Do you think there’s no good protest music these days? So did I, until I started looking for it. Every month, I listen to it all, then select the best that relates to that month’s political news. Here’s the round-up for September 2025.
1. BIRDZ & FRED LEONE - GIRA
At the beginning of September, neo-Nazi Thomas Sewell was arrested outside court in Naarm / Melbourne. His arrest came two days after he led misguided anti-immigration marches and physically assaulted Aboriginal activists in the city. In response, First Nations groups organised rallies across the country on September 13, with the message: "Migrants are welcome, racists are not." Those rallies were echoed in the artwork and sentiments on the powerful new EP by Indigenous cousins Birdz and Fred Leone, released five days later. On September 12, Aboriginal indie rockers Selve released "the first Indigenous record made at Abbey Road", the studio made legendary by The Beatles. On it, singer Loki Liddle stresses the importance of keeping his culture alive. The LP came two days after Australia's government approved the legally dubious north-west shelf gas project, which looks set to ruin ancient Aboriginal art. LISTEN>>>
2. JOE SOLO - SONGS FOR OUR TIMES
As anti-racists marched in Australia on September 13, neo-Nazis rallied in Britain’s biggest far-right protest this century. A week earlier, English protest singer Joe Solo released his latest EP, which includes the song "England Has Gone To Hell". On it, he sings: "It's the swastika daubed on a neighbour's front door, it's the march with the Nazi salutes." At the march, the world's richest person, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, told the crowd in a video address that the left was to blame for far-right US activist Charlie Kirk being shot dead three days earlier. Yet all that was known of the arrested suspect at that time was that he was from a gun-loving, Republican family. Musk's statement came a week after US punks La Dispute released their new album, "No One Was Driving The Car". Its title references the Autopilot deaths that Tesla had to settle in a $US243 million lawsuit on September 17. LISTEN>>>
3. JESSE WELLES - UNDER THE POWERLINES II (OCTOBER '24-DECEMBER '24)
While Musk, who is said to have killed "hundreds of thousands of people" with his cuts to USAid, slammed the left for "celebrating murder” after Kirk's killing, US protest singer Jesse Welles called for empathy. On the song "Charlie", released a day after the killing, he sings: "I heard laughing, I heard glee, but it coulda been you, it coulda been me." Others pointed out that Kirk had said "empathy is a made-up New Age term that does a lot of damage” and had supported gun rights with the words: "I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights." A fortnight later, Welles released his latest collection of viral protest songs. On the seemingly prescient "Mass Shootings", he sings: "Cowboys and Indians, robbers and cops, the little boys play with guns and the big boys go get shot." LISTEN>>>
4. THE DIVINE COMEDY - RAINY SUNDAY AFTERNOON
As right-wingers claimed that most political violence comes from the left, academics said statistics proved "violence from the right is more frequent and more deadly than from the left". They pointed out that the shooter who grazed Donald Trump's ear with a bullet was a registered Republican. On September 24, Ryan Routh, who once described himself as a Trump supporter-turned-critic, attempted to stab himself after being found guilty of trying to assassinate Trump at his luxury Mar-a-Lago resort. A week earlier, Irish chamber-pop group The Divine Comedy released their new LP, which includes the Trump-mocking track "Mar-a-Lago by the Sea". "All the sycophants and narcs," it sneers, "all the cannibals and sharks, a secluded paradise of spies and cypress trees, Mar-a-Lago by the sea." It came as the Pope condemned such inequality and a poll showed just 54% of US adults viewed capitalism positively. LISTEN>>>
5. EVAN GREER - AMAB/ACAB
After US prosecutors said Kirk's alleged assassin was in a relationship with a man transitioning to be a woman, attacks increased on transgender Americans. Kirk had pushed for Nuremberg trials of doctors who provide gender-affirming care, called trans people “abominations unto God”, and urged men to “take care of” trans people “like they did in the ’50s and ’60s”. US trans musician Evan Greer hit back with her new album AMAB/ACAB (standing for "assigned male at birth / all cops are bastards") on September 19. Its track "Protect Trans Kids (WTFIWWY)" fumes: "Transgender people under the age of 18 face laws that ban gender-affirming care in 25 states, half the country. Just a few years ago, not a single state had such a law. Leave them alone, leave them alone. What the fuck is wrong with you?" Days earlier, trans musician Floralis released her new art pop LP, slamming such "transmisogynistic abuse" in Britain. LISTEN>>>
6. MARGO PRICE - HARD HEADED WOMAN
A month before his death, Kirk said: "I have a bulletproof resumé showing my defence of Israel." Yet he opposed crackdowns on pro-Palestinian speakers - if they were US citizens. Ezra Klein in The New York Times argued he "was practising politics in exactly the right way", through debate. Yet Kirk's supporters seemed to forget his professed passion for the US First Amendment - free speech - as they called for a crackdown on any critics after his death. Among the victims was US talk show host Jimmy Kimmel. Disney suspended his show after he said Republicans were desperate to find evidence that Kirk's killer wasn't one of them. Kimmel's final musical guest before his suspension was leftist country star Margo Price, who performed the fitting "Don't Let The Bastards Get You Down" from her new LP. "If this was the last word, I'm glad it was mine," she said of the suspension. An uproar later reinstated the show. LISTEN>>>
7. SARAH MCLACHLAN - BETTER BROKEN
Kimmel's first musical guest upon his return was Sarah McLachlan, performing the title track from her new album, released on September 19. McLachlan had helped get the show back on air by refusing to give a previously announced live performance to promote a new Disney-distributed documentary about her revolutionary all-female music festival, Lilith Fair. The alt-pop star, who received bomb threats against her festival when it began in the 1990s, made the Kimmel move "in support of free speech". At the documentary's premiere, she attacked the "insidious erosion of women's rights, of trans and queer rights". Her new LP contains the song "One In A Long Line", about the loss of those rights and the US Supreme Court's overturning of the Roe vs Wade abortion legislation. "This idea that we should be back to being barefoot in the kitchen serving our men is terrifying and enraging," she said. LISTEN>>>
8. DELILAH BON - PRINCELESS PRINCESS
When pop star Taylor Swift announced her engagement in August, Kirk responded: "Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge." Asked whether he would stop his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived by rape, he replied: "The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered." Feminist "brat punk" rapper Delilah Bon slapped back with her new EP on September 26. On "Cinderella", she spits: "This song is about the men online that threaten me whenever I sing about about women's issues... While you defend the rapist, I wanna make him suffer." The EP came as Trump continued to try to fire the US Federal Reserve's first Black woman governor for making contradictory mortgage pledges, despite a revelation on September 18 that his Treasury Secretary had done the same thing. Trump's misogyny continued on September 22 with dangerous warnings against taking paracetamol while pregnant. LISTEN>>>
9. SOCIALCLUB HYANGWU - THE PANIC TOOL
Rejecting the rise of Trump-style misogyny in their own country are South Korean feminist punks Socialclub Hyangwu, with their new EP. "Today, even the places we once believed were safe no longer feel that way," they said. "We sing and scream with love for life, standing against the violence inflicted on women and marginalised people." Kirk was spreading his message in South Korea just days before he was killed. As he did so, Trump's Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers raided a US factory run by South Korean car maker Hyundai on September 4, shackling 300 Korean workers in leg irons and deporting them. Hyundai said the workers were there legitimately, setting up the factory to create jobs for US workers. The next day, Trump renamed the Department of Defence as the Department of War and declared war on the US city of Chicago, stating: "I love the smell of deportations in the morning." LISTEN>>>
10. DAVID ROVICS - FROM AUSCHWITZ TO GAZA
Towards the end of his life, even Kirk was pushing back at Trump. Kirk considered Israeli president Benjamin Netanyahu a "bully" and criticised Trump for appeasing him. Kirk's criticism of Israel left him "fearing for his life", leading journalists to speculate whether it played a part in his death. His avowed Christianity certainly looked at odds with supporting Israel's war, which the UN declared a genocide on September 16. As US protest singer Jordan Smart puts it on his new album, released on September 12: "Who would Jesus choose to starve, if you gave him the chance? And if there was a genocide, would he take a neutral stance?" Days earlier, Smart's fellow US protest singer David Rovics released his latest pro-Palestine album to streaming services. As other musicians pulled their music from Spotify over its CEO's investment in weapons, Rovics countered that most simply can't afford to do so. LISTEN>>>
[Mat Ward has been writing for Green Left since 2009. He also wrote the book Real Talk: Aboriginal Rappers Talk About Their Music And Country and makes political music. This month, Mat Ward released his new single, Charlie Kirk.]
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Stream our new “Best protest songs of 2025” playlist. This replaces the previous “Political albums” playlist, that was getting too big at more than 700 albums.