Then we'll take it higher - pop songs that are actually protest songs
November 19, 2021 12:36 PM Subscribe
It turns out that Eddy Grant's classic eighties sing-along "Electric Avenue" is actually about the 1981 Brixton riots. What other famous, popular songs are really overlooked protest songs?
"Who is to blame in one country /Never can get to the one/Dealin' in multiplication/And they still can't feed everyone", etc. If only we could actually take it higher.
So what other songs are bracketed as fun and pop or kitsch and inconsequential that have actually heavy content?
I'm not counting pop musicians who are well known as political and/or whose songs are known as political pop songs - so no Jackson Browne, no "Sunday Bloody Sunday", no "Black Steel In The Hour of Chaos", etc. And I'm not counting songs whose themes are clear and well known - no "Do They Know It's Christmas" or "99 Red Balloons".
I'm thinking more like the way "How Bizarre" was actually inspired by a friend getting roughed up by the cops, or songs whose political origin was obscured or totally forgotten.
In re Jackson Browne, I highly recommend Lawyers In Love. It's a bit of a dad joke, but seriously, Browne has a beautiful yodel.
"Who is to blame in one country /Never can get to the one/Dealin' in multiplication/And they still can't feed everyone", etc. If only we could actually take it higher.
So what other songs are bracketed as fun and pop or kitsch and inconsequential that have actually heavy content?
I'm not counting pop musicians who are well known as political and/or whose songs are known as political pop songs - so no Jackson Browne, no "Sunday Bloody Sunday", no "Black Steel In The Hour of Chaos", etc. And I'm not counting songs whose themes are clear and well known - no "Do They Know It's Christmas" or "99 Red Balloons".
I'm thinking more like the way "How Bizarre" was actually inspired by a friend getting roughed up by the cops, or songs whose political origin was obscured or totally forgotten.
In re Jackson Browne, I highly recommend Lawyers In Love. It's a bit of a dad joke, but seriously, Browne has a beautiful yodel.
Morning Dew was written as an anti nuclear weapons protest song.
posted by JonJacky at 1:01 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by JonJacky at 1:01 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Fun question! Bruce Hornsby's The Way It Is is about civil rights.
posted by olopua at 1:06 PM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by olopua at 1:06 PM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
U2's New Year's Day is less thematically known than Sunday Bloody Sunday - it's about martial law in Poland.
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:08 PM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by I claim sanctuary at 1:08 PM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
Well, Chumbawamba's Tubthumping was about quite a lot, apparently.
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:10 PM on November 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
posted by BlahLaLa at 1:10 PM on November 19, 2021 [11 favorites]
Zombie by the Cranberries is one I've noticed getting used more and more in zombie/horror media when in fact it's a protest song about the Troubles and has nothing to do with actual zombies.
posted by fight or flight at 1:14 PM on November 19, 2021 [18 favorites]
posted by fight or flight at 1:14 PM on November 19, 2021 [18 favorites]
Ooh, I like this question. This one never got super popular, but Poor Man’s Ice Cream by Tilly and the Wall is clearly about immigration and xenophobia.
posted by centrifugal at 1:14 PM on November 19, 2021
posted by centrifugal at 1:14 PM on November 19, 2021
1999 by Prince?
This is a tough one because songs can be inspired by something, but lyrically not have much of anything to do with what they are supposedly inspired by, like I Melt with You, which was supposedly referencing nuclear war, but is so abstract and has the "The future is open wide" line which completely negates the nuclear war lines.
Anyways, my favorite of this genre is by Ray Wylie Hubbard, called Redneck Mother, which is protesting rednecks but references "Up Against the Wall" by David Peel, which was something police said to civil rights protestors in the 1960s.
Red Skies at Night by The Fixx.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:16 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is a tough one because songs can be inspired by something, but lyrically not have much of anything to do with what they are supposedly inspired by, like I Melt with You, which was supposedly referencing nuclear war, but is so abstract and has the "The future is open wide" line which completely negates the nuclear war lines.
Anyways, my favorite of this genre is by Ray Wylie Hubbard, called Redneck Mother, which is protesting rednecks but references "Up Against the Wall" by David Peel, which was something police said to civil rights protestors in the 1960s.
Red Skies at Night by The Fixx.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:16 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Many of heavy metal's songs are actually protest songs too, too many to mention but Peace Sells but Who's Buying by Megadeth and One by Metallica. Iron Maiden too wrote so many songs that are anti-war.
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:21 PM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by The_Vegetables at 1:21 PM on November 19, 2021 [3 favorites]
A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:27 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 1:27 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
“The Land of Make Believe” by 80s pop group and Eurovision winners Bucks Fizz was written by King Crimson member Peter Sinfield, who later said the lyrics were a veiled criticism of Margaret Thatcher’s Britain.
posted by greycap at 1:29 PM on November 19, 2021
posted by greycap at 1:29 PM on November 19, 2021
The Monkees' Last Train to Clarksville. Bobby Hart: "We were just looking for a name that sounded good. There's a little town in Northern Arizona I used to go through in the summer on the way to Oak Creek Canyon called Clarksdale. We were throwing out names, and when we got to Clarksdale, we thought Clarksville sounded even better. We didn't know it at the time, [but] there is an Air Force base near the town of Clarksville, Tennessee - which would have fit the bill fine for the story line. We couldn't be too direct with The Monkees. We couldn't really make a protest song out of it - we kind of snuck it in."
posted by jocelmeow at 1:32 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by jocelmeow at 1:32 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Abba's "The Visitors" is about Soviet dissidents, IIRC.
posted by Melismata at 1:36 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by Melismata at 1:36 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz isn't all that subtle but came full circle when Mercedes used it in advertising; repeatedly.
posted by Mitheral at 2:05 PM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
posted by Mitheral at 2:05 PM on November 19, 2021 [5 favorites]
A lot of well-known gospel music or "spirituals" were coded resistance songs, encouraging rebellion or giving directions for the underground railroad, while white owners thought their enslaved workers were simply expressing submissive Christianity.
Also the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" is a critique of materialistic capitalism....weirdly enough given the Stones.
posted by nantucket at 2:10 PM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
Also the Rolling Stones' "Satisfaction" is a critique of materialistic capitalism....weirdly enough given the Stones.
posted by nantucket at 2:10 PM on November 19, 2021 [7 favorites]
White Riot by The Clash was inspired by riots at the Notting Hill Carnival.
posted by slkinsey at 2:13 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by slkinsey at 2:13 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
Marvin Gaye: What’s Going On; Mercy Mercy Me (Environment)
posted by childofTethys at 2:20 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by childofTethys at 2:20 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. While no Mefite would understand this song as an unironic celebration of patriotism, it was and continues to be frequently misunderstood.
posted by boudicca at 2:20 PM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
posted by boudicca at 2:20 PM on November 19, 2021 [6 favorites]
Grand Illusion by Styx
posted by bq at 2:25 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by bq at 2:25 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Banana Boat / Day-O, popularized by Harry Belafonte?
posted by nkknkk at 2:39 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by nkknkk at 2:39 PM on November 19, 2021 [2 favorites]
There are a lot of pop songs from the 80s that are about nuclear war. Both Forever Young, The Future's So Bright come to mind, as well as the more obvious ones like Frankie Goes To Hollywood's "Two Tribes."
Semi-apocryphally, the original lyric in Tears For Fear's Everybody Wants to Rule The World was evidently "everybody wants to go to war"
More recently, there's the Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes," which some people never listened to the lyrics to.
The Police's Invisible Sun is about the Troubles
posted by thivaia at 2:45 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
Semi-apocryphally, the original lyric in Tears For Fear's Everybody Wants to Rule The World was evidently "everybody wants to go to war"
More recently, there's the Postal Service's "We Will Become Silhouettes," which some people never listened to the lyrics to.
The Police's Invisible Sun is about the Troubles
posted by thivaia at 2:45 PM on November 19, 2021 [4 favorites]
The Monkees’ Daily Nightly is about the Sunset Strip curfew riots.
So is Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, often erroneously thought to be about Kent State. It is recognized as a protest song though, so maybe not what you’re looking for here.
posted by FencingGal at 2:48 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
So is Buffalo Springfield’s For What It’s Worth, often erroneously thought to be about Kent State. It is recognized as a protest song though, so maybe not what you’re looking for here.
posted by FencingGal at 2:48 PM on November 19, 2021 [1 favorite]
Chocolate Rain. I think it wasn't until the George Floyd protests that people looked back at that song and said, "Oh, I guess it wasn't just a bunch of hilarious non sequiturs after all." Maybe it wasn't a great protest song, but it was definitely a protest song.
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:02 PM on November 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
posted by Ursula Hitler at 3:02 PM on November 19, 2021 [10 favorites]
Orange Crush - REM
posted by azalea_chant at 10:06 PM on November 19, 2021
posted by azalea_chant at 10:06 PM on November 19, 2021
Paul McCartney says that "Blackbird" is about the civil rights movement in 1960s America.
posted by rollick at 2:45 AM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
posted by rollick at 2:45 AM on November 20, 2021 [1 favorite]
I might have been the last person to realize but I never appreciated until recently that Dancing In The Street was a protest song.
posted by johngoren at 4:35 AM on November 20, 2021
posted by johngoren at 4:35 AM on November 20, 2021
Beautiful Strangers by Kevin Morby is a protest song, of sorts, about gun violence.
posted by teamnap at 5:43 AM on November 20, 2021
posted by teamnap at 5:43 AM on November 20, 2021
Dancing With Tears In My Eyes makes it pretty obvious from the video, though I don't vouch for the accuracy of the depiction of a nuclear reactor accident.
posted by credulous at 6:10 AM on November 20, 2021
posted by credulous at 6:10 AM on November 20, 2021
Rolling Stones "Let it Bleed," is a classic anti war song, of the highest order.
posted by Oyéah at 8:41 AM on November 20, 2021
posted by Oyéah at 8:41 AM on November 20, 2021
Madness by Prince Buster
Propaganda ministers
Propaganda ministers
I've got an aim in view
I'm gonna walk all over you
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:22 AM on November 20, 2021
Propaganda ministers
Propaganda ministers
I've got an aim in view
I'm gonna walk all over you
posted by Pallas Athena at 11:22 AM on November 20, 2021
Deep Purple's Child in Time is reportedly inspired by or about "the Cold War" and rocks.
Funkadelic's March to the Witch's Castle is ... awareness-raising. i think one might find much of the album America Eats Its Young to be protest music.
the entire oeuvre of Gil Scott Heron, of which The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is likely familiar, and Whitey On The Moon has featured in some recent soundtracks; check out also Winter in America, The Bottle, Song of the Wind and Peace Go With You Brother.
Throwing out a couple more without chasing down links: Linton Kwesi Johnson, almost everything is a protest. See Anti-Sus Poem and Fite Dem Back.
of course, Legalize It is a protest song.
posted by 20 year lurk at 11:14 AM on November 21, 2021
Funkadelic's March to the Witch's Castle is ... awareness-raising. i think one might find much of the album America Eats Its Young to be protest music.
the entire oeuvre of Gil Scott Heron, of which The Revolution Will Not Be Televised is likely familiar, and Whitey On The Moon has featured in some recent soundtracks; check out also Winter in America, The Bottle, Song of the Wind and Peace Go With You Brother.
Throwing out a couple more without chasing down links: Linton Kwesi Johnson, almost everything is a protest. See Anti-Sus Poem and Fite Dem Back.
of course, Legalize It is a protest song.
posted by 20 year lurk at 11:14 AM on November 21, 2021
My first answer is the Kingston Trio’s Charlie on the MTA but WCityMike2 got there before me.
I recently revisited House of Love’s Someone’s Got to Love You which has lyrics like, “a history rich in genocide,” but I can’t find the meaning of the song.
In 1987 as an idealistic teenager living in England where my dad was stationed at a nuclear missile base I was obsessed with Sting’s Russians. It’s not necessarily a protest, more of a tear-jerker attempting to remind us to “think of the children.”
posted by bendy at 11:48 PM on November 21, 2021
I recently revisited House of Love’s Someone’s Got to Love You which has lyrics like, “a history rich in genocide,” but I can’t find the meaning of the song.
In 1987 as an idealistic teenager living in England where my dad was stationed at a nuclear missile base I was obsessed with Sting’s Russians. It’s not necessarily a protest, more of a tear-jerker attempting to remind us to “think of the children.”
posted by bendy at 11:48 PM on November 21, 2021
Men Without Hats' Safety Dance was a protest about the banning of certain dances at clubs:
The writer/lead singer, Ivan Doroschuk, has explained that "The Safety Dance" is a protest against bouncers prohibiting dancers from pogoing to 1980s new wave music in clubs when disco was declining and new wave was coming in. Unlike disco dancing, which is done with partners, new wave dancing is done individually and involves holding the torso rigid while thrashing about; pogoing involves jumping up and down (the more deliberately violent evolution of pogoing is slamdancing). Clubgoers doing the newer pogo dance were perceived as posing a danger to disco dancers on the dance floor, and so club bouncers would tell pogoers to stop or be kicked out of the club. Thus, the song is a protest and a call for freedom of expression.posted by Billy Rubin at 7:40 AM on November 22, 2021 [1 favorite]
Frightened Rabbit's Fields of Wheat could be mistaken for a melancholy piece of pastoral pop, but if you recognise the allusion in the title, you realise it's actually a protest song.
posted by verstegan at 6:21 AM on December 12, 2021
posted by verstegan at 6:21 AM on December 12, 2021
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posted by Fuego at 12:49 PM on November 19, 2021 [11 favorites]