In an interview with Melody Maker magazine, Jimi Hendrix once said,

“Anyone can go round shaking babies by the hand and kissing the mothers, and saying that it was groovy. But you see, you can’t do this in music… When there are vast changes in the way the world goes, it’s usually something like art and music that changes it.”

Music is an undeniable force of social change; it becomes something to sing together, to scream together, an agent of cultural fusion. This playlist intends to be a survey of the protest music of the last 80 years, featuring the voices of jazz, soul, folk, punk, rock, and hip hop, and covering a range of protest movements.

Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” (1939):

Strange Fruit remains a distinct piece in Billie Holiday’s legacy, but its origin is not widely known. The lyrics began as a poem written by a Jewish man from the Bronx, Abel Meeropol, after seeing a photo of a lynching in the South. This dark and poignant song came not from a personal experience, but from someone on the outside. While only three stanzas, the poem finds its home in a soulful jazz song, the rhythm of the written word flowing smoothly over minimal yet resonant piano. In slow mourning, Holiday sings:

“Southern Trees bear strange fruit
Blood on the leaves and blood at the roots
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from poplar trees”

The South’s dark legacy haunts Holiday’s lyrics, revealing itself in a tension between the “pastoral scene of the gallant South” and “the sudden smell of burning flesh,” between the creation and destruction of life. The final stanza continues the analogy of this strange fruit:

“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”

While deeply mournful, these words suggest that a movement can grow out of this legacy. Our history is a bitter crop, but it is also a living entity capable of brief metamorphosis or slow and deliberate evolution. Meeropol’s word choice thus frames death within a metaphor of life, a fitting microcosm of the birth of protest.

Bob Dylan, “Masters of War” (1963):

In the Cold War era, protest music proliferated. Bob Dylan contributed countless tracks to this movement and became a voice of the disgruntled youth growing up in a culture of war. “Masters of War” attacks a government ever drifting from the will of the people. Dylan was only 22 when he released The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963), but he was bold in his attack on the older generation running his country. Born in 1941, Dylan lived within bookends of death and a growing military industrial complex. He declares his protest with conviction, challenging his assumed naiveté:

“But there’s one thing I know
Though I’m younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do”

Rather than making him ignorant, his youth serves as a different kind of authority — a prophetic insight from future generations:

“You’ve thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world.”

Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come” (1964):

Along with “Masters of War,” The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan contains one of Dylan’s better known protest songs: “Blowin’ in the Wind.” When Sam Cooke heard this song, he was struck that such political discontentment could 1) come from a white boy from Minnesota and 2) become so popular. Inspired by the folk song, the soul singer wrote “A Change is Gonna Come.” Cooke recorded the song early in 1964, but it would not be released until after his death in December of that same year.

Beginning with a dramatic, orchestral opening, Cooke’s song contains a sort of musical ascension, as if embodying voices rising together in resistance. “Blowin’ in the Wind”, on the other hand, maintains a consistent tone. The point of view in “A Change is Gonna Come” is also first person, unlike “Blowin’ in the Wind,” and delivers a compelling and personal vision of resistance:

“Then I go to my brother
And I say brother help me please
But he winds up knockin’ me
Back down on my knees”

The Dead Kennedys, “I Fought the Law” (1987):

The Dead Kennedys were unapologetically political, an ideal sample of American hardcore punk and the San Francisco music scene. “I Fought the Law” takes The Clash song by the same name but changes the lyrics from “I fought the law and the law won” to “I fought the law and I won.” The song takes on the perspective of Dan White, the San Francisco supervisor who murdered gay rights activist and politician, Harvey Milk, as well as George Moscone, the mayor of San Francisco. White committed the murders in 1978 and would go on to serve only 5 years in prison. White’s lawyer argued that he should receive a reduced sentence because he had been under a “diminished capacity”. The lawyer blamed White’s mental state on his addiction to sugar in what became known as the “Twinkie Defense”:

“The law don’t mean shit
If you got the right friends
That’s how this county’s run
Twinkies are the best friend I ever had”

The Cranberries, “Zombie” (1994):

The Cranberries, an Irish band formed in Limerick in 1989, also exist somewhere on the punk spectrum. Unlike The Dead Kennedys, however, the crisp and dreamy voice of Dolores O’Riordan gives the band more of an ethereal proto-indie vibe. O’Riordan wrote “Zombie” after hearing of a recent Irish Republican Army bombing that killed a 12-year-old and 3-year-old. O’Riordan’s voice seems to crack throughout the song, building up an emotional tension I haven’t found in many other punk songs. O’Riordan delivers her lyrics in a way I can’t describe other than stinging and vaporous — earthly, yet cutting. She calls out in despair:

“Another head hangs lowly
Child is slowly taken
And the violence caused such silence
Who are we mistaking?”

The song is haunting, anxiety provoking, and deeply psychologically stirring.

“In your head in your head they are crying
In your head
In your head
Zombie, zombie, zombie”

Kendrick Lamar, “Mortal Man” (2015):

“Mortal Man” appears on Kendrick Lamar’s third album, To Pimp a Butterfly (2015). The album on the whole is political, with its most popular song, “Alright,” since becoming an anthem of modern social justice movements. The album was released in the wake of the deaths of Michael Brown, Eric Garner, and Tamir Rice, and the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement. While “Alright” is a potent example of protest music, I wanted to highlight “Mortal Man,” the 12 minute track closing the album. The final 7 minutes of the song is a spoken outro recorded over the faint sounds of jazz, combining a rare 1994 interview with the late Tupac Shakur  with Kendrick’s contemporary commentary. In these 7 minutes, we get a stream of consciousness meditation on black life in America and on the concept of a rapper as a prophet. Kendrick ends the song with a metaphor his friend had written “describing my world” in terms of the caterpillar breaking free from the “cocoon which institutionalizes him:”

“Finally free, the butterfly sheds light on situations
That the caterpillar never considered, ending the eternal struggle
Although the butterfly and caterpillar are completely different
They are one and the same”

A Tribe Called Quest, “The Killing Season” (2016):

After an 18 year break from music, A Tribe Called Quest released We’ve got it from Here… thank you 4 your service (2016). The album is boldly political, but with a touch of some beloved Tribe humor. “We the People” opens the album and contains one of my favorite Tribe lyrics: “When we get hungry we eat the same fucking food / The ramen noodle.” The song later goes into the following chorus:

“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”

While this song captures the current political climate in the United States, “Killing Season” particularly stood out to me, striking deeply at a legacy of racism and war in the United States. The song repeats “They sold ya, sold ya, sold ya” a couple of times throughout the song, at times sounding more like “soldier, soldier, soldier” or perhaps “they sold ya, sold ya, soldier.” The ambiguity of this line builds upon the metaphor of war loosely maintained throughout the song. In one sense, the war could be one fought for social justice: “It’s war and we fighting for inches and millimeters / Try to stall the progress by killing off all the leaders.” The war could also refer to militarization of police in the United States. The song alludes to a 2015 incident in McKinney Texas when police received a complaint of a noisy pool party and one officer ended up pinning a 15-year-old black girl to the ground.

“Killing Season” ultimately demonstrates a common component of modern protest music — an acknowledgement of a heritage of resistance. The final stanza of the song nods to “Strange Fruit” with the following lyrics:

“It must be killing season, on the menu strange fruit
Whose juices fill the progress of this here very nation
Whose states has grown bitter, through justice expiration
These fruitful trees are rooted in bloody soil and torment”

We find in protest music a collective identity of resistance. Whether or not you consider yourself to be politically active, I encourage you to consider the role of music and art in mobilizing change. Below is the entire playlist, featuring several more voices of protest, all of whom should be heard.

The Playlist

Billie Holiday, Strange Fruit (1939)

Bob Dylan, Masters of War (1963)

Bob Dylan, Blowin’ in the Wind (1963)

Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin’ (1964)

Sam Cooke, A Change is Gonna Come (1964)

The Animals, We Gotta Get Out of This Place (1965)

Phil Ochs, I ain’t Marching Anymore (1965)

Buffalo Springfield, For What It’s Worth (1967)

Pink Floyd, Money (1973)

The Wailers, Get Up, Stand Up (1975)

The Clash, Know Your Rights (1982)

Bob Marley, Buffalo Soldier (1983)

Dead Kennedys, I Fought the Law (1987)

Patti Smith, People Have the Power (1988)

Bob Dylan, Political World (1989)

The Cranberries, Zombie (1994)

Tom Waits, Hoist That Rag (2004)

Dälek, Blessed Are They Who Bash Your Children’s Heads Against A Rock (2009)

Kendrick Lamar, Alright (2015)

Kendrick Lamar, Mortal Man (2015)

A Tribe Called Quest, We the People (2016)

A Tribe Called Quest, Space Program (2016)

A Tribe Called Quest, The Killing Season (2016)

Kendrick Lamar, BLOOD. (2017)

Roger Waters, The Last Refugee (2017)

Roger Waters, Is This the Life We Really Want (2017)

Written by Hannah Hartt