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Protest with Pride and sing along with joy, or songs to fight fascists and fatigue

  • Out In Jersey
  • 2 days ago
  • 7 min read

Time for music to get fired up with, songs that speak to your heart’s desire for equality, songs to sing (or shout!) together in a crowd, music to play or hear or sing at demonstrations. 


These tracks are from 2025, fresh new examples of an engaged, sometimes enraged citizenry creating art to connect communities. And most are by Out Queer artists — but not all. (I won’t be identifying who isn’t. Figure it out for yourself, if you like.)


“Up and Down” by Chris Housman 


Dressed in well-worn country threads, Housman flips the script most of us were given and accepted about the political camps we are often stuck in. Listening to this song daily has been like mainlining nutritious civic unity. When I listen I get real hopeful about what America could be. If we came together strong around this message we could erase the divisions between tribes we’re usually fed by the powerful forces that work to control us by siloing us. (Yes, I’m as optimistic as that.) “Up and Down” tells the obvious truth, with a hook that twists itself around your memory and won’t let go, like only a Country song can. That it is a Country song is not irrelevant, because , as Housman says: “Make Country (music) About The Country Again!”


Chris makes more plain, clear sense in under three minutes than any argument or speech I’ve heard this year. 


“They give to the rich, take from the poor / makes you wonder what we’re working for / They’ve got us all turned around. / I’ve realized the real divide ain’t left and right, it’s Up and Down”


Chris Housman ~ “Up and Down”, on Spotify  


The Chris Housman photo used in this article was screenshot from this Instagram Reel instagram.com/reel/DQZqGG2Cjt5/?igsh=YzJpbjR5NTdvNDlw  


“Not A King (Power Mix)” by Iman Jordan 


New, and for use now, “Not A King” is exactly what it says it is (unlike the resident wannabe-king.) It’s a chant with a beat. Jump on it, sing it: “I can hear the people sing, that man is not a king / You think you’re power’s everything but that’s just trickery / You’re a small man, like a straw man, like a puppet on a string / So we the people ‘cross the land say ‘Bitch, you’re not a king!’ Not A King, Not A King!”    Bring it to future No Kings Day rallies, bring it to friends, shout along with its words, bounce along to its rhythms. 


Iman Jordan ~ “Not A King (Power Mix)”, on Spotify 

 

“We Gave You Riots” by Heather Paterson


Seemingly from out of nowhere comes Heather Paterson. I proclaim her the new Bard of Queer Pride. Her track “We Gave You Riots” is the best of a dozen and a half new songs she’s gifted us with, all just this year (so far).


Over a classic dance beat, it begins with an unrhymed declaration of strength:

“You didn’t give us anything / We took it /  Brick by brick, march by march / Lipstick smeared and fists raised high“ After painting that indelible picture, the rhymes flow: “You painted us deviant / Broke all our names / Told us to whisper, to bury our flames / But we were thunder in drag and denim / Stonewall hearts, you couldn’t condemn ‘em“ I mean, come ON! That’s inspired! And that’s inspiring, right down to the unprecedented rhyme between “denim” and “condemn ‘em”. I swoon, people, but the song doesn’t quit with that: it’s lyrically rich from start to finish, and totally right-on. I’ve fallen hard in love with Paterson’s songcraft from the first minute I heard “We Gave You Riots”. Not least, the title arrives in the chorus like this: “You only gave us rights cause we gave you riots / Silence no more / We broke the quiet.”


You MUST hear this track — and the rest of her songs too. (Note: Just one “T” in Paterson”. Two t’s is someone else.)


Heather Paterson ~ “We Gave You Riots”, on Spotify


Heather’s album GLAD: Love Always Wins, has most of the many songs she released in 2025.


GLAD: Love Always Wins, album playlist, on Spotify


Agitpop by The Iron Roses


The Iron Roses’ EP Agitpop —Yes, p-o-p, pop — has 3 fun powerful Pop Punk singalong songs. “Burn” is the best of the batch, but no shade on the other two. 


The Iron Roses ~ “Burn”, on Spotify

Music Video from Agitpop’s “Screaming For A Change” youtu.be/Q5mZusPPKJQ?si=KG5lCUz2bZGciIDI  

Agitpop on Spotify


“NO KINGS”, “Have You Heard The News Today”, and “THREAT LEVEL ORANGE” by Earth To Eve


… are probably the most like traditional protest songs. “No Kings”, the song, arrived at midnight on the day of October’s “No Kings” protests. “…News Today” covers a lot of events, issues, ground. Cutting words, the kinds that feel like the resulting bloodletting relieves the pain instead of causing it. 


Earth To Eve ~ “No Kings”, on Spotify

“Have You Heard The News Today”, on Spotify

“Have You Heard The News Today”, performance / lyric video on YouTube youtu.be/FR3X56LBRXc?si=LvvI-D41Oy8Bt0Ge  

“Have You Heard The News Today”, documentary & headlines Instagram Reel instagram.com/reel/DOPPqynCeJX/?igsh=ZmowYmhwa2ZvZmpw. 

“THREAT LEVEL ORANGE”, on Spotify


“Hundred Year Hunger” by Billy Bragg


A number of good songs empathetic of the plight of Palestinians have shown up this year but good ol’ Billy Bragg (known best for his 1983 signature song “A New England”, and “California Stars” his 1998 recording with Wilco of an unrecorded Woody Guthrie lyric) has come up with one of the best ones yet. I could actually imagine him teaching this song’s chorus to crowds to take home with them in their hearts. 

Billy Bragg ~ “Hundred Year Hunger”, on Spotify


“Fire In America” by Sasha Allen 


Taking on mass shootings and political violence (with references to Kirk), this is the most traditional of folkie protest songs. Again, I could imagine this one having legs after this particular moment, entering a passed-down person to person songbook. 

Sasha Allen ~ “Fire In America”, on Spotify


“M.a.M.A.” and “Mad at Me Again” by Snow Tha Product 


Claudia Alexandra Madriz Meza, performing as Snow Tha Product gives us Hip Hop songs of solidarity by Latinas for Latinas. I’m not going to pretend I follow every Spanish lyric or everything in the way rappers express themselves. But I did check the lyrics out at the Genius.com lyrics site enough to learn that these are real solid stand-with-the-oppressed songs. (The second title is what the first title’s acronym means.)

Snow Tha Product ~ “M.a.M.A.”, on Spotify

“Mad at Me Again”, on Spotify


“Better Times Will Come” by Frank Turner


As he digs through the archives of his second decade of recordings to gather tracks that weren’t on initial official albums, Frank Turner has unearthed his version of a Janis Ian song. Such a superb combo of talents. 

“Better Times Will Come” ~ Frank Turner, on Spotify


“Is Anybody Out There?” by Allie X


Alienation songs are plentiful but great ones don’t leave you sad: They wrench the pain out of you. If you permit yourself to yield to its pull, they allow a cathartic purging which leaves you feeling lighter later. “Is Anybody Out There?” does that for me, turns cliched despair into woke power. What could just be heard as a howl of pain and loneliness carries extra weight with me that relates it to this particular moment, this ridiculous year. 

Allie X ~ “Is Anybody Out There?”, on Spotify


“Hillbilly Hymn (Okra and Cigarettes)” by Nathan Evans Fox 

 

A transcription of what Mr Fox says in one of his videos: “You’re damn right I’m making Recession Country. Recession Country looks like allowing yourself to grieve but not to despair. To have rage but not outrage. To have hope but not naivete.” This song, by turns playful hymn and serious manifesto, also makes one hopeful to hear plenty more wisdom dancing with whimsy for a long, long time to come from Fox 

Nathan Evans Fox ~ “Hillbilly Hymn (Okra and Cigarettes)”, on Spotify

“Recession Country” Instagram Reel instagram.com/reel/DMNcQ8MMqxe/?igsh=MTl1czBqdmJrbjNm  


“War Pigs (Charity Version)” by Judas Priest, Ozzy Osbourne 


And, finally, the one that prompted my writing this article: A new version of “War Pigs”,  the Black Sabbath classic. (For the unfamiliar, think “War Pigs” as the Metal version of the anti-war views in John Fogerty’s “Fortunate Son”.) (And yes, I was a preteen but I bought Sabbath’s first three albums before I was 13, before they became iconic, thanks to the musical influences of a certain 4-years-older-than-me best friend / next door neighbor who now authors this publication’s Tales From The Broomcloset column.) This has new vocals from Judas Priest’s Rob Halford alternating lines with its Sabbath songwriter, the recently deceased Ozzy Osbourne, and a fresh new rocking performance by Judas Priest. Benefiting Parkinson’s disease foundations, this just might convert you to the heavier side of Rock and Roll. My brilliant-guitar-solo loving heart beats faster just thinking about it.

Ozzy Osbourne, Judas Priest ~ “War Pigs”, on Spotify


I have just scratched the protest song list surface. These have been just some of the ones that show up in the first 50 tracks of my September & October “Out Now Queer As Folk” playlists, sprinkled with a few from elsewhere. 


My “Out Now Queer As Folk” project works to identify as many instances where Q folk are involved in recordings as I can, and cull into playlists the best for an outstanding and astonishingly multifaceted listening experience and cultural revelation. I don’t believe anyone else has attempted to show how much we Queer folks are part of the fabric of music making. And I believe that leaves listeners with a significantly inaccurate view of music (where Q folks are just seen to be part of dance music, show tunes, “women’s music”, and not much else to any great extent). That’s just wrong. I’m trying to document our contributions — and perhaps, if we actually are entering a period that chills political outsiders’ artistic output, to show how flippin’ much music we create before the almost inevitable clampdown attempts a cultural erasure that obscures our intrinsic contributions to all kinds of music. (END soapbox)


A sample playlist, including all the songs mentioned in this column, is:

2025 Best Activist, Aspirational, Topical Music by or for LGBTQ+ Folks

 
 
 

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