Songs for the Times

A compilation of protest songs for the present times.

Ohio by Neil Young Performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young

Written in response to the protest at Kent State in 1970 where four students were killed by the National Guard.

For What it's Worth Buffalo Springfield

"Happening" was a term for a protest march.

Revolution  Beatles

Replace Chairman Mao with Trumpy now

Beds are Burning Midnight Oil

This one is about shitty way the Aboriginal Australians have been treated by the white government. Sound familar?

Land of Confusion Genesis

Check out their video with the Puppet group "Spitting Image" that savages the Thatcher/ Reagan Era.

We Shall Overcome  Words/music by Zilphia Horton, Frank Hamilton, Bud Carawan, Pete Seeger

The classic from 1939 reminds us racism has been around a long time.

Strange Fruit Billie Holiday. Written by Abel Meeropol

This shocking song became her signature piece

Southern trees bear strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees

Pastoral scene of the gallant south

The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth

Scent of magnolias, sweet and fresh

Then the sudden smell of burning flesh

Here is fruit for the crows to pluck

For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck

For the sun to rot, for the trees to drop

Here is a strange and bitter crop.

 

This Land Your Land Woody Guthrie

One of the most well known songs he wrote is, surprisingly, a protest song of unity reminding us that this beautiful country belongs to everyone who lives here.

Woody Guthrie also wrote a song about Trump's father and his refusal to rent to black tenants at his Beach Haven apartment complex. (He never recorded the song, but Ryan Harvey with Ani DiFranco and Tom Morello did.)

I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project

 

 

 

 protest songs