Where are the Protest Songs?
Plus a couple of new music recs
Yesterday, Nina Simone would have turned 93 years old.
In honor of this, I put on a “Best of Nina Simone” playlist at work and her music continues to move me and her voice continues to be one of the most urgent, expressive, and forcefully direct that has ever been heard in the history of recorded music.
In particular, a live version of the song, “Mississippi Goddam” came on and something resonated through the years. The story of its creation can be found here.
I hope you’ll read the article because it illustrates Ms. Simone’s fierceness and conviction. The song was written in response to two horrifying events that took place during the turbulent early 1960s when segregation was still codified into law in many places. The first was the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing that left four young girls dead and the second was the assassination of civil rights leader Medgar Evers.
Her first response was to these tragedies is told by her in the following quote from the linked piece above:
“At first I tried to make myself a gun. I gathered some materials. I was going to take one of them out, and I didn’t care who it was,” Simone famously said after hearing of the Birmingham bombing. “Then Andy, my husband at the time, said to me, ‘Nina, you can’t kill anyone. You are a musician. Do what you do.’ When I sat down the whole song happened. I never stopped writing until the thing was finished.”
She was a force of nature. And you didn’t mess with her. She didn’t end up going out into the street to kill anyone, but what she did was write a song that bludgeons the segregationists and those who called for the Civil Rights Movement to “go slower” and don’t expect too much change too fast.
The song didn’t directly lead to change. No song by itself can ever do that. But what it can do is speak the will of the people and both inspire people to act and to shine a spotlight on those who think they can get away with the hatred, evil, and destruction that they promote. Segregation may no longer be the law of the land, but those types of people are still at work today.
Here’s another quote from the linked piece above that could have very well been written today, and I hope that people will take to heart:
“An artist’s duty, as far as I’m concerned, is to reflect the times. That to me is my duty,” Simone said in an interview with Black Journal. “And at this crucial time in our lives when everything is so desperate, when every day is a matter of survival, I don’t think you can help but be involved.”
So I ask, where are our protest songs? I’m sure they are out there. Maybe they’re on TikTok or another platform that old guys like me don’t understand. But I so crave to hear them.
I have a modest audience here, so making a call for people to submit songs to me that I might be able to share might not go very far. If I understood the Substack algorithm maybe I could grow the audience and make it work, but I have a social science degree from a liberal arts college. I know my history, but I don’t know anything about algorithms.
And who knows, maybe I can reach those people and if they wanted to share their songs with me, I’d be thrilled to promote them and share them both in this newsletter and in podcast form. Reach out if you’re reading this and are interested.
But more importantly than those songs being displayed here or me growing my audience, is that the fight continues and artists speak out bravely and boldly like Nina Simone did. If you know where I can find these songs, let me know. I want to hear them and if in a small way I can help spread the word of their existence, I’m here to do that.
New Music Recommendations
If you’re a fan of underrated, but influential Chicago rock bands, you’ll be thrilled to see the following two new releases:
The Villager’s Companion - Califone
Rise Above It: A Souled American Anthology— Souled American
I’m a longtime Califone fan, so when they release new music, I’m thrilled. So far I’ve heard one track off the new album, “every amnesia movie”, and it’s a gem.
And Souled American is really only a band I know by reputation. Jeff Tweedy chose one of their songs in his most recent book, World Within a Song. But also the one track I heard off of this one is really phenomenal too: “Lottery Brazil”
Genre descriptions are usually laughable at best. There’s a guy I’ll talk about later on that does a good job with it, but you realize how silly they are most of the time when you try to put one on an artist who defies genre descriptions. This is Saya Gray’s debut album (or maybe second…I’m getting mixed information) and the best I can do is say it’s dreamy, indie pop that isn’t afraid to get a little experimental and electronic every so often. But am I hearing steel guitars from time to time too? Possibly! I hear a bit of the Billie Eilish sound at times too. Let’s forget about categories, though. This album is incredible and that’s all you really need to know. So incredible in fact that I’m going to say it’s the best thing I’ve heard in 2025 so far.
“Stanley (Tonight’s the Night)” — Motorpsycho
Oh you like fuzzy guitars? You think Thin Lizzy should be more highly regarded than they are? Then you’re going to love this track from Norwegian rock greats, Motorpsycho. Guitar rock ain’t dead, my friends!
There’s some Trè Burt here. There’s some Adeem the Artist here. There’s some MJ Lenderman here. Maybe a touch of Sturgill Simpson. It’s Americana singer-songwriter music at its finest, but, as we’ve established, genre descriptions are useless. Just go listen.
And last but not least, my old friend/former California Pizza Kitchen coworker, Phillip-Michael Scales has a new EP out called Can’t Get Enough. He calls the style of music he plays, “dive bar soul” and a.) I love the descriptor because, as I alluded to earlier, it’s one of the few times it seems to make sense because, b.) the songs do evoke the feeling of the laid back, neon glow of an unpretentious dive bar where the jukebox is packed with every perfect soul song for whatever reason you’re there on any particular night. I may be slightly biased because he’s a friend, but I love the style he’s managed to carve out. There are few harder working musicians you’ll ever run across and that comes through on this beautifully crafted EP. Check it out, everyone!
Thanks for reading, everyone. Be safe. Be kind. Make stuff. And most importantly…RESIST!
Protest music is alive and well! And it’s even mainstream—millions saw it two weeks ago with Kendrick Lamar’s halftime show. The beef with Drake is secondary to his beef with the status quo. There’s a lot of protest in hip-hop and punk. This week I’ve been listening to Lambrini Girls and Dead Pioneers. Protestant music has never been mainstream, even for artists like Lamar and Beyonce who are cloaking their messages in such artful ways. But it’s alive and well and plentiful.