In times of hardship and war, time and time again we’ve turned to art and music as expression and to rally together, and share solidarity. Our parents had Bob Dylan, Nina Simone, and Billy Joel (We Didn’t Start The Fire, anyone?). Their parents had Billy Holiday and Woody Guthrie, and so on, and so on, and so on.

And today, we’re no different. When faced with times of economic and political instability, we again turn to music. We even have our own updated version of We Didn’t Start The Fire.

With TikTok making it easier for musicians to share their music than it had ever been before, we’re also hearing a wider variety of music and interpolations (i.e. That Funny Feeling by Bo Burnham being rewritten over and over to fit to current events).

@taylorbickettmusicfeeling the funny feeling quite a bit as of late #boburnham #thatfunnyfeeling

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Here’s a playlist of protest music from our time, as we continue on the tradition as everyone before us:

• Little Dark Age - MGMT

  • Notable lyrics: Policemen swear to God, love seeping from their guns

    I know my friends and I would probably turn and run

• We Didn’t Start The Fire - Fall Out Boy

  • Notable lyrics: Trump gets impeached twice, Polar bears got no ice

• This Is America - Childish Gambino

  • Notable lyrics: Yeah, this is America, Guns in my area

• American Idiot - Green Day (they even updated the lyrics in a recent performance)

  • Notable lyrics: Now everybody, do the propaganda, And sing along to the age of paranoia

• Digital Silence - Peter McPoland

  • Notable lyrics: They're gonna execute the mother to elevate the man, They're gonna propagate the killer, eliminate the youth

• Labour - Paris Paloma

  • Notable lyrics: 24∕7, baby machine, So he can live out his picket fence dreams, It's not an act of love if you make her, You make me do too much labour

• Nobody’s Soldier - Hozier

  • Notable lyrics: Choose between being a salesman or a soldier, Just let me look a little older, let me step a little bolder

• Teenagers - My Chemical Romance

  • Notable lyrics: They're gonna rip up your heads, Your aspirations to shreds, Another cog in the murder machine

• Love It If We Made It - The 1975

  • Notable lyrics: The war has been incited, and guess what? You're all invited, And you're famous, modernity has failed us

• Long Violent History - Tyler Childers

  • Notable lyrics: It's the worst that it's been, Since the last time it happened, It's happening again right in front of our eyes

• Icky Thump - The White Stripes

  • Notable lyrics: White Americans, what? Nothing better to do, Why don't you kick yourself out? You're an immigrant too

• Rat - Penelope Scott

  • Notable lyrics: I can't believe you tore humanity apart, With the very same machines that could have been our brand new start

• Uprising - Muse

  • Notable lyrics: Another promise, another scene, Another packaged lie to keep us trapped in greed

• Nothing Shines On This Island - Chloe Slater

  • Notable lyrics: You swear that you'll be on the right side of history, I wonder how you ever sleep do you get guilty?

• Jackboot Jump - Hozier

  • Notable lyrics: But the jackboot only jumps down, On people standing up, So you know good things are happening, When the jackboot needs to jump

• That Funny Feeling - Bo Burnham

  • Notable lyrics: Carpool Karaoke, Steve Aoki, Logan Paul, A gift shop at the gun range, a mass shooting at the mall

• Freedom - Beyonce

  • Notable lyrics: I break chains all by myself, Won't let my freedom rot in hell

• And anything by Jesse Welles

  

  @jessewelles#SiNgErSoNgWrIteR #OrIgInAL #CoUnTrY #NeWs #folk

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Musical theater also seems to be having its moment, with multiple songs from Cabaret and Les Miserables going viral on TikTok over the past couple of weeks:

• Money - Cabaret (specifically the Alan Cumming version, obviously)

• Do You Hear The People Sing - Les Miserables (unfortunately, this is about The June Rebellion which was unsuccessful, but we can appreciate the sentiment)

  

What else is on your modern protest playlist? Share in the comments!

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