Who will deliver us from the silence?

Protest songs stir passions and steel nerves. Many of the best ones are timeless anthems: Blowin’ in the Wind, We Shall Overcome, For What It’s Worth, This Land is Your Land, Where Have All the Flowers Gone ?

Given the animus and political dissent that has so far stamped 2025, are there any new protest songs jockeying to join these classics? None seem to have emerged. It’s quite possible, of course, that potent, new anthems are just waiting to be discovered among the four million songs released each year. Yet when you consider what a successful protest song must accomplish, it’s not surprising that so few make the grade.

CJ Baker, writer, music fan, and creator of the The Ongoing History of Protest Music, produced a reaction video (See below) to Rolling Stone’s list of the 100 best protest songs of all time. Baker settled on three criteria for success: message, cultural impact, and musical influence.

Among Baker’s key concerns about each song: Has it achieved mainstream ubiquity? Is it…