A protest song is a song that's so specific that you cannot mistake it for bullshit. — Phil Ochs
It wasn't my natural inclination to get into writing protest songs. — David Sylvian
My songs is hard stuff which politicians don't want on them radio station because they still want people to live in ignorancy. — Peter Tosh
Those in power write the history while those who suffer write the songs. — Frank Harte
Music is a weapon of the future / music is the weapon of the progressives / music is the weapon of the givers of life — Fela Kuti
Protest is when I say...'I don't agree with something'.... Resistance is when I ensure that things with which I disagree no longer take place — Ulrike Meinhof
To protest against injustice is the foundation of all our American democracy. — Thurgood Marshall
It's a folk singer's job to comfort disturbed people and to disturb comfortable people — Woody Guthrie
There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest. — Elie Wiesel
Most of my songs are about insensitivity of some kind. — Randy Newman
Rock and roll music - the music of freedom frightens people and unleashes all manner of conservative defense mechanisms. — Salman Rushdie
My music is made for the people who are willing to stand up to change this world themselves. — Tom Morello
This music is about struggle. Reggae is a vehicle to carry a message of freedom and peace. — Bob Marley
It's my responsibility as a singer-songwriter to report the news. — John Mellencamp
Protest Movements Quotes
The labor movement means just this: It is the last noble protest of the American people against the power of incorporated wealth. — Wendell Phillips
Now liberals compare their every riot, every traffic blockage, every Starbucks-window-smashing street protest to the civil rights movement -- which was only necessary because of them. — Ann Coulter
Protestant churches everywhere are gravitating toward union with the Roman Catholic Church. These religious movements are speeding the fulfillment of the prophecies of the resurrected Roman Empire. For 30 years I have been proclaiming this tremendous event over the air and in print. — Herbert W. Armstrong
A friend is someone who knows the song in your heart, and can sing it back to you when you have forgotten the words.
'Rage' is the word that most often attaches itself to the Tea Party movement, and it's true that, from the outside looking in, their public demonstrations appear to be more enraged than any political events in America since the race riots and anti-war protests of the 1960s. — Jonathan Raban
Today women in many countries are taking part in various types of movements of protest, some of which are serious struggles for economic and social emancipation . — Kumari Jayawardena
With every step I took away from her, the movement at my heart and between my legs grew more defined: I felt like a ventriloquist, locking his protesting dolls in to a trunk. — Sarah Waters
Behind every girl's favorite song there is an untold story.
The use of the internet, the use of Twitter, the way protest movements developed...This is a different world. — Gus O'Donnell, Baron O'Donnell
Look what happened with the employment law in France-the law was withdrawn because the people marched in the streets. I think what we need is a global protest movement of people who won't give up. — Jose Saramago
Occupy is anything but a protest movement. That's why it has been so hard for news agencies to express or even discern the "demands" of the growing legions of Occupy participants around the nation, and even the world. — Douglas Rushkoff
I think that the most effective social protest that any artist can do would be things that come naturally and feel obvious. I think the Resist movement will continue among people who believe in science, who believe in rights for women, who believe in civil rights. — John Flansburgh
Protest Quotes
Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world...would do this, it would change the earth. — William Faulkner
If we accept and acquiesce in the face of discrimination, we accept the responsibility ourselves. We should, therefore, protest openly everything ... that smacks of discrimination or slander. — Mary Mcleod Bethune
It is a sin to be silent when it is your duty to protest. — Abraham Lincoln
Find the tribe that knows your song.
For many of us the march from Selma to Montgomery was about protest and prayer. Legs are not lips and walking is not kneeling. And yet our legs uttered songs. Even without words, our march was worship. I felt my legs were praying. — Abraham Joshua Heschel
Oppression costs the oppressor too much if the oppressed stands up and protests. The protest need not be merely physical-the throwing of stones and bullets-if it is mental, spiritual; if it expresses itself in silent, persistent dissatisfaction, the cost to the oppressor is terrific. — W. E. B. Du Bois
Where globalization means, as it so often does, that the rich and powerful now have new means to further enrich and empower themselves at the cost of the poorer and weaker, we have a responsibility to protest in the name of universal freedom. — Nelson Mandela
Every heart sings a song incomplete, until another heart whispers back.
Silence becomes cowardice when occasion demands speaking out the whole truth and acting accordingly. — Mahatma Gandhi
When an individual is protesting society's refusal to acknowledge his dignity as a human being, his very act of protest confers dignity on him. — Bayard Rustin
Those of us who shout the loudest about Americanism, are all too frequently those who . . . ignore some of the basic principles of Americanism-the right to criticize, the right to hold unpopular beliefs, the right to protest, the right of independent thought. — Margaret Chase Smith
Protest is when I say I don't like this. Resistance is when I put an end to what I don't like. Protest is when I say I refuse to go along with this anymore. Resistance is when I make sure everybody else stops going along too. — Ulrike Meinhof
We can't forget what happened on May 4th, 1970, when four students gave up their lives because they had the American constitutional right of peaceful protest. They gave up their lives. And to sing that song in that spot on that anniversary was very emotional for us. — Graham Nash
I won't be indulging in anger anymore, vehemently and self-righteously singing protest songs, and expecting them to bring peace to me or anyone else. — Susan Schneider
The things that seem insignificant to most people such as note, song, or walk become invaluable trasures kept safe in your heart to cherish forever.
I understand why people get desensitized and roll their eyes when they hear a protest song, or even a politician making some flowery speech. It doesn't really change anything. — Conor Oberst
Labour itself is but a sorrowful song,The protest of the weak against the strong. — Frederick William Faber
After becoming famous once again - a 1976 song, "Hurricane," even marked a return to protest songwriting - [Bob] Dylan got addicted to drugs, found Jesus, left Jesus, and put out a lot of swill. — Bob Dylan
Even while I protest the assembly-line production of our food, our songs, our language, and eventually our souls, I know that it was a rare home that baked good bread in the old days. Mother's cooking was with rare exceptions poor, that good unpasteurized milk touched only by flies and bits of manure crawled with bacteria, the healthy old-time life was riddled with aches, sudden death from unknown causes, and that sweet local speech I mourn was the child of illiteracy and ignorance. It is the nature of a man as he grows older, a small bridge in time, to protest against change, particularly change for the better. — John Steinbeck
"Face Again" is actually the most George Saunders-y song. Basically the verses, I'm describing a world where love is being killed, and then in the first chorus, I'm sort of protesting it. It's like, "I don't think you know what's best for me." And then by the end, it's like I've given in, and it becomes very desperate. — How to Dress Well
I'd love to try and teach Donald Trump how to write a song. I'd love to put him in a room with another person - someone who's protesting him at the Women's March. I'd put the three of us in a room and all write a song together. If that can happen, it proves we can get over our differences. — Nelly Furtado
Those songs [from church], I think, shaped to some degree how I would evolve as a writer, pentameter of songs, the melodies of those kind of hillbilly hymns - I used to refer to them - because they were not Southern gospel as much as they were passed down from Scottish Welsh Protestant hymnals. — Dwight Yoakam
I suspect many readers might associate [Bob Dylan] with one of the shortest phases of his career, the time from 1963 to '65 when he wrote his most famous "protest songs," like "Blowin' in the Wind" and "The Times They Are a-Changin.'" — Jay Michaelson
My dad [Johnny Cash] went to the [Richard] Nixon White House and refused to sing "Welfare Cadillac" (instead performing the anti-war songs "The Ballad of Ira Hayes" and "Man in Black"). He protested the Vietnam War, but he went to perform for the troops with bombs dropping all around him. He had that kind of genius: a true artist's capacity for holding two opposing thoughts at once while being large enough to encompass all realities. — Rosanne Cash
We thought that using rap would draw a parallel with the protest music from the 60s and 70s that we found through the research for animadoc. When we thought about rap, Emicida immediately came to mind and we decided to call him to create this song bring the audience back to earth and put their feet on the ground. Emicida's song is the only one that has lyrics in actual understandable Portuguese. — Alex Abreu
I love music. I love making songs. I feel like I've been given a path where I can contribute, where I can protest if somebody does something really obviously wrong or inhuman right in front of me, where I can make a difference. Where I can most especially elevate, make you happy, elevate the condition, elevate the thing. — David Crosby
The hardest song to write is a protest song, a topical song with meaning. — Joan Baez
In the largest sense, every work of art is protest... A lullaby is a propaganda song and any three-year-old knows it... A hymn is a controversial song - sing one in the wrong church: you'll find out... — Pete Seeger
Playing on the streets of Iraq, or in Israel or the Gaza strip, I'd sing angry protest songs against war. People would say, 'Make us clap, make us dance, and laugh and sing.' It really made me think about the importance of happy music. — Michael Franti
The nice thing about a protest song is that it takes the complaint, the fussing, the finger-pointing, and gives it an added component of sociable harmony. — Nicholson Baker
When I sang my American folk melodies in Budapest, Prague, Tiflis, Moscow, Oslo, or the Hebrides or on the Spanish front, the people understood and wept or rejoiced with the spirit of the songs. I found that where forces have been the same, whether people weave, build, pick cotton, or dig in the mine, they understand each other in the common language of work, suffering, and protest. — Paul Robeson
Long live protest songs, in whatever form they take. — David Levithan
In Conclusion
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