10 Perfect Protest Songs In Rock History

For any list regarding protest songs in rock, Rage Against the Machine is always going to get a top priority. Combining the intensity of both rap and rock and roll, every song from their heyday focused on some part of resistance against oppression, whether it's the very definition of rage on Freedom or the phoniness that goes on on the airwaves with Guerrilla Radio. And while Killing in the Name is where it all started, Bulls on Parade is probably the one song that defines what Rage's ethos has always been about: taking down the corrupt.

On every single verse, you can practically hear Zack de la Rocha saying these words through gritted teeth, as he takes government officials to task for the way they decide to just feed the war. Though a lot of artists have tried to interpret war as some hellish landscape, Zack puts us in an Orwellian future in his scenario, looking at rubble that used to be a library, as Big Brother tries to brainwash people into fighting their wars for them.

In this society, there are practically two sides, and you better hope to be on the correct one, as warehouses that store weapons are rising to prominence as quickly as the jail cells that are meant to wrangle any naysayers. If anything, that just makes the 'rally round the family' nursery rhyme style hit that much harder. The name of the game here is violence, and we're at the point where it's practically on the same level as children's entertainment.