Good protest songs amplify the voice of the oppressed and take up the pressing issues of their day. Throughout the 20th century, a diverse range of protest music led the way in calling out racist oppression, sexism, class inequality, global injustice, and war. While there is no shortage of protest songs the very best ones give voice to dissent and speak truth to power. Read on to discover the five greatest protest songs of the 20th century.
The Preacher and the Slave – Joe Hill (1911)
“The Preacher and the Slave” is a parody of the Christian Salvation Army hymn “In the Sweet By-and-By,” written by the Swedish-American labor activist Joe Hill. In the song, Hill coined the phrase “Pie in the Sky” to criticize the Salvation Army for prioritizing spiritual salvation over addressing people’s immediate material needs:
You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
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Joe Hill was born Joel Emmanuel Hägglund in Gävle, Sweden in 1879 He emigrated to the United States in 1902 and joined the International Workers of the World (IWW) in 1910. He dedicated his adult life to singing and agitating for workers’ rights.
In 1915, he was executed in Utah for a crime he almost certainly didn’t commit. In his final public message, he urged his followers and fellow workers of the world: “Don’t mourn, organize!”
Strange Fruit – Billie Holliday (1939)
Billie Holiday’s haunting 1939 classic “Stange Fruit” addresses the brutality of racism in the United States. The disturbing and powerful imagery of lynched bodies as a form of “strange fruit” stunned audiences:
Southern trees bear strange fruit,
Blood on the leaves and blood at the root;
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze,
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.
Strange Fruit was written and composed by Abel Meeropol in response to the grotesque public lynchings of Thomas Shipp and Abe Smith in Indiana in 1930. After her regular label, Columbia balked at the idea of recording the song, Holliday tuned to a small independent label, Commodore Records
20 April 1939 she turned up at the studio with Jazz trumpeter Frankie Newton and his Cafe Society Band and recorded the track in one four-hour session. The result chilled audiences to the bone. Strange Fruit, the first truly great protest song, marked a tipping point for the beginning of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.
A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall – Bob Dylan (1962)
“A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall” was written as a poem by Bob Dylan on his typewriter and recorded in one take in 1962. It was released on his second studio album, The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan (1963). Many interpret the song as a reflection of the anxieties of Cold War America, suggesting that the “hard rain” is a metaphor for the atomic rain of nuclear fallout. Though the song was written around the time of the Cuban Missle Crisis, leading to a strong association, Dylan himself refuted this interpretation.
Instead, he has said that the song recalls a broader “culture of feeling, of black days, and schism, evil for evil, the common destiny of the human being getting thrown off course” that Dylan felt defined the era. The song’s symbolist imagery depicting war, pollution, and suffering, conveys a tale of “some sort of end that’s just gotta happen.”
Get Up, Stand Up – Bob Marley & The Wailers (1973)
“Get Up, Stand Up” was written by Bob Marley and Peter Tosh and first appeared on The Wailers 1973 album Burnin’. According to Bob Marley’s former girlfriend, Ester Andersson, the song was inspired by Marley’s visit to Haiti, where he witnessed the grinding poverty afflicting the Haitian people. The song’s message is unequivocal: Marley urges people not to wait till the next life to find fulfilment but to stand up for their rights to freedom and happiness in the here and now. The more the song progresses, the more militant it sounds.
Bob Marley’s music often featured lyrics centered on themes of hope, justice, and unity. In this spirit, Get Up, Stand Up calls for action and the resistance of oppression in all forms. Asked in 1975 about the song’s meaning, he described it as a lyrical statement of fact: “that song say man can live.”
Just A Girl – No Doubt (1995)
“Just A Girl” was released as the first single of No Doubt’s third studio album, Tragic Kingdom (1995). The song is a biting critique of the obstacles women face in a patriarchal society that views them as inferior and expects them to be pretty and stay quiet. Gwen Steffani’s lyrics defy the norm and bristle with attitude:
‘Cause I’m just a girl, oh, little old me
Well, don’t let me out of your sight;
Oh, I’m just a girl, all pretty and petite
So don’t let me have any rights.
“Just A Girl” propelled No Doubt into position as one of the most popular and commercially successful punk-rock acts of the mid-to-late 1990s. Most importantly, the song’s message channelled the energy and attitude of earlier female rock icons, such as Poly Styrene and Courtney Love into the corporate mainstream. Steffani’s sarcastic discourse of ‘helpless, innocent girlhood’ inspired a new generation of girls to demand their place at the table.
