Rolling Stone, the acclaimed music publication known for its expansive and often controversial “Greatest” lists, has unveiled what it has rated the 100 Best Protest Songs of All Time. It noted: “Music and protest have always been inextricably linked. For some marginalized groups, the simple act of creating music at all can be a form of speaking out against an unjust world. Our list of the 100 Best Protest Songs spans nearly a century and includes everything from pre-World War II jazz and Sixties folk to Eighties house music, 2000s R&B, and 2020s Cuban hip-hop.”
This is a look at the list in terms of rankings, trends, and criticisms.
Number One
Topping the list was Sam Cooke’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”. A perhaps surprising pick, Rolling Stone had previously ranked the track the 3rd Greatest Song of All Time.
Rolling Stone described the track as “one of the most powerful indictments of racism ever recorded — an unparalleled moment in the fusion of pop music and progressive politics.”
The track was written after Cooke was rejected from a whites-only motel, solemnly singing of the fears, anxieties, and impossible odds facing African-Americans in a ‘for whites’ society. Beyond that, it is a searing powerful tune of hope – despite the horrendous conditions of society, there is still the burning flame of improvement.
Perhaps nothing summarises this greater than the emotional climax of the track in the bridge: “Then, I go to my brother/And I say, “Brother, help me, please”/But he winds up knockin’ me/Back down on my knees, oh. There been times that I thought/I couldn’t last for long/But now, I think I’m able/To carry on.”
A change did come when the Civil Rights Act, a piece of legislation unthinkable years earlier, was passed shortly after the release of the track. However, the fight for true equality goes on, with this song a symbol of that fight from well over half a century ago.
Top 10: Trends
There is an obvious trend in the top 5 tracks on the countdown, all are civil rights protest tracks. Although some of the songs touch on wider themes like female equality and power structures, they all paint a vivid picture of racial injustice in the United States in one form or another. This includes more overt tracks like James Brown’s “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud” and less obviously racially-charged numbers like “Respect” by Aretha Franklin.
Number two is “Fight The Power” by rapping firebrand Public Enemy, a protest of distilled defiance against systemic racism in American society. The song calls out Elvis for reinterpreting black music and notes the prominent racist views of cultural icons like John Wayne. Earning a bronze is Billie Holiday’s “Strange Fruit”. Named the Song of the Century by Time, the track describes in haunting and grotesque detail a scene of a lynching, inspired by the hangings of two young African-Americans in Indiana. Fourth is Aretha Franklin’s cover of “Respect”. As well as a single of female empowerment, “The Queen of Soul”’s track became a single imploring wider society towards racial equality, described by the publication as “a rallying cry that echoed throughout the Civil Rights Movement and the women‘s-lib movement.” In fifth is “Say It Loud – I’m Black and Proud” by James Brown, which utilised the voices of children to highlight the positive message of being African-American and, as the piece notes, “played a huge role in promoting the use of the word Black as a self-identification.”
Looking at the top 10, eight tracks are about or have been coopted by African-Americans to fight for racial justice. This includes Nina Simone’s “Mississippi Goddam” at #7, Pete Seeger’s “We Shall Overcome” at #8, and The N.W.A.’s “Fuck Tha Police”.
The highest non-black rights-focused single is at #6, Bob Dylan’s “Masters of War”, an anti-war composition which heavily criticises the so-called military-industrial complex. Initially released in the early 60s as a protest against the buildup of nuclear arms during the Cold War, it took on greater reverence during the Vietnam War. The only other top 10 track not related to racial injustice is also indirectly linked to the war in Vietnam. At the 9th spot is Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young’s “Ohio”, a song railing against the killing of four Vietnam War protestors at Kent State University. As The Guardian noted in their great article on the track, “Ohio” is “not just a classic song but a vital historical document of a time when politics felt like a matter of life and death.”
The top 10 contains five soul, two hip-hop, one folk, one rock, and one funk track.
The Top 10
- 1. “A Change Is Gonna Come” – Sam Cooke
- 2. “Fight The Power” – Public Enemy
- 3. “Strange Fruit” – Billie Holiday
- 4. “Respect” – Aretha Franklin
- 5. “Say It Loud – I’m Black and I’m Proud”
- 6. “Masters of War” – Bob Dylan
- 7. Mississippi Goddam” – Nina Simone
- 8. “We Shall Overcome” – Pete Seeger
- 9. “Ohio” – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
- 10. “Fuck Tha Power” – NWA
Beyond The Top 10
The top 20 consisted of tracks such as “This Land Is Your Land” (#11), “Fortunate Son” (#14), “What’s Going On?” (#15), “The Message” (#16), and “Give Peace A Chance” (#19).
Other singles in the top 50 include songs dedicated to causes such as anti-consumerism, anti-homophobia, and opposition to sitting presidents. Well-known tracks include “Killing in the Name” (#21), “God Save the Queen” (#27), “Big Yellow Taxi” (#33), “Get Up, Stand Up” (#35), and “All You Fascists Bound to Lose” (#42).
The whole list spans 84 years from the oldest track (“Strange Fruit”, 1939, #3) to the newest track (“Run Run Run”, 2023, #96).
Criticisms?
I personally always find criticisms of list like these somewhat cynical. After all, it is such an arduous and momentous undertaking on top of factors like collating several differing opinions and defining what a term like “best” even means – it is based on quality, impact, influence, etc.?
One might question the high positioning of Bob Dylan on the list. Although the unequivocal king of the protest song in the modern era, Rolling Stone is known for its pro-Dylan bias. For example, he has been ranked the 2nd on its 100 Greatest Artists list and, in a positively batshit move, ranked as the 7th Greatest Singer of All Time.
That said, he only has three songs on the list – and a strange collection at that. “Masters of War” places at #3, “Blowin’ in the Wind” at #17, and the more obscure “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” at #26. More famous tracks such as “Hurricane”, an epic eight-minute documentation of the injustice in the trial of Ruben Carter, and “Times They Are A-Changin’”, which sings of those unable to adapt at a time of mass social change, are omitted from the countdown. Even “Like A Rolling Stone”, a rally against homelessness which Rolling Stone ranked as the Greatest Song of All Time, is absent!
Elsewhere, arguably Britain’s foremost protest singer, Billy Bragg, only has one song on the list.
Looking at what songs are missing, perhaps the most obvious oversight is “Imagine”. The iconic John Lennon single features on almost every other ‘best protest songs’ list on the internet, and is thus notable by its absence. This presumably comes down to what you can reasonably define as a ‘protest song’.
Another missing track is more obviously a protest track: “Born in the USA”. Released during the Reagan years, it tells the story of neglect brought upon war veterans. Although often depicted as a patriotic song – it is very much the opposite, singing about being “born down in no man’s town” and having “nowhere to run, ain’t got nowhere to go”.
Some songs that I think are missing include The Beatles’s “Revolution”, The Jam’s “Going Underground”, Pearl Jam’s “World Wide Suicide”, Neil Young’s “Keep On Rocking in the Free World”, Childish Gambino’s “This is America”, Elvis Costello’s “Oliver’s Army”, Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sun is Burning”, and Manic Street Preacher’s “If You Tolerate This You’re Children Will Be Next”.
GRIFFIN KAYE.
