Protest Songs Hard to Find? Plus Monday's Cartoons

Music from Neil Young, Lucinda Williams and Taj Mahal.

Mar 31, 2025

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Share Between Rock and a Hard Place

For starters: I belong to a Facebook group called Music Journalism History. It’s pretty much by, about and for people who have worked for or written for a “rock” (broadly defined) publication. Although it usually sticks to writing about writing about music, on weekends the host poses a specific subject and all can respond with videos or songs related to that. This past weekend, he asked for 21st century political “protest” songs. Now, I am something of an expert on such from the glory days of my relative youth but not so in touch with post-1999, so I was curious what others would come up with.

Turns out, not all that much or at least not all that impressive. But one contribution early on, by the administrator himself, Don Armstrong, reminded me that Neil Young was one of the few major rockers to take on the Iraq war in his rough-noise, urgent “Living With War” album, which included “Back in the Days of Shock and Awe” and “Let’s Impeach the President for Lying.” But the song from the album Don picked, “Looking for a Leader”—originally calling for a hero in the 2008 race for the White House—derived from 2020, when Neil updated it live on his porch during Covid. An anti-Trump anthem. Well, it still rings true in 2025.

Especially in light of this New York Times headline yesterday:

President Says He’s ‘Not Joking’ About a Possible Third Term

About the same time, Lucinda Williams recorded this Trump blast, which she still plays live:

Good news abroad, though, today: A French court has sentenced far-right leader Marine Le Pen to a five-year ban on running for office, throwing into doubt her bid to stand for president in 2027.

I’ve recommended previously a time or two that you check out my friend and longtime writer Tony Scherman’s Substack “Among the Musical.” This week he has a well-rounded tribute to blues great Taj Mahal, quoting from Tony’s interviews or review over the decades. But a personal angle for me. Tony mentioned this to me a few years back, but I had forgotten: His first piece published anywhere came in 1968, a review of Taj’s first solo album—and appeared in the high school paper of the local school my son would attend 30 years later.

So here’s Taj about nine years ago reviving a classic cut on that debut album, “Statesboro Blues,” with my man Ry Cooder (his former bandmate in 1967 and sideman in 1968) on guitar.