PROTEST SONGS #305: Environment

R&B gods Tower of Power wrote the funkiest protest song ever, "Only So Much Oil in the Ground" for 1974's Urban Renewal.  Long before people were talking about "peak oil",

PROTEST SONGS #304: Whadda you got? Marilyn Manson seems to be a rather lousy human being, but the man can write a song. "We're from America", from 2009's The High End of Low, is a propulsive rocker that attacks American exceptionalism: Rudy Coby called it "America the (Un)Beautiful".

I couldn't get a full picture of the crowd at Sepulveda and Hawthorne in Torrance, CA, because it stretched for blocks on a ridiculously hot afternoon. The second picture is my favorite sign. You can see we were in front of a Hobby Lobby, and I hope they hated it.

PROTEST SONGS #303: Aboriginal Rights, Resist/Rebel/Revolt There could hardly be two artists more stylistically different than rap legend Briggs and country legend Troy Cassar-Daley. But Australia's Aboriginal people share a common history, LYRICS

We stopped doing business Uline some time ago. I grew up in Milwaukee, and was familiar with the Uihlein family, which has always imposed intrusively right-wing rules on their employees.

PROTEST SONGS #302: Aboriginal Rights Aboriginal country-music legend Troy Cassar-Daley wrote the haunting "Shadows" for 2018's Greatest Hits. The songs tell the true story of an 1800s massacre of Aboriginal people by whites, near his Gumbaynggirr peoples' country in New South Wales.

PROTEST SONGS #301: Pro-US, Resist/Rebel/Revolt Phil Ochs said that "Power and the Glory" was "the greatest song I'll ever write."  I'm not inclined to argue: I've always thought it should be our national anthem.  From his first studio album, 1964's All the News That's Fit to Sing,

Ilhan bomaye! Ilhan bomaye!

I'm glad Bovino is out, but I'm really not looking forward to seeing him on Dancing with the Stars.

"I'm coming to Boston and I'm bringing hell with me." --Homan in February "Do I expect violence to escalate? Absolutely." -- Tom Homan in March "I actually thought about getting up and throwing that man a beating right there in the middle of the room" -- Homan in July, referring to a D congressman

Here's a list of the first 300 songs in The Protest Song Project, with links. I *really* hope Trump is out of office soon. Reason 1,578: This has been a great education, but it's a lot more work than I expected. www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/3yrn8...

PROTEST SONGS #300: First Nations, Environment, Police Brutality, Anti-drug Song #300 made me think of the film 300, about the Battle of Thermopylae, which inspired me to post a warrior song. Nataanii Nez Means is an actor and rapper from the Oglala Lakota, Omaha, and Diné Nations.

@dandkuniverse.bsky.social Your next episode.

PROTEST SONGS #299: Anti-Trump, Anti-ICE New protest songs are alive and well on YouTube, and Joseph Terrell has some good ones. Here, plucked from the headlines, is "Song for ICE" about the cowardly bastard who murdered Renee Good in Minneapolis, and his ICE bros. It's a talking blues,

In December 2024, I wrote a piece headlined, "Donald Trump Will Need a Police State to Implement His Agenda." Did I get it right? www.motherjones.com/politics/202...

PROTEST SONGS #298: Aboriginal Rights

Today is Australia Day, the anniversary of England first raising the British Flag over Sydney in 1788. Unsurprisingly, Australia's First Nations (among others) object to celebrating the day that marks the beginning of their dispossession, oppression and deaths.

@trufelman.bsky.social You're up: www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/23/c...

PROTEST SONGS #297: Anti-racist

Another song from Bloomer Girl highlights another of Yip Harburg's and Harold Arlen's progressive concerns.  In the play, Amelia Bloomer's niece is an abolitionist (Bloomer herself took part in the Underground Railroad). Her suitor wants to marry her, but she won't

In Game of Thrones, the Night King could reanimate all the people that he and his White Walkers killed, and turn them into further members of his zombie horde. That's Trump, the January 6 insurrectionists he pardoned, and ICE.

PROTEST SONGS #296: Feminism E.Y. "Yip" Harburg was a lyricist extraordinaire: #103 "Brother, Can Your Spare a Dime?", "Somewhere Over the Rainbow", "It's Only a Paper Moon", "Lydia the Tattooed Lady" and countless more. He was also a firebrand socialist, blacklisted for his outspoken activism.

PROTEST SONGS #295: Queer Rights Swiss singer Nemo won the 2024 Eurovision contest with "The Code", a song about recognizing their non-binary identity and coming our publicly. If you're going to come out, an international audience of millions is not a bad place to do it.

@trufelman.bsky.social The episode about Théatre de la Mode has always been one of my favorites as well, so it was just lovely to hear it again and have an update. There are beautiful photos of the collection on the Maryhill Museum website. I hope to visit it in person someday.

PROTEST SONGS #294: Anti-war I doubt there's a more gut-wrenching song about the cost of war than Metallica's "One", from 1988's ...And Justice for All. A WWI soldier's prayer for death, as he lies horribly wounded by a landmine, matches brilliantly with Dalton Trumbo's equally

PROTEST SONGS #293: Anti-Nazi/Anti-fascist The Muslims, a punk band out of Durham, NC, formed in 2017 to protest Trump's election. Their most recent album is 2021's Fuck These Fuckin' Fascists.  The band's music is powerful and angry, but also surprisingly joyful—well worth a YouTube deep-dive.

PROTEST SONGS #292: Anti-war Brilliant, kind, gorgeous, god of the drum kit, songwriter extraordinaire Rob Hirst has died, and I can't tell you how much that hurts. In his memory, one of his best songs, from Midnight Oil's 1990 Blue Sky Mining.

Bravo to Canadian PM Mark Carney for speaking truth to Trump's power.

PROTEST SONGS #291: Anti-nuclear 1987, Midnight Oil, Diesel and Dust, "Put Down That Weapon". It's an anti-nuclear song, specifically addressing the dangers cost to Australia by US nuclear subs having a base there. But it also works as a broader anti-violence statement:

PROTEST SONGS #290: Anti-monarchist, Whadda you got? It's 1977, the year of Queen Elizbeth II's Silver Jubilee and the Sex Pistols' Never Mind the Bollocks, Here's the Sex Pistols. “God Save the Queen” gets panties so knotted that the BBC banned it. But the song shouldn't be reduced to simple

PROTEST SONGS #289: Immigration Here's another suggestion from one of my song whisperers, Dave Hricik, The Lone Bellow's "Illegal Immigrant", from 2020's Half Moon Light. It's the story of immigration from an immigrant's perspective, coming to the US to find a loved one who has gone before.

There's still a lot of work to be done in combating the scourge of corporate compliance with fascism. But the next time a business gets a chance to become a regime puppet, they're likely to think twice because of your organizing.

PROTEST SONGS #288: Anti-Trump Greenland can speak for itself, thank you, and it's having none of this. Greenland Defense Front, 2026, "The Hungry Giant". Thanks to Morgan Meeker for posting this. LYRICS Oh ancient land of ice and stone

MY LATEST @latimes.com COLUMNA:‬⁩ Even Grok thinks Elon Musk's claim that white men are persecuted is bull. Share, porfas!

PROTEST SONGS #287: Anti-gun Back in the day, when Wesley Stace was recording as John Wesley Harding, his superb 1990 album Here Comes the Groom brought us "Scared of Guns", an extremely sensible statement about gun violence. Sadly, we have much, much more reason to be scared of guns now

PROTEST SONGS #286: Pro-Ukraine, Anti-Putin Today is Ukrainian Orthodox New Year, time for the traditional song "Shchedryk" ("Carol of the Bells"). Here, it morphs into a beautiful, powerful pro-Ukraine protest by the Marsh Family, insanely gifted singers who post insanely great songs on YouTube.

PROTEST SONGS #285: Queer Rights Venezuelan rapper Arca ain't taking shit from nobody, as they make clear in "Nonbinary", from 2020's Kick I. Short song, uncompromising message, intriguing video. Bitch. LYRICS I do what I wanna do when I wanna do it Bitch I got the bags to prove it

PROTEST SONGS #284: Civil Rights Movement In "The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll", Bob Dylan tells the true story of a 51-year-old Black bartender, Hattie Curtis Carroll, murdered by a rich, white young man in a drunken rage. He was from a prominent—and racist—Maryland tobacco family,

Hero economist Jerome Powell takes no crap from the Trump administration.

PROTEST SONGS #283: Vietnam-era Anti-war, Whadda you got?, Kum Ba Yah

To absurdly abridge the plot of Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical, it's about a "tribe" of hippies who drop out of society.  The men burn their draft cards, except for Claude, who is sent to Vietnam and dies there.

I get a lot of messages from them, which go right to the spam folder.

PROTEST SONGS #282: Anti-vice This may be the only anti-vice protest song, but it's a great one; "Man of La Mancha", where Cervantes' deluded hero imagines himself a knight fighting against the forces of vice for all that is good and holy. In the 1965 musical, Cervantes, jailed by the

PROTEST SONGS #281: First Nations, Environment, Anti-DAPL In 2016, O'odham/Japanese/Mexican folk singer Raye Zaragoza wrote the award-winning "In the River", included the song on 2017's Fight for You. The song protests the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) that moves oil from North Dakota through

PROTEST SONGS #280: Police brutality Prince, son of Minneapolis: "If there ain't no justice then there ain't no peace." "Baltimore", 2015, Hit n run Phase Two. LYRICS Nobody got in nobody's way So I guess you could say it was a good day

PROTEST SONGS #279: Police brutality, 99% Another Jimmy Cliff classic, "The Harder They Come", title song from the 1972 film. The song itself is an irresistible call to stand up for yourself. In the context of the film, it's much bleaker, a song written by a striving Jamaican who turns to crime

Michael Rapoport announced that he's going to run against Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor. Four years from now. 😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂😂

PROTEST SONGS #278: Anti-Trump In 2017, shortly after Trump's first inauguration, Todd Rundgren and Donald Fagen wrote "Tin Foil Hat" for Rundgren's White Knight album. They nailed the protest, but if they had known how much worse it would be this time around,

I've seen plenty of cumulus clouds, but I've never seen any that were quite this insanely fluffy!