I’m trying to put together a music playlist, and so I’m appealing to you, my Gentle Readers, to help me find songs of a certain type. I’m calling them protest songs, but that’s probably not a very good description. I’m not talking about, for example, ’60’s anti-war chants, and I’d like to avoid an excess of Dylan.
The only way I can think of to explain what I want is to give a few examples of the kind of song I mean. Probably the defining member of this type of song is Old Crow Medicine Show’s “I Hear Them All”:
Another good example is the classic Jimmy Cliff song “The Harder They Come”:
For something a little more hard core, I’ll take “Guns Of Brixton.” But not the Clash version. I prefer this haunting cover by Nouvelle Vague:
That’s not to say I don’t mind a little anger. Or a lot of anger, as in Bruce Cockburn’s “If I Had a Rocket Launcher”:
I don’t know if there’s really a common theme running through those songs, but if you know of other songs that you think I’d like based on this list — or even if these songs just remind you of some other songs — let me know in the comments.
Thanks.

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