The Revolution Will Be Amplified: How Musicians Are Soundtracking the Resistance to Trump's Fascism
And the artists will lead us…
This week, the legendary U2 dropped a surprise 6-song EP called Songs of Ash, a collection of tracks the band said in a press release, “couldn’t wait.” The music speaks explicitly to the human rights crises in America, Iraq, Ukraine, and Gaza.
The song American Obituary is a breathtaking commentary on the ICE occupation of Minneapolis and the murder of Renee Good.
U2’s announcement comes less than a week after Bruce Springsteen, who last month released the unflinching “Streets of Minneapolis,’ announced his ‘Land of Hope and Dreams Tour’, as a direct response to the Trump regime, saying in a statement “We are living through dark, disturbing and dangerous times, but do not despair, the cavalry is coming!”
Springsteen continued in the video, “We will be rocking your town in celebration and in defense of America, American democracy, American freedom, our American Constitution and our sacred American dream.”
Elsewhere, Erstwhile guitar-slinging activist Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine, began his recent Minneapolis concert with a scathing rebuke of the Trump Administration, just before launching into Rage’s ‘Killing in the Name’, saying: “If it looks like fascism, sounds like fascism, acts like fascism, dresses like fascism, talks like fascism, kills like fascism and lies like fascism, boys & girls, it’s f—king fascism,”
California’s Green Day have regularly used their stage to raise a defiant middle finger to Trump, changing the lyrics to their 2004 hit American Idiot to “I’m not part of a MAGA agenda."
Irish punk legends Dropkick Murphys continue their commitment to social justice and political engagement, including an event on the National Mall where I was fortunate to share the platform with them.
Singer Ken Casey recently urged more of their brethren to become politically active, saying, there’s “nothing to be scared about. Hey, we’re all in, we’re getting trashed, trolled, losing fans, and guess what, the water’s fine. Come on in. Nothing to be scared about. No one’s stepped to me in public yet. It’s just trolls on the internet.”
But it isn’t just long-in-the-tooth rock royalty stepping into the fray. Across all genres, ages, and audience sizes, musicians are leveraging their gifts, platforms, and influence to join in, and in many ways, center the resistance movement:
Instagram phenom Jesse Welles has become a prolific and eloquent voice of the times, delivering direct, unadorned traditional folk protest music that is tethered directly to the work of artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, and Woody Guthrie.
Self described “troubadour of truth” singer-songwriter Crys Matthews creates soulful, confessional acoustic-based music that often records the inner cost to our outer struggles.
Miami-based Earth to Eve serves up a fierce and unapologetic fusion of Amy Winehouse, hip-hop, and alt-pop that skewers the authoritarian powers that be right now.
And Rising modern folk-punk artist Carsie Blanton, regularly writes sardonic, fierce, and poignant rebukes of fascists and billionaires.
These and so many other musicians remind us that in times like these, it will not be the politicians or the priests that save us, it will be the poets, and the painters, and the six-string prophets armed with three chords and the truth.
There’s a reason Trump and his Administration are trying to financially cripple PBS and NPR, why they have infiltrated the Kennedy Center For the Performing Arts, why they’ve declared war on our libraries and museums, why they’re slashing funding for art, music, and theatre programs to young people:
Fascists are terrified of artists.
Creativity has always been one of the most powerful weapons against authoritarianism, against injustice, against dehumanization. Art is wild and unruly. It defies political proclamation, it does not respect authority, and it refuses subjugation.
Once released into the world, it cannot be contained or legislated away.
From the sustaining songs of Black people kidnapped and forced to build the scaffolding of this nation hundreds of years ago, to the clarion calls for justice in the ‘60s folk music movement, to the Black Arts Movement, to the Chicano Mural Movement, to the LGBTQ+ Arts movements in the face of the AIDS crisis, to the Hip Hop movements, to Black Lives Matter, to this present Resistance movement, the hands and voices and bodies of artists have confronted injustice, awakened the souls of humanity, and fortified the fighters.
Right now, as much as we need to push back against legislation and rally against corruption in the political arena, we need to create. We need the plays and the songs and the murals and prophetic words that help us imagine a place better than this one. We need beauty and melody and drama and dissonance.
Famously etched into the guitar of folk songwriter Woody Guthrie were the words THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS, and seeing so many musicians speak truth to corrupt power right now is a reminder how true those words are.
The song Land of Hope and Dreams, which Springsteen has named his protest tour after, paints a word picture of the journey to a place where equity, justice, and liberty are reached, where our destinies are tethered together:
I said, this train, dreams will not be thwarted
This train, faith will be rewarded
This train, hear the steel wheels singin’
This train, bells of freedom ringin’
May we stay connected to our muses, to our humanity, and one another.
May we in America arrive at that glorious place one day, and let us be singing as we do.
In the comments, please share your favorite artistic activists.
Learn about art and social change:
Art, Protest, and Public Space
The Black Arts Movement and Black Liberation Struggle
The Chicano Mural Movement: A Cultural Renaissance
Music in the Civil Rights Movement
Artists as Agents of Social Change
Great piece, John. Musicians can reach people that politicians never will. It very well may be that 'music is life' after all.
THANK YOU for this MUCH needed thread of hope!!!