How music fuelled, and was fuelled by, the No Kings protests

If you were online last week, you probably saw footage from the No Kings protests.

The gigantic demonstration against U.S. President Donald Trump took place across the United States and portions of Canada — but was connected by one prevailing aspect: music. 

There was Les Miserables‘s rousing Do You Hear the People Sing?, sung by a crowd in Auburn, Calif. 

There was Bella Ciao — a lesser-known piece strongly linked to the Italian anti-fascist movement of the 1940s — performed by a brass band to drown out counter-protesters in Atlanta.

And there was a raft of other music, new and old, by musicians looking to tie themselves to the No Kings demonstrations.

“There’s a fascinating mixture of new music as well as old songs being brought back into the mix,” said Benjamin Tausig, an associate professor of critical music studies at New York’s Stony Brook University.

It’s “inspiring people in the context of protest at this moment.”

That’s because of music’s inextricable connection to — and ability to inspire — political action, he says. 

When used in a specific way, some songs can become almost irresistible calls to action. And the beginning of protest movements often fundamentally alter both what music we are exposed to, and what music artists choose to release, says Tausig.

But when it comes to protest music, not all songs are created equal, says Noriko Manabe, chair of Indiana University’s department of music theory and co-editor of the upcoming Oxford Handbook of Protest Music. And the way that we engage with that music, she says, speaks to why some of the most widespread songs used at recent protests have been older, less traditionally popular tunes.

Songs like Bella Ciao, Do You Hear the People Sing? or even The Star-Spangled Banner — which had moments of its own at the protests — tend to be of a specific type, she says. They are “participatory” versus “presentational.”

While presentational music is meant for one skilled performer, participatory music, like other iconic protest songs such as We Shall Overcome, is not.

It’s “more repetitive so that people can more easily join in,” she said. “Whether or not they’re virtuosic is actually not the point. The point is to get as many people involved as possible.”

And with participation, she says, comes ideology.

“The idea of moving vocal cords and muscles together, where you have to listen to other people and feel their movements — ” Manabe said. “Just the act of voicing it itself makes you feel that this is part of your belief system.”

Co-opted music

Tausig says that participatory aspect can even eclipse what the song is actually about. Historically, he says, the most popular protest songs tend to be co-opted, with no direct or apparent connection to any political movement. That’s because the cultural iconography associated with them tends to hold more weight. 

Kendrick Lamar and Beyonce became very important in the Black Lives Matter movement, for example. 

“Their songs didn’t even specifically have to address Black Lives Matter to still become really effective at mobilizing people,” he said. 

Some songs are even adopted by movements they seem to be explicitly against. For example, Tausig notes, Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the U.S.A., about a disillusioned Vietnam War veteran, was famously referenced in a 1984 campaign speech by U.S. President Ronald Reagan.

More recently, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s draft-dodging ditty Fortunate Son was played at a military parade, prompting speculation over whether it was either a form of protest or due to a common misinterpretation of the song’s meaning. 

In both cases, he says, what the song appeared to represent was more important than what it actually said. 

A long history

But even still, songs being used by both sides of a political debate have a long history in protest music, Manabe says.

Going back to Britain in the 1600s, warring factions of Royalists and Parliamentarians would disseminate “broadsheets”: large pieces of paper with often-rhyming lyrics in support of their side. But to make sure they were easy to remember, they would be set to well-known tunes.

That resulted in “contrafacta”: each side singing the same “song,” though with completely different words supporting completely different ideals.

That phenomenon continues to today. Manabe points to protests in Hong Kong in 2014, when both defenders and critics of the democracy movement used Do You Hear the People Sing?

Meanwhile, rock, country, EDM and hip-hop artists seemingly jumped on the bandwagon to release or re-release their political music, creating musical touchstones and viral moments in the protests themselves.

Arkansas folk musician Jesse Welles, who crafted social media fame by releasing songs tied to the news, debuted a new track No Kings which has already racked up over 150,000 views on YouTube. In Salt Lake City, EDM musician Subtronics added a “No Kings” section to his performance, gaining over two million views on TikTok.

Meanwhile, the Dropkick Murphys, Soundgarden and Pavement have all made posts connecting their music, old and new, to the protests — along with Canadian Grammy-winner Allison Russell, lesser known blues, country and bluegrass musicians and even an AI hip-hop track simply titled No Kings that’s amassed over 750,000 views on YouTube.

“Expressing dissent or resistance to authority through nonviolence is one of the most potent weapons that we can wield,” said Canadian musician Jordan Benjamin (known artistically as Grandson) who also released new music directly tied to the No Kings protests. 

From an artist’s standpoint, the sudden swell makes sense: given the cyclical nature of pop culture, music that may have seemed old-fashioned or out of step has suddenly become more in demand.

And at the beginning of such changes in direction, Tausig says, which songs will define that movement becomes an important question. 

“It’s hard to imagine a protest happening without music,” he said. “But it also becomes so important in establishing the aesthetics of a movement.”