WASHINGTON, 2023-11-16
The Protest Song’s New Static: Lost in the Scroll?
Table of Contents
Contemporary protest music, from viral hits to Grammy nominees, struggles to cut through the noise of constant online content.
- The modern protest song often feels less like a call to action and more like a commentary on current events, blending into the endless stream of online content.
- Artists like Oliver Anthony and Macklemore have seen their work adopted—and sometimes co-opted—by various political factions, highlighting the challenges of controlling a song’s message.
- Jesse Welles, a critically acclaimed folksinger, exemplifies a trend toward hyper-specific lyrics that, while clever, can limit a song’s broader impact.
- Conservative protest music sometimes leans toward calls for more drastic action, as seen in the 2025 song “Good vs Evil.”
The lines between protest, commentary, and content are blurring, and the result is a new kind of static in the cultural conversation. “Am I the only one willin’ to bleed / Or take a bullet for bein’ free / Screamin’ ‘What the fuck?’ at my TV?” Lewis bellows in a recent track, capturing a raw oscillation between powerlessness and violent fantasy that defines much of the current musical landscape.
Oliver Anthony’s “Rich Men North of Richmond,” released in 2023, unexpectedly exploded in popularity. The song, described as being about “livin’ in the new world / with an old soul,” quickly became a viral sensation, partly due to a simple video of Anthony performing live in the woods. However, its rise was also fueled by right-wing commentators like Matt Walsh and former F.B.I. deputy director Dan Bongino, who attempted to brand it as a MAGA anthem. Despite Anthony’s assertion that his politics were “dead center,” and the song’s complaints about issues like the cost of living and human trafficking resonating across the political spectrum, it was quickly absorbed into online discourse, becoming just another piece of digital flotsam.
Specificity and the Ephemeral
For progressives, Jesse Welles, a thirty-three-year-old folksinger nominated for four Grammys in 2025, has emerged as a leading voice. Welles creates videos of himself singing clever, concise songs about issues like the health-care industry, tech billionaires, and ICE. His lyrics are often characterized by intricate slant rhymes that subtly shift from specific criticisms to broader implications. One recent song tackles the blurred lines between extremist groups, stating, “outright white supremacists, or America First / I think they both sell merch / The whole place seems a little bit cursed / It’s like somebody might have been living here first.”
However, Welles’s hyper-specific approach can also make his songs feel fleeting. In “The Ballad of Big Balls,” released in August 2025, he sings, “Some days I forget that Cracker Barrels exist / But there ain’t no one forgetting about that list.” The song references the assault by a former DOGE staffer, the controversy surrounding the Cracker Barrel logo, and the calls to release Jeffrey Epstein’s “client list”—topics that feel more like fleeting news headlines than the timeless themes explored in songs like “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.” It’s a musical equivalent of scrolling through X, a rapid-fire succession of posts that ultimately feels neutralizing.
From Ramparts to Reaction
Even when protest songs take a strong stance, like Macklemore’s “Hind’s Hall,” a song supporting the Palestinian-solidarity movement on college campuses, they often feel like just another piece of commentary. Macklemore raps, “We see the lies in them / Claiming it’s antisemitic to be anti-Zionist,” but the lyrics function more as a summary of existing arguments than a galvanizing call to action.
Conservative protest music, meanwhile, sometimes veers toward more explicit calls for action. Forgiato Blow and JJ Lawhorn’s 2025 song “Good vs Evil” takes the sentiment of songs like “Try That in a Small Town” to its extreme, with lyrics like, “We need a big tall tree and a short piece of rope / Hang ’em up high at sundown,” delivered over a beat reminiscent of Lil Nas X’s “Old Town Road.” Yet, even these songs acknowledge a sense of powerlessness in the face of overwhelming events.
Caught between nostalgia for a more impactful past and the numbing effect of constant online immersion, the protest song today appears to be losing its ability to truly confront and mobilize.
