3 Protest Songs From the 1970s That Still Sound Revolutionary Today

Protest songs had reached a boiling point in the 1960s. Many of the greatest political songs of all time can be found in that decade. But 1970s protest songs were nothing to sneeze at, and many of them remain favorites of rock music fans and go-tos for activists in the modern age. Let’s take a look!

“War Pigs” by Black Sabbath from ‘Paranoid’ (1970)

“In the fields, the bodies burning / As the war machine keeps turning / Death and hatred to mankind / Poisoning their brainwashed minds.”

Black Sabbath weren’t just pioneers of heavy metal. They also dished out a protest song or two, one of which is the legendary “War Pigs”. Similar protest songs at the time focused on soldiers trapped overseas. But this particular song pointed a stiff finger at those who profited from the then-raging war and the authorities in power. You’d think this song would have been too intense for radio. However, “War Pigs” was actually quite popular among rock radio stations in the years that followed. That’s despite it not being released as a single or charting back in the 70s.

“Imagine” by John Lennon from ‘Imagine’ (1971)

“Imagine there’s no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion too.”

Well, we couldn’t leave this entry off our list of protest songs from the 1970s. “Imagine” might just be John Lennon’s most famous solo song of his career post-Beatles. And it’s far from an aggressive or even negative song. In fact, “Imagine” protests the horrors of war and capitalism with a simple plea. Lennon asks the listener to simply imagine a world where there is only peace and prosperity.

“The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” by Gil Scott-Heron from ‘Pieces Of A Man’ (1971)

“The revolution will be no re-run, brothers / The revolution will be live.”

You’ll hear this song quite a bit nowadays, and it makes sense why. In the last 50 or so years, whenever political turmoil began to bubble, or society faced significant change, this jazz-funk hit from Gil Scott-Heron always seemed to be relevant. “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” was written by Scott-Heron as a spoken word piece of sorts, set to a funky drum beat. His poem focuses on the fight of the Black Power Movement in the US and notes that when revolution comes, mass media likely won’t even touch it. Today, this protest song is considered an early hip-hop song. And it’s one of the most noteworthy protest pieces of the 1970s.

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