Cover Me Q&A: What Is Your Favorite Cover of a Protest Song?

Welcome to Cover Me Q&A, where we take your questions about cover songs and answer them to the best of our ability.

Here at Cover Me Q&A, we’ll be taking questions about cover songs and giving as many different answers as we can. This will give us a chance to hold forth on covers we might not otherwise get to talk about, to give Cover Me readers a chance to learn more about individual staffers’ tastes and writing styles, and to provide an opportunity for some back-and-forth, as we’ll be taking requests (learn how to do so at feature’s end).

Today’s question, courtesy of staffer Tom McDonald:

What is your favorite cover of a protest song?

Mike Tobyn

A city on the edge of the Atlantic, which grew via Irish immigration at the start but has been joined by people from many places since, has been at the centre of commerce and trade for over a 100 years. In response to political conditions in the world, and economic conditions nearby, it flirts with the idea of Socialism, the idea that the available resources could be shared more equally amongst all the people. The response of the National Government in the South is to send troops from far away to “keep the peace” and jail the ringleaders for sedition.

John Maclean was a teacher and Socialist in Glasgow. He was jailed in 1918 during the First World War, but maintained his political activities on his release. His ideas and inspiration were key to the workers during the Battle of George Square, ultimately suppressed by tanks. His untimely death from pneumonia in 1923 was hastened by his time in jail, as well as him gifting his warmest coat to a destitute, desperate man. Hamish Henderson marked his life with a poem, turned into a song in 1948. A tribute to a life and a protest at his treatment. The song has become a rallying call for the left, traditionally stronger in Scotland than in other parts of the UK.

In the ‘80s the tactics against workers organizing for Socialism in Scotland were different. If there were no factories for people to organize in, they could not organize. So the factories went.

The Bluebells had some jangly pop success, but the end of their initial run came in 1986. The McCluskey Brothers, David and Ken, stayed true to the principles of educating via culture and continued to play on smaller stages. Their reading of “The John Maclean March” shows all their pop experience, but with deference to the folk traditions of the song.

Jordan Becker

I was almost 12 when the United States withdrew from Vietnam. It was probably the peak era for protest music—not only antiwar, but for civil rights, women’s rights, and in support of the environment, among other topics. So many of those songs are still part of the music canon, and many of them were in your face, obvious in their message of protest. But there have always been more subtle protest songs, ones that require closer listening to recognize the message.

One of my favorite examples of these—and one of my favorite songs—is Richard Shindell’s “Fishing,” released in 1994. It starts out as a very one-sided conversation, between an immigration agent and a Latino immigrant. The agent is trying to get the immigrant to turn on others—maybe the people who brought him to the country, or other undocumented immigrants. The agent uses the fact that his prisoner is a fisherman to try to forge common ground by sharing (symbolically loaded) fishing stories, while, at the same time trying to get him to “bite” on the bait that the agent has cast—the ability to stay in the country and protection for his “next of kin”—in exchange for cooperation.

Finally, the agent says, ostensibly talking about fishing, but really not:

Anyway, it’s easy to bite.
You just take the bait
Can’t snap the line
Don’t fight the hook
Hurts less if you don’t try to dive.

In the last stanza, the fisherman finally responds, deciding to take his punishment rather than be a rat:

Señor, as you know I was a fisherman
And how full the nets came in
We hauled them up by hand
But when we fled, I left them just out past the coral reefs
They’re waiting there for me
Running deep

It doesn’t hit you over the head with its message but instead draws you in and makes you sympathize with the fisherman’s dignity and humanity–and be revolted by the agent’s cruelty and manipulation. It’s a song that, unfortunately, keeps returning to relevance when
administrations focus on immigration enforcement, and considering the cruelty and oppressiveness of the current junta in Washington, it is sadly very relevant again.

Joan Baez, whose gorgeous soprano voice, good taste in songs, and personal charisma helped make her one of the first big stars of the ‘60s folk scene, was always a political activist and singer of protests songs. In 1997, at age 56, years after her commercial peak, she released Gone From Danger, a collection of songs by younger songwriters—and her ear was still excellent. The album included, among others, two songs by Dar Williams, two from Sinéad Lohan, and three from Shindell, including “Fishing.”

Baez’s voice is still remarkable, and the anger is palpable in her singing, which may be because it is personal, considering that Baez is of half-Mexican parentage. Both the original and the cover are great, but Shindell himself has referred to Baez’s version as “definitive,” so who am I to argue?

Seuras Og

Never frightened to rally against either the establishment, nor any hand that fed her, this song could almost have acted as her epitaph, a eulogy to herself and her myriad obfuscations of belief. That having said, here her arrow was straight and true, coming in the wake of the brutal death of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement, to whom al royalties were donated. Dropping unexpectedly, late 2020, O’Connor was seen as a a force that, if not spent, certainly one in need of ignition, her personal struggles garnishing far more attention than anything musical. It had been six years since any new and there would not be any more after, either, with her premature death coming near three years later.

The song itself is an old traditional spiritual, or, at least, in that style, and was first heard in Douglas Sirk’s 1959 film Imitation Of Life, a film dealing with gender, race and ethnicity. Sung by Mahalia Jackson, it is a proud, if solemn, march, with subsequent versions upping the sense of hope inherent within the lyric. O’Connor imbues it with more of a resigned and dogged acceptance, as if little better can be expected of humankind, at least in this world. The depth of feeling in her voice is a lifetime away from the pure voiced gamine of Nothing Compares, yet it is, desperation and all, entirely and idiosyncratically O’Connor. Play the two songs together, one and then the other, play the videos, each rare examples that add to the sum of the songs, and you have the essential essence of the singer.

Hope Silverman

“Ohio” was written by Neil Young in the immediate wake of the Kent State Massacre, where four students were shot and killed by National Guardsmen during a rally opposing the ongoing American aggressions in Vietnam. The song was recorded and released by Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (himself) within weeks of the horrible event. “Ohio” marked a new kind of protest song by calling out then-president Richard Nixon for perpetuating the war…or as David Crosby pointedly noted, “this one names names.” Scathing and magnificent, the song rings as powerfully and affectingly as it did upon its initial release.

In regards to the Isley Brothers 1971 cover of “Ohio,” well, to say there’s “a lot” going on sonically and historically would be a gargantuan understatement.

While The Isley Brothers are commonly filed under Soul or R&B, that categorization only partially reflects what they have delivered soundwise since the release of their first album way back in 1959. We all know how this works: basically, whatever genre your biggest hits fall into will then by default define who you are to the world forevermore. And because their most popular songs are of the soul shouter-disco/funk-quiet storm variety, they have been conveniently stuffed into the singular genre of Soul/R&B. But in the case of the Isleys, this cut-and-dried categorization is exceptionally misleading. Which is to say, while their ’60s hits “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)” and “Shout Pts. 1 & 2” remain their highest ranking tracks in terms of Spotify plays, they are hardly reflective of the true, signature Isley sound: a perfect melding of topical Rock & Soul that remains unmatched to this day. Make no mistake (and with all due respect to their former Motown label mates, The Temptations and The Four Tops), The Isley Brothers were a proper band. Like The Beatles or The Stones. A classic old school, turn the amp up to 11, self-contained, smokin’, genre-defying band.

As the ’60s rolled into ’70s, the health and future of the world felt desperately unsettled. The Vietnam War, the still-recent assassinations of MLK and Robert Kennedy and the aforementioned Kent State massacre magnified the growing ideological divide between old and young. And the power structure meant to hold everything together showed itself to be fatally out of step, foregoing the concepts of equality and empathy in favor of maintaining the status quo at all costs. Artists began chiming in and using their respective platforms as a means of bringing attention to the myriad of social injustices, attempting to both rouse, rile and inspire.

And just like that, the Isleys’ days of recording songs like “Vacuum Cleaner” (“My love is like a vacuum cleaner, it keeps pulling’ me in”) were well and truly done. Things were about to get real.

The band waded tentatively into the world of politically charged pop on 1971’s Givin’ It Back, an album of then contemporary covers of hits by James Taylor and Bob Dylan, amongst others. It’s the big picture here that is most noteworthy: five of the album’s seven tracks were originally performed by white artists. Even without every song being overtly political, the album at its core was a powerful statement, with the Isleys acting as musical envoys, connecting and acknowledging all sides of the counterculture (with the added bonus of sounding incredible). That said, the album’s most compelling and unforgettable track is its most political, aka “Ohio/Machine Gun”. Yes, that’s Jimi Hendrix’s “Machine Gun” from the last album released before his death, the live Band of Gypsys.

In 1964, Hendrix had auditioned to be part of the Isley Brothers backing band. Needless to say he got the job and immediately joined them on tour. Though his tenure with the band lasted less than a year, in a perfect storm of destiny, it did allow him enough time to make the acquaintance of a then-12-year-old, fledgling guitar player named Ernie Isley whom he shared technique tips with and who then proceeded to become a virtuosic axeman himself.

With all due respect to their beauteous covers of “Summer Breeze” and “Fire and Rain”, “Ohio” is unquestionably the greatest of all Isley covers. Clocking in at nearly 10 minutes ( roughly 3x as long as the original!), “Ohio” is transformed into a raw and angry sermon featuring some unbelievable ad-libbing from Ronald (As well as some sublime shredding courtesy of Ernie!). The interpolation of Isley Brother-in-spirit Jimi Hendrix’s own “Machine Gun” into the song adds an extra poignancy to the proceedings, and you’ll be forgiven if you need to sit down and take a breather after it’s all over. It’s ominous as f*ck…yet astonishingly beautiful at the same time.

P.S. Make sure to check out the live version, recorded at The Bitter End in NYC in 1972, which is 13 minutes of ravishing rock-soul insanity. Ronald introduces the song explaining that he’s hoarse and not sure if he can do it justice vocally… but of course even on his most vocally incapacitated day, Ronald is still better than 99 % of all singers on the planet (okay, maybe 100%). You can probably guess how it all turns out. And oh yeah, Ernie shreds up an absolute freakin’ storm.

Adam Mason

I’ve got to thank Huey Morgan for introducing me pretty recently to Gil Scott-Heron’s cover of Marvin Gaye’s “Inner City Blues (Make Me Wanna Holler)” on his BBC 6Music radio show, the sometime frontman of Fun Loving Criminals being a real specialist in black protest music from Curtis Mayfield to James Brown to Public Enemy. At first I felt Scott-Heron’s 1981 version paled in comparison to the 1971 original off What’s Going On. The slower groove and the jazzy vocals seemed to make it less urgent and angry. I was soon marveling, though, at Scot-Heron’s ability to carry Gaye’s message on ten years on what was, in fact, far more than just a cover. The jazz-poet added his “Siege of New Orleans” to the track in a way that made it even more powerful, politically charged and relevant to the struggle of the African American community in the US – particularly by referencing black nationalist Mark Essex’s violent confrontation with the police force in the Louisiana city in 1973.

Patrick Robbins

It was almost a quarter century ago. I was going to see Lucinda Williams in concert, and I was so excited. But that was the same day two planes slammed into the twin towers in New York City, and when the concert was called off, I was glad. Nobody was up for entertaining or being entertained that day.

Two months later, Lucinda came back to town to do a makeup show. She did a lot of between-song preaching from the stage that night, I guess because she connected it so strongly to what she associated the theater with.

But her fiercest preaching came when she covered “Masters of War,” a Bob Dylan song she’d added to her set after 9/11. It was so intense that people walked out. She was loud, she was angry, she was scared, she was us.

She’s returned to “Masters of War” on a not-irregular basis since then. The version above was from a 2008 concert, and there’s a version she did with saxophonist Charles Lloyd that’s right nifty. But nothing will erase the reading of it I got to see her give in the fall of 2001.

Tom McDonald

“Call out the instigators” is the song’s opening line, so we start with Pete Townshend. He believed that The Who’s chauffeur–the drummer/singer-songwriter John “Speedy” Keen–deserved a hearing. So Townshend instigated a band called Thunderclap Newman with Keen at its center, produced its debut album, played bass, and scored all its orchestral bits. Townshend’s faith in his driver proved justified, and their first single, Keen’s “Something in the Air,” hit #1 on UK charts in the summer of ‘69.

But the song had no staying power as a protest anthem–not compared to “Ohio” or “Get Together” from the same period, anyway. Thunderclap Newman soon dissolved, and “Something in the Air” quickly faded from memory–until 1993, when Tom Petty instigated its revival.

The Heartbreakers brought their muscular jangle to the music, and streamlined the arrangement. Petty reworked the lyrics, too: Keen’s threatening “lock up the streets and houses” becomes the more joyous “run through the fields and houses,” and the line “hand out the arms and ammo” is dropped entirely. Wisely so. Calls for violence are outliers in the protest song tradition. Petty knows how to be angry and defiant in his music (“I Won’t Back Down” is one example) but violence is a bridge too far. He instigated a peaceful take-over of “Something in the Air.”

Curtis Zimmermann

People tend to look at me like I’m crazy when I start talking about contemporary soul singer Devon Gilfillian’s recreation of Marvin Gaye’s 1971 album What’s Going On. “No one compares to Marvin,” many people have told me. With a lesser talent, it would have been an impossible task, doomed to failure. On the strength of Gilfillian’s voice the project soared. He expertly covered every track, making a record worth listening to alongside Marvin’s original.

Gilfillian released his album at the height of the COVID pandemic lockdowns and the Black Lives Matter protests. Just as Gaye’s original record was a statement about all the chaos in American society during the Nixon era, Gilfillian’s album felt equally relevant during that turbulent year.

The title track starts the album with the familiar din of conversation, mixed with piano, bongos, strings, and those haunting “oos.” The original and cover are almost indistinguishable until Gilfillian sings the words “Mother, mother.” Then, I can fully identify it as the cover, as Gilfillian sings it slightly lower than Gaye, but with no less power.

As the track continues, he trades off the verses with Broadway star Jasmine Cephas Jones, best known as one of the founding cast members of Hamilton. They each put their own spin on every line, as if every word deserves its own showcase. Lyrics like “Only love can conquer hate” deserve some thought and care.

But don’t take my word for it. Listen to the track, then listen to the whole darn album. And, if you can, go see Gilfillian live. You won’t be disappointed, and maybe, just maybe, you won’t think I’m crazy for writing this either.

Ray Padgett

We ranked Mary J. Blige and Kendrick Lamar’s “American Skin (41 Shots)” as the second-best cover of 2016. But strangely, by the time we did so, it was already gone. In October, a radio station leaked it—ahead of, one assumed, a proper release. But the proper release never came. Despite two huge names—it’s got a Kendrick verse right after To Pimp a Butterfly, for goodness sakes!—it never came out officially. Luckily the genie couldn’t be put back in the bottle, and it lives on on bootleg YouTubes. A new one pops up as soon as an old one gets taken down. Here’s what Matt Vadnais wrote about it in that 2016 year-end piece:

Considering that this is a Springsteen-penned song about the definitively un-American practice by which American police routinely kill unarmed American citizens of color performed by two people with the combined authority, clout, and political significance of Blige and Lamar, the mere idea of this cover is enough to get me emotional. It likely would have made me cry upon first listen even it was terrible. Luckily, it’s not. The swelling Americana is earned and somehow not repetitive. Blige’s voice is more than capable of handling the melody and finding emotional traction that builds up to a gutting read of the damning declaration that “you can get killed just for living in your American skin.” But it’s Lamar’s bars that really take this from protest music to a protest in-and-of-itself by adding something utterly necessary that Springsteen wouldn’t have chosen to or been able to make, thereby not just performing the song but reclaiming it from the well-intentioned but inarguably white man who wrote it. This cover manages to inhabit and augment the message of the original while also drawing attention to the fact that Bruce Springsteen is not only safe from the police, but is a man whose concerts are regularly attended by at least one Republican governor. Implicit in this act of reclamation – and Lamar’s mention of a Colin Kaepernick – is the double standard surrounding protest itself: “Born in the USA,” Springsteen’s most vicious critique of the United States, gets played at the very same sporting events deemed to be inappropriately patriotic settings for protesting athletes of color. This version isn’t just better than the original, the song didn’t fully exist until Blige and Lamar got ahold of it.

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