Rising stars in punk music, the members of the Linda Lindas were between the ages of 15 and 22 when they recorded their third and latest album. It is a mix of heavy riffs and power pop bursting with youthful energy.

Already the band has a lot of experience. They opened for Paramore during that band’s “This Is Why” tour in 2023, and they were also part of Green Day’s stadium tour in 2024, which also featured Rancid and the Smashing Pumpkins.

“GOTTA GET OUT,” released on August 28, includes two protest songs. Typically, I would write about one song off the album. But I do not want to write about the song that I prefer, “Nothing Left,” and neglect “Blood On Our Hands.” So here’s a write-up that covers both songs.

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Reprise, owned by Warner Music Group (one of the “Big Three” record labels), released their third album. It represents a major break for the Linda Lindas, but the group did not alter their style or water down their politics to please any corporate executives.

“Blood On Our Hands” is a geyser of rage against the United States and Israeli governments’ genocide in Gaza that grapples with feelings of complicity.

Here’s the chorus:

Where do you stand?
Do you know where you stand?
We try to play it nice, but there’s blood on our hands
Death on our hands
Death on our money
Real lives at stake, it’s just a business they’re running

In less than two minutes, the Linda Lindas call out the entire system for perpetuating mass murder while taking away healthcare and food. “Nothing big or beautiful about a fascist state,” howls bassist and vocalist Eloise Wong.

Wong declared, “We’re living in very dark times and it’s really easy to feel hopeless,” says bassist Eloise Wong. “’Blood on Our Hands’ is about doing what you can, not just on national boycott days and marches, but thinking every day about where your money goes and what you put your money towards, and we have to do our best to support each other.”

“Nothing Left” is an infectious track that derides the billionaire class for destroying the only planet that humanity has for living.

“All you tech and oil men profit at our lives’ expense,” the band sings. “How much will your money mean? When you got no air to breathe?”

The Linda Lindas survey the wreckage. “Cars melting on the freeway,” and, “There’s fire in the front yard now.” Sirens are screaming.

Whether the band believes the tech and oil men will wake up, they are out to cajole them into recognizing that the mess they are making will ultimately mean that they have “nothing left.”

“We have felt very inspired at a time when routine and habits are easy to fall into,” guitarist Lucia de la Garza said during an interview for the Line of Best Fit. She added, “It was necessary to be inspired and try new things and reinvent and feel hope and all the joy in all those things – making art – in order not to feel crushed every day.”

The rebellious spirit of the Linda Lindas is why Tom Morello invited them to perform at his Power to the People Festival in Columbia, Maryland, on October 3.

I’m looking forward to many more albums of music by a band that does not want to feel crushed every day, and sees in their live performances a way to help us all rise above despair.

Listen to “Blood On Our Hands” and “Nothing Left” from the Linda Lindas.

About a month ago, Rolling Stone posted a list of the 25 best anti-Trump protest songs “about the worst president ever.”

The monthly magazine previously put out a list of the “100 Best Protest Songs of All Time.” In my view, this list is a much better list simply because it includes a decent amount of independent and underground artists rather than only focusing on mainstream acts that just happened to record a protest song.

Most of the songs name-check the 45th or 47th president, but there are also several songs that focus on ICE and his administration’s anti-immigrant agenda. Or they focus on the racism and police violence that was enthusiastically cheered in 2020, despite numerous Americans protesting after a Minneapolis officer killed George Floyd.

Some of the songs are focused on “Make America Great Again” and resisting that entire project. Which means the songs are not singularly focused on Trump but the wider administration and all who have funded and supported it. Issues-based songs that are less focused on Trump and his personality could qualify for the list.

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Here’s the list:

25. Eminem, “Campaign Speech” (2016)
24. Jello Biafra, “Nazi Trumps Fuck Off” (2025)
23. Nicki Minaj and Mike Will Made It, “Black Barbies” (2016)
22. Low Cut Connie, “Livin in the USA” (2026)
21. Superchunk, “Cloud of Hate” (2018)
20. The Coup, “Pimps (Free Stylin’ At the Fortune 500 Club)” (1994)
19. Margo Price, “Oval Room” (2026)
18. Clipping., “Chapter 319” (2020)
17. Billy Bragg, “City of Heroes” (2026)
16. DJ Shadow feat. Run the Jewels, “Nobody Speak” (2016)
15. Anderson.Paak, “6 Summers” (2018)
14. Dropkick Murphys, “Citizen ICE” (2026)
13. Paul Metsa and Alan Sparhawk, “No Kings No Crown” (2025)
12. L7, “Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago” (2017)
11. Aimee Mann, “Can’t You Tell” (2016)
10. Pussy Riot, “Make America Great Again” (2016)
9. Tom Waits and Massive Attack, “Boots on the Ground” (2026)
8. Jesse Welles, “No Kings” (2025)
7. Downtown Boys, “A Wall” (2017)
6. Public Enemy feat. DJ Premier, “State of the Union (STFU)” (2020)
5. Entrance, “Not Gonna Say Your Name” (2017)
4. Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts, “Big Crime” (2025)
3. Fiona Apple, “Tiny Hands” (2017)
2. Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Minneapolis” (2026)
1. YG, “FDT” (2016)

Six of the songs are from 2026, which makes sense. This year has been a massive year for protest music, particularly after ICE and Border Patrol agents killed Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis. “Streets of Minneapolis” calls ICE “King Trump’s private army” and “Trump’s thugs.” And while “Boots on the Ground” and “City of Heroes” never explicitly mention Trump, all three are unmistakably anti-Trump songs.

Both “Nazi Trumps Fuck Off” and “Citizen ICE” are updates of “Nazi Punks Fuck Off” and “Citizen CIA,” songs recorded in 1981 and 2005 respectively. I would prefer original songs, but then again, in early July I featured “Oval Room” in this publication. That is a cover of a tune by Blaze Foley that was released in 1984, and I think it belongs in the list.

“State of the Union (STFU)” is a bonafide hip-hop protest song. Just listen to Chuck D rap, “Unprecedented, demented, many president’d. Nazi gestapo dictator defended.” But I question the inclusion of “Campaign Speech,” “Black Barbies,” “6 Summers,” and “Nobody Speak,” especially when there are other songs that deserve to be included. (Plus, YG at #1 did it far better.)

If a list is going to feature an anti-Trump rap from Eminem, 2017’s “The Storm (Freestyle)” is more politically focused. It also has less filler for shock value. (But I would not put either in the top 25.)

I am glad that Rolling Stone included songs from Billy Bragg, Clipping., The Coup, Downtown Boys, and Jesse Welles. That Superchunk song is exceptional, too.

So here’s the Protest Music Project’s 25 best anti-Trump protest songs—with songs that were not part of the Rolling Stone list in bold.

25. Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings, “Tear It Down” (2018)
24. David Rovics, “America Has Never Been So Great” (2017)
23. Margo Price, “Oval Room” (2026)
22. L7, “Dispatch From Mar-a-Lago” (2017)
21. The Coup, “Pimps (Free Stylin’ At the Fortune 500 Club)” (1994)
20. Macklemore, “Fucked Up” (2025)
19. Kim Gordon, “BYEBYE25!” (2025)
18. Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts, “Big Crime” (2025)
17. MUNA, “Big Stick” (2026)
16. Public Enemy feat. DJ Premier, “State of the Union (STFU)” (2020)
15. Carsie Blanton & The Burning Hell, “Everything Is Great” (2026)
14. Jim James, “Same Old Lie” (2016)
13. Pussy Riot, “Make America Great Again” (2016)
12. Low Cut Connie, “Livin in the USA” (2026)
11. Jill Sobule, “America Back” (2015)
10. Tom Waits and Massive Attack, “Boots on the Ground” (2026)
9. Superchunk, “Cloud of Hate” (2018)
8. Entrance, “Not Gonna Say Your Name” (2017)
7. Clipping., “Chapter 319” (2020)
6. Jesse Welles, “No Kings” (2025)
5. Downtown Boys, “A Wall” (2017)
4. Bruce Springsteen, “Streets of Minneapolis” (2026)
3. A Tribe Called Quest - “We The People…”
2. YG, “FDT” (2016)
1. Lonnie Holley, “I Woke Up In a Fucked-Up America” (2018)

Several of the songs I added were previously featured here. I also remember them making year-end lists or being written about by the few remaining journalists that interview these artists and talk to them about making protest music.

I pick Lonnie Holley’s “I Woke Up In a Fucked-Up America” as the best song because of its musical richness, a mixture of sonic noises and free jazz elements. Holley utilizes these sounds to express the sadnesss and surrealness of Trump’s election. He movingly grapples with the fact that this country elected someone like Trump.

Since Trump’s return to the White House in 2025, its reverberating lyric—"I woke up…”—continues to best represent the disorientation felt by people who have long known that everything that Trump stands for is a threat to our humanity.

What anti-Trump songs would you include in a top 25 list? Share your favorites in the comments.

One of the most dynamic punk bands of the 21st century is the Downtown Boys. Nine years after releasing their last album, “Cost Of Living,” the group returns with another album of protest music.

Their latest album is called “Public Luxury,” and the band was interviewed by New Noise Magazine to promote the release.

If you’re not familiar with the Downtown Boys, I encourage you to read this feature from the Line of Best Fit that delves into the formation of the band. They were one of the few groups that made music, which grappled with issues under President Barack Obama’s administration.

Joey DeFrancesco, guitarist and songwriter for the group, said that the band writes “in response to political developments that remain relevant, and remain very much top of mind, far beyond the exact time of writing, because things keep escalating and cascading in terms of intensity, and the contradictions keep intensifying.”

A standout song on the album is “Yellow Sun.” It made me think of Robert Smith, the vocalist for the Cure, particularly the way that Ruiz delivers each verse and its unconventional structure. The sound is also evocative of New Wave music.

“‘Yellow Sun’ is a song for Lebanon, written as Israel’s ongoing invasion and occupation of the country began in 2024,” according to DeFrancesco. “The lyrics were inspired in part by the work of Lebanese poet and painter Etel Adnan, especially the poems ‘Beirut 1982’ and ‘The Arab apocalypse,’ which she wrote during Israel’s earlier occupation of Lebanon from 1982-2000.”

“As with Ednan’s work, the song is meant to name the horrors (‘phosphorous skies,’ ‘every day an angel explodes’) while also insisting on the possibility of a new day: “The trees grow in every direction / I’m still heavy with love…”

Lebanese animator Matar created a video that DeFrancesco characterized as a “fable-like tribute to the decades of displacement and hostility faced by the indigenous shepherds and rural communities of Palestine and Lebanon since 1948. It also contains visual references to Adnan’s paintings.”

Vocalist Victoria Ruiz described the songs on the new album as a sign of the band’s evolution. On “Full Communism” (2015), “I feel like we got to be like pretty literal,” with ideas and lyrics largely inspired by protest chants. But “Public Luxury” goes deeper and looks at “how to reckon our reality that we all find ourselves in with our dreams, and then our worst nightmares.”

“I think coming from the perspective of a singer as a person of color, those nightmares of imposter syndromes really do relate to your read on reality and what you want to fight for,” Ruiz added.

“Yellow Sun” was conceived as more of a reflection on a history of struggle under colonialism. However, with the Israeli military seizing territory from Lebanon and committing atrocities against the Lebanese people, the ideas within the song are more potent.

Or as DeFrancesco said in the interview for the Line of Best Fit, the song sadly becomes “more and more in direct response to the current moment.”

Since the band is consistent in their politics, what DeFrancesco said applies to much of their music. That gives their songs—for better or worse—an enduring resonance.

Watch/listen to “Yellow Sun” by Downtown Boys [Support the music on Bandcamp]:

Country singer-songwriter Margo Price released a “Days of Unrest” mixtape a day before performing at Willie Nelson’s 4th of July Picnic, where she covered John Prine’s classic protest song, “Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You Into Heaven Anymore.”

A portion of proceeds from sales of the mixtape go to the Florence Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project. (It is available on Bandcamp here.)

One of the songs on the mixtape is a cover of Blaze Foley’s 1984 protest song, “Oval Room.”

“‘Oval Room’ was written by one of my songwriting heroes from the Austin, Texas music scene, Arkansas native Blaze Foley,” Price said. “He wrote the song about another famous movie star turned politician—President Ronald Reagan—back in 1984, but it feels like it could have been written for any president, especially Trump.”

“The system has always been set up to keep the rich in power and divide the people. Covering this song, as well as the other tracks on Days Of Unrest, is how I protest,” Price further declared.

Foley’s lyrics emphasize how the President of the United States is tied to businesses and completely disconnected from any working class person, especially farmers.

The next verse is so on the nose that it’s hard to believe it was not written for Trump:

Got a big airplane, take him everywhere
Got a limousine, when he get there
Everywhere he goes, make the people mad
Makes the poor man beg, and the rich man glad

Price sings these lyrics, recognizing that those who listen to her music will add their own context based on our present political moment. But to sharpen its relevance, the video shows black and white images of Trump at the White House enhanced with gold accents. It incorporates clips of White House demolition for Trump’s big ballroom, construction for America 250 “Fight Night,” Trump’s rebranding of the Kennedy Center, and the debacle around the Reflecting Pool.

Each image illustrates the extent to which Trump is only concerned about himself and fellow members of the billionaire class.

The mixtape also includes an update to Price’s cover of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee (Plane Wreck at Lost Gatos).” Joan Baez is featured, along with Memphis Mariachi. Another music video highlighting injustices against migrant workers was compiled for the song. (“Deportee” was previously featured as part of this project.)

Price has the distinction of being the first female artist to serve on Farm Aid’s Board of Directors. She plans to perform music from the mixtape at the annual festival in September.

Watch or listen to “Oval Office”:

Ten years ago, Tanya Tagaq caught my attention with her album, “Retribution.” I was drawn to this music because of the visceral and provocative manner in which Tagaq confronted settler colonialism.

“Retribution” was a call to action against the many multinational corporations, especially fossil fuel companies, that pillage and plunder Mother Earth. It warned of the consequences of humanity’s non-consensual relationship with the planet. “Our mother grows angry. Retribution will be swift,” Tagaq declared on the title track.

Tagaq, a Canadian Inuk throat singer, released her sixth album in March called “Saputjiji.” The title means “designated protector” in the Inuktitut language.

“We must stand. We must protect her. The world is choking on the rancid smoke of capitalism,” Tagaq stated. “We must breathe. You are being feasted upon. Time to embrace carnivorous tendencies. Defend, protect, embrace.”

A January press release from Six Shooter Records described the album as a “potent counter-strike against billionaires, genocide, abuse and colonial systems,” and argued that Tagaq is “more commanding, innovative and pointed than ever, aiming straight at the jugular of the military-industrial-capitalist-tech powers of the times.”

This is no overstatement. It matches the intensity of both the album’s harsh sonic textures and the underlying urgent message, which like “Retribution” and “Tongues” (2022) are pleas for humanity.

“Fuck War” opens the album, setting the tone. Songs like “Foxtrot” and “Bohica” transform the language of military occupiers into something oppressed people can use to fight back.

But after repeated listens, “Ikualajut” is the song that most stands out to me. It is the Inuktitut word for something that is on fire, and we all know what Tagaq means. She is referring to the Earth.

The words, “A collective shift of consciousness is needed,” bookend “Ikualajut.” At the beginning, Tagaq speaks of how a collective shift is needed “so the sunflowers will all turn towards the sun.”

Tagaq considers our “social climate” and its impact on everything we need to live—“water, food, air, love.” She grapples with what is right and wrong and how we arrive at this truth before hitting listeners with a striking image of abuse in one of the many residential schools where Indigenous children were frequently abused.

At the end, a collective shift is needed “before the sunflowers burn.” The example of a sunflower is a barometer for humanity, and if sunflowers are catching fire, there is not much hope for life on Earth.

Listen to Tanya Tagaq’s “Ikualajut” [Support this music on Bandcamp]:

To aja monet, surrealism is and always has been an intentional response to rising fascism. Which is largely why monet considers herself a surrealist blues poet.

“Surrealism for [Black Americans] is where insurgent consciousness takes shape. It’s what we’ve imagined and cultivated in the face of all we’ve endured because of colonialism’s lack of political imagination,” monet told The Guardian earlier this year.

“African people are surreal. The way we move through the world is through a surrealist lens. We’ve always had to contend with the most absurd,” monet added. “What is more absurd than racism and sexism?”

Monet’s sophomore album, “the color of rain,” was released in May. A clear example of surrealism is “hollyweird,” which grapples with the hypocrisy and naive ignorance that was on full display in Los Angeles during and immediately after the January 2025 wildfires.

“Can a millionaire be homeless? All of a sudden, we know the meaning of community,” monet declares. A few lines later, she states, “Nothing like disaster to shock a heart into beating.”

The landscape that monet sketches is profound and reflective of the meek and dispiriting response of elite entertainers to the rise of oligarchy and the stark oppression that stems from it.

But “hollyweird” has received plenty of attention since the debut of a music video in February so to recognize this exceptional album I’ll focus on “for the Congo.”

“For the Congo” is less dependent on surrealism. It deals with the atrocities and war that regularly occur as a result of coltan mining. Coltan is used to manufacture smartphones and electric vehicles. And with the AI data center boom, the colonialist exploitation of people in the Congo is becoming even more devastating.

The fierce and dynamic percussion of this composition is matched by the potency of monet’s spoken words. Monet mentions the “zombie stares and rubber spines.” She confronts the “terrible stench of lies.” Most of all, she wrestles with this question: “How do I survive this inability to stop the worst act known to mankind?”

“Tell them,” Monet demands. “Tell them. Tell them. Tell them to talk about the blood. The sweet red river of rage. The skin of a drum. The shaking brush of bruise of the blue-black truth.”

While insisting that we not look away from the reality of genocide, Monet offers a brief overview of colonialism in recent decades, from Paul Kagame’s dictatorship and “love affair with the West” to the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund’s economic policies aimed at facilitating the extraction of resources and minerals for multinational corporations.

“For the Congo” is one of many songs where monet calls on everyone to refuse “convention and apathy.” It is richly textured, and like the best art, it combines the political with the spiritual. All while crying out for an end to the horror behind “the death machines in our palms.”

Listen to “for the Congo” by aja monet and support this music on Bandcamp:

It has admittedly been a while since I shared some new protest music. In that time, albums from Kneecap, Tori Amos, Peter Frampton, Moon Walker, and Aja Monet were all released with songs that could be featured at some point.

John Fogerty was asked why there isn’t more protest music, and apparently, former President Barack Obama wrote something about protest music for Rolling Stone.

Obama’s words about protest music aren’t bad. You almost forget that he was president of the United States, and the musicians he celebrates all recorded protest songs because presidents like him stood in the way of justice, refused to address the needs of citizens, or engaged in immoral and reprehensible acts.

What Obama recalled was the way that music has shaped America over the past 250 years. In this week’s protest song from Rostam, it is the other way around. “The Weight” responds to the moment and essentially honors students, or Generation Z, who have engaged in dissent.

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Rostam, an Iranian American best known as a founding member of Vampire Weekend, blends in music styles that reflect his heritage.

“Calling out a broken government, walking home in a rainstorm,” Rostam sings. “Mom and dad don’t believe you. Every word at commencement new to the administration.”

It is fairly obvious that Rostam is referring to students at their graduation, who use their speeches to condemn Israel’s genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The risks they take can result in school suspensions, withheld diplomas, and other forms of punishment.

Musically, the song manages to be both positive and wistful. This is the way that the world it is, and it is not what I should be. But the next generation has no choice but to face it.

“You feel the weight come down to you. Cause you know the truth,” Rostam sings in the chorus. “You’ve got courage on your side. You feel the weight come down to you.”

He adds, “And you know it to be true. You’ve got courage on your side.”

Amir Yaghmai, who is also Iranian American, provides an instrumental outro. He plays a West Asian lute known as a saz.

The music and fashion magazine, Clash, captures the essence of the track, describing it as a “luminous blend between folky slow burn arrangements in the acoustic guitar and piano chords matched with the microtonal melodies” from Yaghmai.

Back in February, Rostam donated 51 percent of the revenue he received for a version of “Campus” that was pressed on 7-inch vinyl. The funds were donated to Palestine Legal, Chirla, the Palestine Children’s Relief Fund, and the Sudanese American Physicians Association.

“The Weight” is more subtle than some of the recent protest songs featured, but then, that’s part of the artistry behind this beautiful-sounding music.

It appears on Rostam’s latest album, “American Stories,” which was released on May 15.

Listen to Rostam’s “The Weight” and support the music on Bandcamp:

“America is deeply rooted in Negro culture: its colloquialisms, its humor, its music. How ironic that the Negro, who more than any other people can claim America’s culture as his own, is being persecuted and repressed, that the Negro, who has exemplified the humanities in his very existence, is being rewarded with inhumanity.”

Those powerful words from jazz legend Sonny Rollins appeared on the back of his 1958 album “Freedom Suite.” That is, until Riverside Records removed the album from shelves and reissued it as “Shadow Waltz.”

On May 25, Rollins, who was widely known as the “Saxophone Colossus,” died at his home in Woodstock, New York.

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“Freedom Suite,” a 19-minute tour de force was a collaboration with bassist Oscar Pettiford and drummer Max Roach. It was recorded four years after the U.S. Supreme Court issued Brown v. Board of Education, a landmark decision that barring Black children from attending public schools unconstitutional.

At the time, it was one of the few jazz compositions to address justice and freedom for Black Americans. Written in 1957, and recorded in 1958, Rollins said he just knew it was “the right time” to create jazz that reflected the civil rights movement.

“My grandmother was very much what you would call an activist,” Rollins recalled in a 2017 interview for Cassius Life. “I was this young boy and I would be marching up and down Lenox Avenue and maybe 7th Avenue sometimes for causes, when a lot of people couldn’t sit down and eat (at lunch counters).”

“And there was a case where they had the Scottsboro boys. Three or four or maybe five passengers met this one woman. They were accused of raping her. Which was a lie. And they were gonna execute them, and they knew it was a lie.”

“So there’s a big movement trying to get them free. And I remember walking up and down with my grandmother as a little boy. Anything that had to do with Black liberation, Marcus Garvey, all of that stuff I was marching for. And we had a flag in the house for Black nationalism.”

As notes on the original album cover described, “Freedom Suite” represented “something that Sonny [had] never before attempted and that very possibly no one [had] ever attempted in precisely this way.” It was immediately evident that it would “turn out to be a jazz work of massive and lasting significance.”

The reference to freedom, the notes added, is “to the musical freedom of this unusual combination of composition and improvisation; in another it is to physical and moral freedom, to the presence and absence of it in Sonny’s own life and in the way of life of other Americans to whom he feels a relationship.”

“Thus it is not a piece about Emmett Till, or Little Rock, or Harlem, no more than it is about the artistic freedom of jazz. But it is concerned with all such things, as they are observed by this musician and as they react—emotionally and intellectually upon him.”

“Freedom Suite” was a combination of dedication, homage, resentment, impatience, and joy, all flowing from the way Rollins felt when contemplating what it meant to be free.

In the previously mentioned interview, Rollins plainly urged Black Americans fighting for freedom and justice to “keep the struggle going like we always have.”

“[I]f you’re born Black in America, then you’re gonna have a particular type of struggle,” he further declared.

That’s what “Freedom Suite” is, a recognition that freedom is a constant struggle, and it will forever be regarded as a massive and lasting contribution to jazz music.

Listen to “Freedom Suite” by Sonny Rollins

It is an extraordinarily bleak time in the world for kids to be coming of age, but the Neighborhoods Kids, a conscious hip hop group from San Diego, are here to stand up for youth through music that encourages resistance and demands justice for all.

The group is led by Verde, Amon the MC, and DJ JG, and on April 22, the Neighborhood Kids released their debut album, “Voices Of The Revolution.”

The Neighborhood Kids envisioned the album as a “piece of art” that would make one “feel an array of emotions” while also reminding “us that we are not alone.” The world is aflame, yet business as usual continues. The project was a way for the group to counter the destruction by showing that they can “stand for something bigger than themselves.”

“Who Keeps Us Safe?” was the first single from the album. While the group raps the chorus for most of the songs, this track stands out because music producer Alianna sings the chorus.

In an interview for Jejeune Magazine, the group described how the song was recorded in a music school where Alianna works. The hook by Alianna is a protest chant: “Who keeps us safe? We keep us safe.”

“Biddi Bomb,” a breakout hit, also appears on the album. The opening lyric, “Said, woke up in the morning and I smelt the fresh pollution. Television never try to show my execution,” is fire.

At its core, it is a hype track that makes a powerful statement (much like Dead Prez’s “Hip Hop”). But the Neighborhood Kids shared this song in 2024.

“We the Kids,” the eleventh track on the album, is an anthem that best represents the essence of this conscious hip-hop group and how they have boldly stepped forward to give voice to forgotten, ignored, and neglected young people.

“We the kids that they don’t like to talk about. We the kids that was playing on the blacktop,” the group sings. “We the kids that was crying and they never did listen.”

The Neighborhood Kids refer to the survivors of child abuse and foster children, who are targeted by predators. Then the group shows solidarity with children outside the United States in this powerful verse:

We the kids in Congo mining for cobalt.
We the kids that were abandoned and trafficked and sold off
We the kids underneath all the rubble in Gaza
We the kids that are missing all their mothers and fathers

In Spanish, the Neighborhood Kids rap for the “street children,” who don’t have time to play because they’re busy helping their family pay for basic needs.

Then the group mentions the “kids underneath the residential schools.” They mean the “Indigenous children” that were “forced to assimilate with Americans.” And if they didn’t, that “was the end of them.”

Boldly, the Neighborhood Kids proclaim, “We the kids that’ll save the world with a pad and a pen. We the resilient children that make sure this won’t happen again.”

It is not naive to believe that the world can be better. It is an essential part of living for the future for every young person whether they be in a conflict zone or a community that has been sacrificed by corporate elites.

“Music is a powerful tool because people repeat it, memorize it, and carry it with them. We felt called to be a voice for the revolution, and to remind people that they have a voice too, through words, dance, art, whatever they create,” Verde told Jejeune Magazine.

The Neighborhood Kids understand how to harness the power of music, and in fact, they have already left their mark. They have two projects in the works, and I imagine the Kids will continue to shape protest music as they fight for their generation.

Listen to “We The Kids” by The Neighborhood Kids:

Massive Attack, known for combining electronic and hip-hop music, collaborated with legendary singer-songwriter Tom Waits to produce “Boots On The Ground.” The protest song was further developed into a montage film that features work from photography artist thefinaleye.

The photos cover an “American epoch” that has “yet to be named,” according to Massive Attack. They feature some of the largest protests in United States history—in response to Minneapolis police murdering George Floyd and Breonna Taylor in 2020, and then ICE raiding communities in 2025 and early 2026.

Considering that Massive Attack (now made up of just Robert Del Naja and Grant Marshall) hails from Bristol, England, they effectively act as observers processing the images of ICE and Border Patrol rounding up people and the communities that routinely face violence at the hands of a police state.

Waits, born in California, is Massive Attack’s connection to the rising fascism and “state authoritarianism.” The words that he utters are profanity-laced barbs and weary reflections directed at the jarheads of ICE, Border Patrol, and other militarized forces.

To me, the tired and angry despair of Waits matches the older gentleman in Minneapolis at an ICE protest, who shouted, “I’m 70 years old, and I’m fucking angry!” He also said, “Oh, fuck off,” right before tear gas was unloaded on a crowd of Minnesotans. Then in his winter coat, scarf, and hat, the gentleman disappeared into the fog.

Massive Attack, Waits, and thefinaleye also contemplate the militarization of a society while it discards and abandons tens of thousands of military veterans who are without homes. In fact, the percussive sound of soldiers marching as well several of the lyrics are pretty similar to the classic Waits protest tune, “Hell Broke Luce.”

Seething from a world in chaos, we’re treated to poetry like, “Now who the hell are these federal pricks? Hiding in the senate like a bloated ass tick. Air conditioned fuckstick loafers, sittin’ in a room full of army posters.”

With a slow plodding rhythm, Massive Attack build this sound that reflects the loss of any morality. You can feel this darkening pulse as the song progresses. Sometimes the noises that they use create a sense of the heavy toxic air that lingers after a protest is violently dispersed.

This is far from Massive Attack’s first foray into music or performances that comment on social or political issues. They revisited their 1998 album “Mezzanine” in 2019 for a live show that Fader described as “subversive,” as it built on a project on the “surveillance state” that was inspired by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden and the information he revealed.

As Jordan Darville wrote, referring to filmmaker Werner Herzog, “The show combines a reimagined version of their landmark 1998 album Mezzanine, full covers of songs sampled on the record, and films created by British documentarian Adam Curtis. These collage-like clips create a more pleasant Ludovico Technique-esque trance using archival footage, and occasionally, the kind of ‘inadequate images’ Herzog pushed against — war and assassinations devoid of context, Britney Spears stalked by paparazzi, a crudely deepfaked Donald Trump.”

Massive Attack makes music that is uniquely suited for our increasingly techno-feudalistic world, overrun by militarized police and border enforcement officers. And though it seems more unrefined than previous tracks, “Boots On The Ground” is a welcome addition to the collective’s catalog.

Listen to “Boots on the Ground” by Massive Attack and Tom Waits and watch the film featuring photos from thefinaleye:

The war with Iran is over, and President Donald Trump’s administration is negotiating with the Iranian government. Except the United States military is blockading Iran and deploying more troops to the Middle East.

But this escalation is just for peace and freedom, and the Iranian government will definitely beg Trump for a deal. Even though it was the Trump administration that turned to Pakistan to help bail the U.S. out of the mess that they created in the Strait of Hormuz.

If this is as maddening to you as it should be, then Carsie Blanton and Burning Hell’s protest album, “Everything Is Great,” is for you. It was released on April 1.

The music is scathing and whimsical, and each song reflective of a world in decline. Yet Blanton and Burning Hell bring a spirit of resistance and collective action to surviving the unquenchable militarism and end times fascism that threatens life as we know it.

Instead of one song of the week, I’ll highlight the album’s first two songs: the title track and “Peace & Freedom.”

“Everything Is Great” begins with Burning Hell songwriter Mathias Kom, a Canadian, asking Blanton, “How are things down there? I mean, seems a little weird.”

Blanton answers, “Everything is great, everything is fine. Everything is getting better all of the time.Everybody knows that the President’s insane, but nobody wants to talk about what people do when their President’s insane.”

Like most conversations between friends, Kom asks Blanton about the weather. That’s a nightmare as well.

“Well, it’s the hottest summer in the history of man. And for some reason yesterday we bombed Iran. Everybody knows we’re starting WWIII. But nobody wants to talk about what you should do if your government is starting WWIII,” Blanton shares.

The lyrics do not always fit as naturally into the music, and yet, that simply punctuates the sorry state of affairs that have us all searching for ways to cope and resist.

On top of confronting a world turned upside down, Blanton and Kom also deal with living among people who do not share their sense of doom and how that adds to their anxiety and stress.

“Peace & Freedom” is a catchy and clever tune. “We don’t believe in political violence. That ain’t the way that we get things done. We don’t believe in political violence. Peace and freedom for everyone.”

Blanton and Burning Hell list off 900 attack helicopters, 5,000 Tomahawk nukes, 800 military bases, and 81 declassified coups. But political violence is never the answer!

Later they list off, “NATO, Cato, IMF, fighting falcon fighter jets, hypersonics to deploy, fat man, thin man, little boy.” They mention covert agencies, bunker buster bombs, and secret prisons like Guantanamo. Peace and freedom for everyone!

You get the idea. It ends with a quote from Senator Chuck Schumer, “I will say what I’ve said many times before. There is no place in America for political violence of any kind.”

These are satirical songs that could veer to far in the direction of nihilism and cynicism, but with Blanton’s involvement, they remain anchored to a spirit of resistance. (Blanton was part of the Global Sumud Flotilla that has tried to break Israel’s blockade against Palestinians.)

Everything is great if you’re part of the billionaire class getting rich off wars. For everyone else, let this be the soundtrack for gathering with friends, colleagues, or neighbors to organize the next uprising.

Listen to “Everything Is Great” and “Peace & Freedom.” Support the album on Bandcamp:

Music video for “Everything Is Great”

It was around 30 years ago that the band Rage Against the Machine released “Bulls On Parade,” one of their greatest and best known songs.

Appearing on their 1996 album “Evil Empire,” the song confronts the unquenchable militarism of the United States—particularly at the Pentagon, which lead singer Zack de la Rocha refers to as “a rotten sore on the face of Mother Earth.”

“Bulls On Parade” only has two verses. The second verse describes the scene in a country that is addicted to war.

“Weapons, not food, not homes, not shoes, not need/ just feed the war, cannibal animal,” de la Rocha raps. “I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library, line up to the mind cemetery now.”

The government does not need to burn books like the Nazis. They can just remove them from libraries. Plus, “arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells,” de la Rocha adds, connecting militarism to mass incarceration.

“Rally ‘round the family, with a pocket full of shells,” de la Rocha repeats in the chorus. It is apparently a play on the popular children’s rhyme, “Ring Around the Rosie.”

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Tom Morello’s “wah-wah guitar part,” as he described it, transformed the song into an iconic track. During the September/October leg of their North America tour, the band frequently opened their concerts with “Bulls On Parade.”

On September 13, 1999, at the Astoria in London, de La Rocha dedicated the song to British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

“I don’t know, but I found it kind of peculiar this latest round of indiscriminate bombings by Britain and the US in Iraq and in Serbia. And it’s even more disgusting coming from someone like Tony Blair. I guess I don’t understand this man bombing Kosovo workers and Serbian workers in buses and children as he sits on a platform for the Labour Party.”

“Bulls on Parade” opened their protest concert at the 2000 Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles. Following the performance, police on horseback moved in on protesters and fired rubber bullets to disperse everyone.

During the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, the band supported Iraq Veterans Against the War and led a march from the Denver Coliseum where they put on a free concert. They performed “Bulls On Parade” during their set. (The band tried to perform a free anti-RNC concert in St. Paul a week later, but police refused to let them use speakers or any amplification devices.)

Perhaps, the most well-known performance of “Bulls On Parade” is their performance of the song on “Saturday Night Live.” They were invited to appear on the same episode that billionaire and Republican presidential candidate Steve Forbes hosted.

It was April 13, 1996. Rage Against the Machine hung American flags upside down, but the “SNL” crew tore down the flags before they took the stage. They performed the first single off their new album. Then they went back to their dressing room and were told they would not be allowed to perform their second song, “Bullet In the Head.”

Morello shared during the documentary, “Ladies and Gentlemen…50 Years Of SNL Music,” that the Secret Service actually removed them from their dressing room because bassist Tim Commerford was pissed off and thought Forbes was responsible. He made an American flag ball rocket and entered the billionaire’s dressing room. However, it was Forbes’ family that was in the room.

“The hallway floods with Secret Service. We’re now locked in our room. They’re protecting Steve Forbes and his family,” Morello recalled. “We get escorted out and put on the sidewalk at 30 Rock. You might notice Rage is not in the farewells on that particular show.”

In the music video for “Bulls On Parade,” protesters carry red and black flags and ascend a hill. They seem to be reclaiming it from the imperial forces of the US that seized the land. We see the production of radical zines that will spread the propaganda needed to overthrow the oppressors. And there are also snippets of historical footage showing protesters facing off with police.

The words “to dream of liberty is dangerous” appear near the end of the video. During the final scenes, graffiti art says, “Lost Angeles.” The protesters have taken the power back from the forces that occupy their streets in defense of the warfare state.

Watch/listen to “Bulls on Parade” by Rage Against the Machine

Absolutely electrifying performance from the Reading Festival in England (2000), with a bonus cover of MC5’s “Kick Out The Jams”:

On March 7, singer and songwriter Country Joe McDonald died. He was the lead singer of the psychedelic folk-rock group Country Joe and the Fish, and McDonald was probably best known for a counterculture moment immortalized in the Oscar-winning 1970 documentary “Woodstock.”

It was Saturday, August 16, during the Woodstock Music and Art Fair in Bethel, New York. McDonald’s band had not yet arrived, and they were not scheduled to play until Sunday evening. However, organizers needed someone to fill the stage because they were waiting for programmed acts. McDonald performed a solo acoustic set.

The setlist was the following: “Janis,” “Rockin’ All Around the World,” “Flyin’ High All Over The World,” and “Seen a Rocket.” He ended with “Fish Cheer/I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag.”

McDonald told Rock Cellar Magazine in 2013, “Santana couldn’t get their equipment there on time to go on. They gave me a guitar, and I just went up there and after a while I decided that I would do the Fuck Cheer and Fixin’-To-Die Rag and fill in some time for the program. And it was filmed and it was put onto the record and into the movie.

“Country Joe and the Fish had been hired to perform, I wasn’t scheduled to do anything solo. And that was the event that launched Fixin’-To-Die into the mainstream along with the Fuck Cheer,” McDonald added.

McDonald described “Fixin-To-Die” as a song that was “written in the voice of a military recruiter/carnival barker (with an outrageous hurdy-gurdy organ accompaniment) who encourages young men to join the fight.” It was gallows humor or “GI humor.”

It was unlike more popular protest songs, like Barry McGuire’s “Eve of Destruction,” and in fact, McDonald came up with it rather easily. “I just strummed a pattern on my guitar and all of a sudden scribbled out “One, two, three, what are we fightin’ for?” He was done writing the song in 30 minutes.

‘Whoopee! We’re All Gonna Die’

The chorus was the following:

And it’s one, two, three,
What are we fighting for?
Don’t ask me, I don’t give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it’s five, six, seven,
Open up the pearly gates,
Well there ain’t no time to wonder why,
Whoopee! we’re all gonna die

The verses were written from the perspective of the generals and war financiers, who stood to profit from sending young men to die in Vietnam.

Come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don’t hesitate,
Send your sons off before it’s too late.
You can be the first one on your block
To have your boy come home in a box.

Singing sardonically about someone’s child coming home in a box was offensive to a population indoctrinated to support war. Yet for enlisted soldiers, McDonald said this lyric was “shop talk.”

“My parents were members of the Communist Party when I was born, but later became disenchanted with them. And then they became part of the Progressive Party and the left socialist parties that were around,” McDonald shared in an interview for Street Spirit. “I read the leftist newspapers and I was familiar with the basic tenets of socialism about the industrial complex that generates war.

“So I was able to write lyrics about the warmakers that profit from war, and I was able to write a lyric from the point of view of the soldier because I had been in the military.”

'There Was a Warrant For My Arrest’

Of course, it is not possible to recall “Fixin-To-Die” without appreciating the backstory for the “Fuck Cheer.” They were always performed together, and it was known as the “Fish Cheer” due to “FCC reasons,” according to McDonald.

On the group’s 1967 album “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die,” it was a cheer for the band, with each member yelling out a letter and then they overdubbed “Fish.” Later, at festivals, the band changed it to “Fuck.” It led to the band losing an opportunity to appear on “The Ed Sullivan Show.”

“We performed the Fuck Cheer in Worcester, Massachusetts in 1970 and there was a warrant for my arrest issued,” McDonald recalled. “I had a trial over me leading the crowd in a lewd and lascivious and wanton cheer. It was later thrown out of court.”

McDonald was a true movement musician for nearly all of his career. He sang “Fixin-To-Die” at an “anti-nuclear protest at Livermore Laboratory on the 70th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima.”

He saw himself as a “morale booster for these causes.” What he did as an activist was use his music to give voice and support to grassroots campaigns that didn’t “have mainstream support and visibility.”

‘Fixin-To-Die’ Would Boost The Morale Of POWs

In McDonald’s interview for Street Spirit, he shared an incredible story of how “Fixin-To-Die” helped prisoners of war survive captivity in Vietnam.

McDonald: So here’s a little story about that. There’s a guy, Phil Butler, and he was in the Hanoi Hilton, the atrocious prison camp in Vietnam that held pilots who were captured. John McCain was held in the Hanoi Hilton and Phil Butler was there for seven years. He became a member of Vietnam Veterans of America and I was playing in San Francisco at one of their events, just singing some songs there.

Phil Butler came up to me. I almost start crying just thinking about it, because he said, “You know, they would play American music in the compound in Hanoi Hilton to demoralize us.” Hanoi Hannah would play music to demoralize Americans in the compound, the prisoners of war.

Spirit: Why would the music demoralize them? By making them miss home?

McDonald: Yes, miss home — miss home and think about home. But Phil said, “When they would play ‘Fixin’ to Die Rag,’ it would boost our morale and make us feel good.” Then he said, “I never dreamed I would live to hear you sing it in person.” We both started crying and hugged each other. It was like, “Oh, my God…”

There also was a soldier who died in Vietnam from his wounds. His buddy later told McDonald that the man’s last words were, “Whoopee, we’re all gonna die.”

Watch Country Joe McDonald perform “Fuck Cheer/Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin-To-Die Rag” at Woodstock:

Hip-hop artist Brother Ali, who is from Minneapolis, dropped this week’s featured protest song on February 25. It builds on a tradition of musical and spiritual resistance that Ali has practiced since the 2000s, particularly with “Uncle Sam Goddamn” (2007).

In fact, the introduction for “Another Country” reworks the chorus of “Uncle Sam.”

Welcome to the divided states
Land of the thief, home of the slaves
They wanna raise the stakes
So they killed all the dreams, and they danced on the graves

Throughout the song, Ali grapples with the extent to which those who rule the United States empire degrade and devalue life by recalling the legacy of slavery.

Ali astutely reflects on the 9/11 attacks and how the “dominators got all in their feelings” when they realized “they could be killed.” But there was no mourning, or nothing holding them back, when they “bombed a whole continent until they killed a million.”

Of course, this is a reference to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. Ali, a Muslim, understands how Muslim Americans and Muslim populations throughout the world were collectively punished. He then contextualizes the ease in which U.S. rulers killed Iraqis by connecting it to the “same death toll of souls [that] died from lynching with no accountability to mention.”

“Detroit, Michigan, Tulsa, and Rondo,” Ali raps, referring to the destruction of Black communities. “I’m sorry if it’s hard for me to cry about your condo.” (Rondo was a center for Black business in St. Paul, Minnesota, that was destroyed in the late 1950s and early 1960s.)

Ali briefly walks us through the human sacrifice zones that are a direct result of U.S. capitalism. “Spots on the block where shops used to be are looking like dope fiend’s teeth.” To anyone who has long endured and personally witnessed this suffering, is it any wonder that the smell of a burning police precinct might be satisfying?

The destruction brought about by violent rebellion, by rioting, is dissected. “Is that what I want? No, I was sent for healing, but I know the first step in the sequence is revealing.”

As a community leader and voice for the marginalized, Ali uses the chorus to reflect on what all this dehumanization has done to people around him. “Everybody medicated, overweight, hungry. Look on their face. How come nobody loves me?”

Ali laments what it has done to children, “their innocence come undone abruptly.” The image for the single is that of a child watching a TV that is on fire as a result of the sheer violence that surrounds us.

“Another Country” faces the moral rot that breeds sickness from the top down and translates it into a powerful antidote to all of the pain. It is, as he might say, healing through revealing.

Listen to “Another Country” by Brother Ali:

Many of us are trying to cleanse our minds of clips from the longest “State of the Union” speech ever delivered by a United States president. That got me thinking about the fact that musicians have been recording anti-Donald Trump songs for around a decade.

Do any of these songs endure? Were any of them actually good songs, or do they have as much lasting appeal as clickbait coverage of the 2016 presidential election?

“We the People…” is one of the top anti-Trump songs produced in response to “Make American Great Again” and the indelible impact that he has had on U.S. politics and the world.

The song appeared on A Tribe Called Quest’s final album, “We got it from Here... Thank You 4 Your service” (2016). It was performed on “Saturday Night Live” right after Trump was elected to his first term.

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Q-Tip opens the track with the lyrics, “We don’t believe you ‘cause we the people, are still here in the rear, ayo, we don’t need you.” Q-Tip recognizes that we all have each other and don’t need to depend on elected representatives to free ourselves.

Through the first verse, Q-Tip outlines what he sees as societal ills or poison corrupting the minds of Black Americans. He also delivers the chorus that follows, and to me, it is why I chose to remind readers of this song.

All you Black folks, you must go
All you Mexicans, you must go
And all you poor folks, you must go
Muslims and gays, boy, we hate your ways
So all you bad folks, you must go

Phife Dawg, who sadly died in March before the album was released, joins Q-Tip for a bridge that calls out “the fog and the smog of news media that logs false narratives of Gods that came up against odds.” The lyric acknowledges the role that the mass media played in bringing the country to the point, where so many groups of people are under attack.

This song, like much of the album released on November 11, 2016, anticipated Trump’s election. It grappled with the white supremacy and oligarchy that Trump brought to the White House. It also does not name Trump. (A reference to a professional football player dates the song more than the song’s political or cultural references.)

In the music video, it ends with the sound of a siren and an overhead shot of people gathered for a massive demonstration. The rally is part of A Tribe Called Quest’s performance, their return after 18 years, but it also is the group’s way of saying artists should do their part to unite people in opposition to pervasive injustice.

Watch and listen to ‘We The People…” by A Tribe Called Quest:

What do you think is the most enduring anti-Trump song? Does any song rise to that level for you?

How about songs directed at past presidents (Obama, Bush, etc)? Do you have any favorite songs?

It was 2020. A global pandemic had totally upended life as we all knew it, and Nicola Kuperus of Detroit duo ADULT. felt like she was “surrounded by cultural dead ends and political ignorance.”

The duo, as New Noise Magazine highlighted in an interview with Kuperus, explored the “divide between perception and reality” through “Total, Total Damage.” The magazine suggested the song could be a theme for President Donald Trump.

Kuperus embraced her role as an artist who liked to “stir it up, make people wake up, pay attention, think about the choices they are making.” But even then it was hard to face the world.

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Now, six years later, life seems to be filled with even more “cultural dead ends” and “political ignorance,” and ADULT. are back with an album of electro-punk that will meet the moment.

ADULT. is made up of Kuperus, singer, songwriter, and keyboard player, and Adam Lee Miller, songwriter, keyboard player, and producer. The two are married.

Their tenth album, “Kissing Luck Goodbye,” will be released on March 27. They released a single from it at the end of January. It’s called “No One Is Coming.”

“No one is coming, no one is coming, no one is coming, no one is coming to your rescue,” Kuperus sings. A screeching noise pierces the beat, punctuating the dystopian mood.

Similarly, later in the song Kuperus repeats, “All this noise will eat you up,” and “I’m gonna wash this garbage outta my hair.”

The imagery in the music video for the song points to a civilization in collapse. Holding the microphone, Kuperus tells everyone that they have to save themselves.

According to a press statement from the duo, the song recognizes that we are ruled by “subhumans attempting to run the show.” They are “more concerned with cashing in and pølitical cosplay than the well being of mankind.”

“We are entering a new phase in existence where the most important thing we can do is know our neighbors and know the strengths of each other and what resources everyone has,” the duo adds. “Who needs extra care? Who is on their own? This song was written as a call to arms.”

“Be alert. Be aware. Be prepared. Stand up for yourself and look out for your community. We are better when we are united. Social media is wearing us down. Deluding us. The pølitical landscape is horrifying, distracting, deranged and unhinged.”

Referring to events in Minneapolis, the duo concludes that no one is coming to to our rescue except all of us. “Keep speaking up! Keep using your right to protest and most importantly keep showing kindness to one another.”

Watch/listen to “No One Is Coming” by ADULT. (Support their music on Bandcamp.)

Singer-songwriter Lucinda Williams released an album of protest music in January.

The album, “World’s Gone Wrong,” features collaborations with Mavis Staples, Brittney Spencer, and Norah Jones that infuse Williams’ folk country sound with a soulful spirit.

Known for writing songs about romance and her own trials and tribulations, this project represents something different for Williams.

At their core, the tunes are about the struggle to remain resilient during a second term of President Donald Trump. There also is a quiet and justified rage that runs throughout, like with the song I picked for this week, “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?”

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Williams could be addressing anyone who took a job in the Trump administration, or who in the past months have gone along with policies that have spread so much pain and suffering.

“The devil is a master salesman. You weren’t so hard to convince. He closed the deal as only he can, and made you feel like a crown prince,” Williams sings.

The chorus is a simple repeat of the line, “How much did you get for your soul?” But the swagger of Williams makes this a sharp retort. You sense the righteous contempt that drives this song forward.

Williams described in an interview for Spin magazine how she had long wanted to write “protest songs” or topical music. “But they’re hard to write, because you have to not sound dated and not sound overly sugary or sweet or flowery. Bob Dylan was a master of that, with his songs like ‘Masters of War’ and ‘With God on Our Side,’ ‘The Times They Are a-Changin’,’ even ‘Blowin’ in the Wind.’ Those songs still stand true to this day.”

The idea for “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?” actually came from her husband and manager Tom Overby.

“At first, I wasn’t sure if I liked the idea of it. But I remembered that line Neil Young had in one of his songs [1976’s “Campaigner”]: ‘Even Richard Nixon has got soul.’ I never understood that exactly, but now I do,” Williams shared.

Williams says “we all have a soul, and we’re all alike in that regard.” However, for the targets of this song, what Williams sees are a bunch of people who sold their souls to get rich. And now, they’re nothing but “worthless frauds,” and they also have nothing left to sell.

Listen to “How Much Did You Get For Your Soul?” By Lucinda Williams

ICE’s killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis made their way into music over the past few weeks. Bruce Springsteen put out “Streets of Minneapolis,” and it was his most hard-hitting song since “Death To My Hometown” in 2012.

The punk band NOFX put out “Minnesota Nazis,” a reworked version of a song the band previously released in 2022.

Singing Resistance and Brass Solidarity are groups that received widespread attention in the Twin Cities for bringing music to demonstrations against ICE.

For what it’s worth, the Grammy Awards were filled with artists moved by recurring injustices in Minneapolis and beyond. Bad Bunny, Billie Eilish and Finneas, Olivia Dean, Bon Iver, Samara Joy, Lachi, Damian Kulash of OK Go, and J. Balvin all spoke out against ICE.

But for this week’s selection, I’m going with Billy Bragg’s “City Of Heroes,” which was somewhat overshadowed by Springsteen’s song.

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“The murder of Alex Pretti was horrifically shocking, all the more so as we are still reeling from the images of the murder of Renee Good,” Bragg declared. “That these crimes can be committed in broad daylight, on camera and yet no one is held accountable only adds to the injustice.”

Bragg said he wrote “City of Heroes” as a “tribute to the bravery of the people of Minneapolis who, knowing that these trigger happy ICE thugs operate with seeming impunity in their midst, are still willing to put themselves in harm’s way to defend their community. Their resistance is an inspiration to us all.”

The folk song refers to the “ghost of Martin Niemöller,” which “haunts the halls of history.” Niemoller initially supported Adolf Hitler and the Nazis and then he turned against them. His words, “First They Came,” form the basis of Bragg’s first verse.

“When they came for him as well there was no one to speak out for him,” Bragg recalls. “Resistance had been quelled. What excuses would you tell your sеlf if this ever happenеd to you?”

Bragg answers from the perspective of resident in the Twin Cities. “Well, I live in a city of heroes. I know what I would do.”

The chorus proudly celebrates those who have gotten in the face of ICE for coming for the immigrants, for coming for the refugees, for coming for five-year-old children, and for coming for their neighbors.

In Bragg’s song, Minnesotans do not suffer for their complicity like Niemöller. ICE will not come for anyone without facing resistance because they have learned “the lessons of history.”

Listen to Billy Bragg’s “City of Heroes”:

YouTube deleted singer-songwriter David Rovics’ channel. He appealed, but the world’s biggest platform for creators, which is owned by Google, quickly denied the musician’s appeal.

“We’ve taken a careful look at your channel again, and confirmed that it violates our Violent criminal organizations policy,” YouTube told Rovics. “We recognize it’s disappointing news, but our goal is to keep the YouTube community safe and supported.”

“The suppression of my career continues,” Rovics added.

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Rovics has constantly had to deal with this kind of censorship, especially for the past couple of years. YouTube Music deleted all of his albums in 2025.

The latest suppression stemmed from the “Song for the Houthi Army” and “I Support Palestine Action,” according to a post that shared on his Substack.

He “thanked” the Houthi Army in Yemen for “for their efforts to stop Israel from importing weapons to kill Palestinians.” He also “praised” Palestine Action in the United Kingdom for “their nonviolent civil disobedience against Elbit Systems.”

Palestine Action has fought to disrupt the operations of the Israeli military contractor and faced a number of trials for alleged property damage. The U.K. government even took the extraordinary step of proscribing the activist group as a “terrorist organization” in 2025.

“Song for the Houthi Army” resulted in the demonetization of Rovics’ channel a year ago. That caused a “significant loss of income.” But it was a video from Reel News that he uploaded on January 9, which led to his channel’s first “strike.”

“So Many Ways to Kill a CEO,” an “outlaw ballad” about Luigi Mangione, who is accused of killing a UnitedHealthcare CEO,” led YouTube to accuse him of violating their rules. He received a one-week probation and deleted “every version of the three aforementioned songs that had caused trouble over the past two years.”

A few days later, YouTube restored access to his channel. However, without a second or third “strike,” Rovics said “the channel and all its content, history, comments, role within the recommendation algorithms, etc.” was “disappeared.”

To show support for Rovics and his fight against censorship, I’ll feature “Between the Blacklists and the Boycotts” by Ai Tsuno. (Rovics also wrote a column that reflects the lyrics and sentiment in this song.)

Ai Tsuno is a musical project by Rovics, where he runs lyrics that he wrote through an AI voice platform.

Rovics does not deny the reality that AI will affect us all negatively as the billionaire class transforms our world to further enrich themselves. But he believes in the age of the internet blacklist and boycotts against platforms like Spotify, working musicians should still take advantage of this developing technology. They should advocate for money from platforms that historically have robbed them of sources of income.”

So here’s “Between the Blacklists and the Boycotts,” a catchy tune and anthem for musicians out there trying to speak their mind on the state of the world and connect with audiences—even as tech corporations disappear them.

Listen to ‘Between the Blacklists and the Boycotts’ by Ai Tsuno:

Beat poet Allen Ginsberg said when The Fugs “scream ‘Kill for Peace,’ they’re announcing publicly the madness of our white-haired crazy governments.”

The Fugs, led by Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg, were one of the best protest bands in the history of the United States. Sanders and Kupferberg were also poets, and the songs that they performed were often political and satirical.

Frequently, The Fugs joined demonstrations against the Vietnam War. In 1967, Sanders famously performed at the “March on the Pentagon” and joined others in trying to “levitate” the headquarters to exorcise the “evil spirits.”

This year “Kill For Peace” celebrates its 60th anniversary. It was released on March 3, 1966, and appeared on their second album, “The Fugs.”

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The tune is only a little more than two minutes long. It sounds a lot like much of the music from classic garage rock bands of the 1960s, and yet its manic tempo makes it more of a punk song.

“Kill, kill, kill for peace,” the band sings. “Near or middle or very far east. Far or near or very middle east. Kill, kill, kill for peace.”

It comments on American imperialism. “If you don’t kill them, then the Chinese will. If you don’t want America to play second fiddle, kill, kill, kill for peace.”

The inclusion of the racial slur that U.S. military officers used to refer to Vietnamese people dates the satirical song. But lines like, “If you let them live, they might love the Russians,” point to how little has changed in politics, government, and warmaking.

The Fugs also address why individuals in the government and military are psychologically drawn to killing. It gives them “mental ease” or even a “big release,” which certainly applies to President Donald Trump’s administration in 2026.

Trump and his administration get off on brazen acts of violence. Or, I mean, killing for peace. And in the words of a half dozen or so newspaper editorial boards across America, sometimes—alright, a lot of times—it just has to be done.