The 25 Best Classic Rock Protest Songs

31 December 2024, 15:34 | Updated: 31 December 2024, 15:37

The greatest songs about debate, protest, struffle and fighting the power: from John Lennon to The Doors, The Clash to Peter Gabriel.

1. Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (album release date: 27th May 1963)

   

   Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (Audio)

   Appearing on his second album, The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, this classic protest song sums up the tensions of post-war America. It was written just before the Cuban Missle Crisis of 1962, in which the US and USSR faced each other off, with a very real threat of nuclear war hanging over the world. While Dylan was keen to stress that the "hard rain" wasn't nuclear fall-out, he acknowledged that the song was apocalyptic in tone.

2. Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth (US release date 23rd December 1966)

   

   Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth (Official Audio)

   Although this gentle song is most associated with protests against the Vietnam War, songwriter Stephen Stills was actually prompted to write For What It's Worth after new "no loitering" laws were introduced on Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. The ban adversely affected the new counterculture bars and venues and demonstrations took place in the area on 12th November 1966. leading Stills' band Buffalo Springfield to quickly release the song the following month, where it peaked at Number 7 on the Billboard Hot 100.

3. The Rolling Stones - We Love You (UK single release date 18th August 1967)

   

   The Rolling Stones - We Love You (Official Music Video)

   The Man was definitely out to get the Stones in the Spring of 1967. Already tagged as Public Enemies by the Establishment, their notoriety was assured when police mounted a raid on Keith Richards' house and claimed it had found all sorts of illicit substances. With both Jagger and Richards facing the very real prospect of a jail sentence, the band marked time before the court case by recording this new song.

   With a promo video that recalled the persecution of Oscar Wilde for his homosexuality, the Stones claimed that while the state's "uniforms won't fit we", they assured the stuffed shirts that "We love you". Although Mick and Keef were found guilty, the case against the guitarist was dismissed due to lack of evidence and the frontman was given a conditional discharge.

4. The Doors - The Unknown Soldier (UK single release date: 14th June 1968)

   

   Unknown soldier. The Doors

   One of the most brutal contemporary depictions of the horrors of the Vietnam war, Jim Morrison’s lyric details the gruesome sight of war footage on the breakfast TV news, coupled with the harsh sounds of what sounds like a military execution performed by Doors drummer John Densmore.

5. The Beatles - Revolution (UK single release date: 30th August 1968)

   

   The Beatles - Revolution

   The civil unrest that took place in Paris in the May of 1968 led John Lennon to ponder on the nature of revolution. His new song was the first to be recorded for the 'White Album', but he still wasn't sure whether he was against violence or not, hence the album version's: "When you talk bout destruction, don't you know that you can count me out/in". When the song was re-recorded for the b-side of Hey Jude, Lennon was emphatic that you should count him OUT.

6. The MC5 - Kick Out The Jams (album released February 1969)

   

   MC5 - Kick out the jams

   "Right now... it's time to kick out the jams, motherf**kers!" Rob Tyner's immortal introduction to the title song of the Detroit garage rockers' debut album became a counter-culture slogan, meaning push back against all restrictions. The MC5's Wayne Kramer claimed that the phrase simply meant "stop jamming", but admitted that the other interpretation suited the group's revolutionary politics.

   Warning: strong language

7. John Lennon / Plastic Ono Band - Give Peace A Chance (UK single release date: 4th July 1969)

   

   Plastic Ono Band - Give Peace A Chance (1969)

   “All we are saying… is Give Peace A Chance” His first real attempt at striking out with a solo career away from The Beatles, Lennon publicised his and new wife Yoko Ono’s peace publicity campaign by recording this simple protest song in their honeymoon hotel room. It was immediately adopted by anti-war protesters.

8. Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son (US single released October 1969)

   

   Creedence Clearwater Revival - Fortunate Son (Official Music Video)

   John Fogerty said of this Vietnam-era protest song, "It's the old saying about rich men making war and poor men having to fight them."

9. Edwin Starr - War (US single release date 10th June 1970)

   

   Edwin Starr - War (Original Video - 1969)

   Originally written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for The Temptations, a re-recording by Edwin Starr was issued when it was felt that the group's fans may be alienated by the "political" lyrics. Starr's version went on to top the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1970, just three months after the National Guard killed four and wounded nine Kent State University students at an anti-Vietnam rally.

10. Black Sabbath - War Pigs (album release date 18th September 1970)

    

    Black Sabbath ~ War Pigs

    Opening the British metal band's second album, Paranoid, this is a searing condemnation of war and its instigators.

11. Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The UK (single release date 26th November 1976)

    

    The Sex Pistols - Anarchy In The U.K (official video)

    Britain in the mid-1970s was struggling under strikes, cutbacks and a general depression. If you were 20 in 1976, like John "Johnny Rotten" Lydon was, prospects for your future were pretty grim, hence the first single from his punk band the Sex Pistols. His plea for some kind of change in Britain was put in the most extreme terms - pure anarchy - and encapsulated the feelings of the unemployed, alienated youth who looked on as the country staggered on.

12. Tom Robinson - Glad To Be Gay (EP released 27th January 1978)

    

    Tom Robinson - Glad To Be Gay (Secret Policeman's Ball)

    Hard to believe, but homosexuality was only decriminalised in 1967 - however, ten years after that, gay culture remained a target for abuse, violence and police victimisation. Now better known as a broadcaster, Robinson’s song was direct, confrontational and heartfelt. The BBC refused to play it on the Top 40 countdown, but it became the defining anthem of gay liberation in Britain. As Robinson said before his famous performance of this song at The Secret Policeman's Ball in 1979: "You don't have to be gay to sing this song... but it helps."

13. Stiff Little Fingers - Alternative Ulster (single release date 17th October 1978)

    

    Alternative Ulster

    Hailing from Belfast, SLF were ideally placed to talk about “The Troubles” in Northern Ireland, which saw sectarian division, violence, terrorism and a military presence on the streets. But, in the DIY spirit of punk, the band plead for a better future: “Grab it and change it, it's yours!”

14. The Jam - The Eton Rifles (single release date: 26th October 1979)

    

    The Jam - The Eton Rifles

    The trio’s fourth album Setting Sons had something of an anti-war theme, but Paul Weller’s lyric concerns a protest march for jobs in Slough that came into conflict with the local public school and its army cadets. When Old Etonian David Cameron claimed it was one of his favourite songs, Weller snorted: “It wasn't intended as a jolly drinking song for the cadet corps.”

15. Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall (Part 2) (UK single release date 16th November 1979)

    

    Pink Floyd - Another Brick In The Wall, Part Two (Official Music Video)

    Roger Waters’ double album The Wall concerns war, society and personal alienation, but the big hit (and the last No 1 of the 1970s) concerned more mundane things: the oppression of individual personalities to conform while in school. Hey! Teacher! Leave them kids alone!

16. Peter Gabriel - Biko (single release date: 25th July1980)

    

    Peter Gabriel - Biko

    Taken from Gabriel’s commercially successful third solo album, this is a tribute to Steve Biko, an anti-apartheid activist in South Africa, who became a figurehead of the struggle following his death while in police custody in 1977. His story and that of the journalist Donald Woods, who brought the injustice to the world’s attention, was made into the film Cry Freedom ten years later.

17. The Specials - Ghost Town (single release date 12th June 1981)

    

    The Specials - Ghost Town

    As Britain's inner cities burst into flames in the summer of 1981, with riots taking place in London, Bristol, Liverpool and other locations, Specials leader Jerry Dammers captured the mood of the country with the ominous sound of Ghost Town. "Can't go on no more… people getting angry" the lyrics despair. The single made Number 1 the same weekend that police used CS gas on rioters in Toxeth, Liverpool.

18. Dead Kennedys - Nazi Punks F**k Off (US single released November 1981)

    

    Nazi Punks Fuck Off

    The San Francisco punks led by Jello Biafra always like to cause confrontation and controversy and this fiery single takes aim at those members of the alternative fraternity who flirted with "white power" and fascist imagery. When the song was re-recorded for the In God We Trust Inc EP, Biafra joked that the song was "overproduced by Martin Hannett", indicating that one of his targets was the British band Joy Division, whose first vinyl release bore some rather tasteless Nazi-inspired graphics.

    Warning: strong language (obviously)

19. The Clash - Rock The Casbah (single release date: 11th June 1982)

    

    The Clash - Rock the Casbah (Official Video)

    The British punks' only US Top 10 hit, the original lyric was inspired after Clash manager Bernie Rhodes complained that one of the band's tracks was as long as an Indian raga. The song then morphed into a meditation on Arabic censorship of Western music. Another use of the record - probably not intended by its creators - was when the US Armed Forces Radio used it as the first track when they opened coverage of Operation Desert Storm during the Gulf War of 1990/91.

20. U2 - Sunday Bloody Sunday (album release date 28th February 1983)

    

    Bono & The Edge - Sunday Bloody Sunday - January 30 2022

    The British Army opened fire on a civil rights protest against the division of Ireland on Sunday 30 January 1972 in Derry, which resulted in 13 deaths. "Bloody Sunday" became a notorious incident that increased membership of the burgeoning IRA and was one of the key moments in "The Troubles". Both John Lennon AND Paul McCartney wrote songs in the immediate aftermath of the massacre, but it was Dublin band U2 who penned the definitive protest 11 years later.

    Sunday Bloody Sunday was the opening track on the band's third album War and was most famously performed at Live Aid. Bono was keen to emphasise that the track was "not a rebel song", but a humanitarian plea against the killing that continued throughout the decade and beyond. On the 50th anniversary of the event, Bono and The Edge performed a special acoustic version of the song.

21. Bruce Springsteen - Born In The USA (US single release date 30th October 1984)

    

    Bruce Springsteen - Born in the U.S.A.

    The title track of The Boss’s seventh album was famous for being adopted as an anthem by the US President Ronald Reagan, who was then on the campaign trail for a second term in office. Springsteen was outraged - his song was about how the state had neglected Vietnam war veterans.

22. Bruce Hornsby - The Way It Is (UK single released July 1986)

    

    The Way It Is

    Now remembered for being a cheesy, piano-led 80s classic, this was actually a musing on the American Civil Rights movement, and how America had made some progress… but not enough. As a rich businessman speeds past the queue for the welfare office, he sneers at the unemployed. Bruce gives the shrug that things have always been that way: “That's just the way it is”… and then adds “But don't you believe them.” Hornsby ends by pondering over the American Civil Rights Act: “Well, they passed a law in '64 / To give those who ain't got a little more / But it only goes so far.”

23. Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning (original UK single released February 1988)

    

    Midnight Oil - Beds Are Burning

    This Australian band’s frontman Peter Garrett spent time as an MP in the early 2000s, but back in the 80s he was writing politically-charged songs with his group Midnight Oil. This song was a plea to the Aussie government to allow the Aboriginal group the Pintupi to return to their homelands: “It belongs to them / Let’s give it back.”

24. Tracy Chapman - Talkin' Bout A Revolution (UK single release date 22nd August 1988)

    

    Tracy Chapman - Talkin' About A Revolution (Official Music Video)

    "Poor people gonna rise up and get their share... Cause finally the tables are starting to turn". Released in the aftermath of the "Black Monday" stock market crash, Chapman's angry song about unemployment and the spectre of "Reaganomics" struck a chord with many in the summer of 1988. Ronald Reagan would be gone by January 1989, his replacement another Republican, George Bush.

25. Metallica - One (UK single released April 1989)

    

    Metallica - One [Official Music Video]

    Dalton Trumbo's anti-war novel Johnny Got His Gun was published in 1939 about a young soldier in the First World War who is injured and loses his arms, legs, eyes, tongue, face… but his mind is still alert, leaving him trapped in his own body to consider his fate. This harrowing book was turned into an equally harrowing film in 1971, when the Vietnam War made the story still relevant. Metallica took the novel as the inspiration for their 1988 track One, and included clips from the movie in the video, while Trumbo’s eventful life was made into a biopic starring Bryan Cranston in 2015.