Who will ship us from the silence?
Protest songs stir passions and metal nerves. Lots of the greatest ones are timeless anthems: Blowin’ within the Wind, We Shall Overcome, For What It’s Price, This Land is Your Land, The place Have All of the Flowers Gone ?
(Non-Medium members can use this hyperlink:)
Given the animus and political dissent that has thus far stamped 2025, are there any new protest songs jockeying to affix these classics? None appear to have emerged. It’s fairly attainable, after all, that potent, new anthems are simply ready to be found among the many 4 million songs launched every year. But when you think about what a profitable protest track should accomplish, it’s not stunning that so few make the grade.
CJ Baker, author, music fan, and creator of the The Ongoing Historical past of Protest Music, produced a response video (See under) to Rolling Stone’s listing of the 100 greatest protest songs of all time. Baker settled on three standards for fulfillment: message, cultural affect, and musical affect.
