Tag: Protest songs
-
Protest Songs Through Time -Free Palestine; Protest in the Present
A 75 Year War A violent power struggle between Israel and Palestine has unfolded since as far back as 17,000 BC, when the region was called The Holy Land. More recent events in modern history, such as the signing of the Balfour Declaration—in which Britain promised to create a Jewish National Homeland, renamed part of…
-
Protest Songs Through Time P7 – Why Do They Always Send the Poor? – 21st Century
System of a Down In 1994, four Armenian-Americans—Serj Tankian, Daron Malakian, Shavo Odadjian, and John Dolmayan—formed the neo-metal band System of a Down, who went on to pioneer the nu-metal genre. Armenian history is marked by violence: between 1915 and 1923, the Ottoman Empire forced Christian Armenians from their homes en masse, exposing them to…
-
Protest Songs P6 -LGBTQ+ Rights in Song: A Punk Anthem Against Injustice
The Winter of Discontent—and Ongoing LGBTQ+ Struggles The Winter of Discontent, from 1978 to 1979, saw widespread strikes across private and public sector unions as they demanded pay rises that exceeded the limits set by Prime Minister James Callaghan. But this wasn’t the only unrest during the period—especially for the LGBTQ+ community. Although homosexuality had…
-
Protest Songs P5 -Women’s Rights in Song: A Century of Defiance and Change
The Suffragette Anthem: “The March of the Women” The UK’s suffragette movement had its own anthem, The March of the Women, written in 1910 by composer and activist Ethel Smyth. The lyrics reflected the movement’s readiness for militant action: “Comrades – ye who dared first in battle to strive and sorrow!” Sung during marches and…
-
Protest Songs P4 – The Civil Rights Movement
The Terror of Lynching and the Birth of “Strange Fruit” Between 1900 and 1939, the United States witnessed 2,805 reported lynchings. In 1937, a Jewish teacher named Abel Meeropol came across a photograph of Black men who had been lynched—bodies hanging from tree branches. Such images were disturbingly common in the South, often displayed publicly…
-
Protest Songs P3 -Songs of War – The 20th Century.
America and WW1 By the time America considered joining the First World War in 1915, the conflict was already in full swing. The idea sparked backlash—most of the public wanted to remain neutral and avoid fighting. That same year, Alfred Bryan and Albert Piantadosi wrote I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier. Performed…
-
Protest Songs – P2 Spirituals
Roots in Resistance When enslavers stole African people from their homeland and brought them to America, they forbade them from speaking their native languages or practising their religions. However, this didn’t stop them. They organised secret meetings, where they sometimes performed Ring Shouts. In these gatherings, they formed a circle and moved counterclockwise while singing,…
-
Protest Songs – P1 The Cutty Wren.
Introduction One of my A-Level English Language coursework assignments was to write about a subject of my choosing and how it had changed over time. It comedised with my discovering Green Day’s cover of Working Class Hero and its music video featuring survivors of Darfur (which I’ll explore in a later instalment). The impact it…
-
I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got. – Sinéad O’Connor.
‘If we could talk about music, we wouldn’t need music.’ – Sinéad O’Connor. This Saturday (26/06/25) marks the two-year anniversary of musician, producer, activist and one of my personal heroes, Sinéad O’Connor’s passing. In her honour, I’m revisiting her second album – ‘I Do Not Want What I Haven’t Got’, this release would propel her…