The Top Ten Conservative Rock Songs of All Time
Classic rock doesn’t always lean left
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I am not a conservative. Neither are most of the musicians I list below. But it is important to understand that protest music has produced songs that inveigh against the left-leaning culture that has traditionally dominated rock and roll. Over the years, many of the genre’s icons have registered disaffection with groupthink or one-track politics. Some of rock’s statements of political pushback have become classics.
- The Beatles, “Revolution”
“But if you go carrying pictures of chairman Mao
You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow”
John Lennon had mixed feelings about the student protests of 1968. In “Revolution,” he affirmed his commitment to social change but inveighed against tactics of hate and the foolish embrace of authoritarianism. His anti-protest protest anthem became a classic and one of the band’s most penetrating proto-metal songs. Their live film performance below captures the group at its most powerful.
2. The Sex Pistols, “Bodies”
“She was a girl from Birmingham
She just had an abortion…
She was a no-one who killed her baby
She sent her letters from the country
She was an animal
She was a bloody disgrace”
In “Bodies” Johnny Rotten and the boys recorded one of the most unsettling rock songs of all time — infuriating, graphic, and angry.
3. Bob Dylan, “Neighborhood Bully”
“Well, he’s surrounded by pacifists who all want peace
They pray for it nightly that the bloodshed must cease
Now, they…
