🎶 Musicians Fighting Back: Protest Songs for Survival

Music has always been more than entertainment — it’s resistance, memory, and a call to action. Protest songs fuel movements, lift spirits, and remind us that truth has always had a beat.

This week I want to highlight two powerful voices from different eras, both still echoing with urgency today:

Neil Young & The Chrome Hearts – Big Crime (2025)
Neil Young has never been shy about calling out corruption, and his new track Big Crime pulls no punches. With lyrics like “No more great again / There’s big crime in DC at the White House,” he goes straight at the heart of our political crisis. It’s a raw anthem for accountability and democracy — and proof that protest music is alive and well. Listen here on YouTube.

Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run (1975)
Not a protest song in the traditional sense, but for many of us, Springsteen’s music was survival fuel — an anthem for freedom, escape, and resilience. I still remember sneaking into the Agora in 1978 with my sister’s fake ID to see Springsteen live. Fifty years later, Born to Run still feels like a promise that better days are possible.

Together, Neil and Bruce remind us that music isn’t just background noise — it’s part of our survival kit. Whether it’s shouting truth to power or giving us the courage to keep going, musicians fighting back provide the soundtrack for democracy.

Stay tuned: each week I’ll spotlight songs and artists who keep our spirits strong and our resistance loud.

Neil Young and the Chrome Hearts - Big Crime (chicago sound check) - (Official Audio)

o more great again No - no more great again There’s big crime in DC at THE White House Don’t need no fascist rules Don't want no fascist schools Don’t want soldiers on our streets There’s big crime in DC at THE White House There’s big crime in DC at THE White House Got to get the fascists out got to Clean the white house out Don’t want soldiers on our streets There’s big crime in DC at THE White House There’s big crime in DC at THE White House No more great again No - no more great again There’s big crime in DC at THE White House There’s big crime in DC at THE White House No more money to the fascists the billionaire fascists TIME TO BLACKOUT THE SYSTEM no more great again No - no more great again TIME TO BLACKOUT THE SYSTEM There’s big crime in DC at THE White House There’s big crime in DC at THE White House NO MORE GREAT AGAIN No NO MORE GREAT AGAIN There’s big crime in DC at THE White House There’s big crime in DC at THE White House NO MORE GREAT AGAIN NO NO MORE GREAT AGAIN

Transcript: Here's what Bruce Springsteen had to say about Trump in Manchester, UK

• Pete Chianca

• May 14

• 3 min read

Updated: May 15

I'll have more to say about this after it sinks in. But I will say that no one does righteous indignation like Bruce Springsteen. And he is certainly indignant about what he feels like the Trump administration is doing to the country he loves.

Judging from the fact that his people have already edited together and released these remarks — delivered in Manchester at the first show in what's now called "The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour" — I'd also say he doesn't care who knows it.

Will we see Bruce bring this message to America? If I were a betting man I'd start saving up for tickets now.

Before "Land of Hope and Dreams":

Good evening. It's great to be in Manchester and back in the UK. Welcome to The Land of Hope and Dreams Tour. The mighty E Street Band is here tonight to call upon the righteous power of art, of music, of rock and roll in dangerous times.

In my home, the America I love, the America I've written about that has been a beacon of hope and liberty for 250 years, is currently in the hands of a corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous administration.

Tonight, we ask all who believe in democracy and the best of our American experience to rise with us. Raise your voices against authoritarianism and let freedom ring.

Before "House of a Thousand Guitars":

How we doing Manchester? All right?

The last check on power, after the checks and balances of government have failed, are the people, you and me. It's in the union of people around a common set of values. Now that's all that stands between democracy and authoritarianism.

So at the end of the day, all we've really got is each other.

Before "My City of Ruins":

Now, there's some very weird, strange and dangerous shit going on out there right now.

In America, they are persecuting people for using their right to free speech and voicing their dissent. This is happening now.

In America, the richest men are taking satisfaction in abandoning the world's poorest children to sickness and death. This is happening now.

In my country, they're taking sadistic pleasure in the pain that they inflict on loyal American workers, they're rolling back historic Civil Rights legislation that led to a more just and plural society, they're abandoning our great allies and siding with dictators against those struggling for their freedom.

They're defunding American universities that won't bow down to their ideological demands. They're removing residents off American streets and, without due process of law, are deporting them to foreign detention centers and prisons. This is all happening now.

A majority of our elected representatives have failed to protect the American people from the abuses of an unfit president and a rogue government.

They have no concern or idea of what it means to be deeply American. The America that I've sung to you about for 50 years is real, and regardless of its faults, is a great country with a great people.

So we'll survive this moment.

Now, I have hope because I believe in the truth of what the great American writer James Baldwin said. He said, in this world, there isn't as much humanity as one would like. But there's enough.

Let's pray.

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