Protest Song Genre

Protest Song Genre

The earliest example of a protest song could be Joseph Warren’s “Free America”. The song goes as far back as 1774, which is two years before the United States was founded. The song was sung famously by American soldiers. The song was used to draw out courage from the American troops. Another protest song that was among the earliest was “Yankee Doodle”. Although it is a popular song in America now, the song was first sung by British troops, mocking the Americans.

The first modern protest song is the song “Strange Fruit” by Billie Holiday, released in 1936 as a protest against racism in America. This song has been claimed to make protest songs ‘an art’. Following this, in the 1960s, a very well-known protest song comes out. The song by Sam Cooke, “A Chang is Gonna Come”, reflected what life was like living as an African American man. He wrote the song after being turned away from a ‘whites-only’ motel. The song has been covered many times since and has even been performed by Beyoncé.

During the 1960s and 70s, there was an upcoming of folk music. Many people used folk music to express their political views. One famous artist to come out of this era of music was Bob Dylan who wrote the songs “Blowin’ in the Wind” and “Time They Are a Changin’”. Both of these songs were not meant to be written as protest songs, however were used frequently by civil rights movements and Vietnam War protestors.

The 1980s and 90s had a few protest songs, with most of them carrying the same views as previous protest songs, such as NWA’s “Fuck Tha Police”, which is a protest against racism, specifically against police brutality cases that are related to racism.

More recently, there has been more protest songs from American artists about gun violence in America, such as Eminem’s “Darkness”, which uses many double-entendres as well as visuals in the music video to protest the theme.