Do You Mean It's Not Heinous?|forcing him to going to Club Med]] instead of just letting him hang out on the beach on his own all summer ("I want no part of their death culture / I just wanna go to the beach"). Played more straight with "Might Makes Right", from the point of view of a disillusioned soldier.

 

** The topic was later taken up by ''[[Family Guy]]'', via Peter's song "The Freakin' FCC".

* [[Hugh Laurie]] (in ''[[A Bit of Fry and Laurie]]'') sang the protest song, "All We Gotta Do Is" in a whiny, Dylan-esque voice, and mentioned some serious issues everyone ''had to fix'', but didn't actually ''give a solution'' to them:

He sang how the poor were much too poor and the rich too rich by far

Then he drove back to his penthouse in his brand new Rolls-Royce car. }}

** Considering the fact the songs where meant to get the view of Seth [[Mc Farland]] out, albeit with an exaggerated message, YMMV as to whether these are parodies or actual protest songs.

* ''[[SCTV]]'' had hardcore British punk band the Queen Haters on the "American Bandstand"-style "Mel's Rock Pile" to sing "I Hate the Bloody Queen", making no impression on the squarish North American audience.

* "Think About It" by [[Flight of the Conchords]] is a parody of this trope, teaching us valuable lessons such as how sweatshops are bad... because they don't actually make sneakers cheaper; how people have become so uncaring.... that nobody stops to check if a headless man is dead. {{spoiler|[[Captain Obvious|turns out he's dead.]] }}

* [[The Arrogant Worms]]' "vegetable rights" song "Carrot Juice is Murder."

 

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[[Category:Music Tropes]]