10 Perfect Protest Songs In Rock History

America wasn't necessarily the most comfortable place to be around the turn of the century. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, George Bush was launching an attack on Iraq, which already had a flimsy justification and divided the country as to whether we even needed to go to war in the first place. Once the battle troops were sent in though, bands definitely had a few things to say about the man at the top of the food chain.

And while Pearl Jam weren't known to mince words about how they felt on their past records, Riot Act is actually a fairly mellow way of going about it. Since the new school of rock stars were already setting their sights at Bush, Eddie Vedder's writing is a lot more mellow this time around, looking to bring people together and have a thoughtful discussion about what's going on. He did manage to take a few jabs on Bu$hleaguer though, and he wanted to do it in a very antagonistic way.

Almost sounding like a satire of Bush's tactics, the whole song feels like a leftover from a Tom Waits album, as Eddie takes on Bush's practices and paints him as one of the most despicable men in America. That didn't help their cause with the fans though, including some shows in the U.S. where they were greeted with boos when playing this song. Then again, a band of Pearl Jam's stature were always going to speak their mind, and they would be willing to go down swinging for what they believed in.