I guess we can start calling 2026 the year of the protest song, because another washed-up celebrity is back to fight the man.
First, we had Bruce Springsteen regale us with some of the worst slapped-together lyricism this side of slam poetry with his ICE diss track, “Streets of Minneapolis.”
Now, according to Rolling Stone, none other than Bette Midler has joined the fray with a spin on a “classic” protest song(and I use that term VERY loosely) called “Hey You Facists” by Woody Guthrie.
The song was written in 1940 and addressed issues such as the poll tax, Jim Crow, and race hatred in the U.S., but Midler turned it into a modern tune to fight back against that evil, oppressive Orange Man in the Oval Office.
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Yay, another song bashing Trump! I bet you all haven’t had your fill of those yet.
“I was talking to Jane Fonda the other day, and she said, ‘We need an anthem,'” Midler told Rolling Stone. “So I looked back at [some] catalogs and an old Woody Guthrie song stuck in my head.”
I can’t think of anything we need LESS than an anthem courtesy of Jane Fonda and Bette Midler, but go on.
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“The insanity that’s happening, this unprecedented destruction of all of normal behavior, has affected me very badly.”
I’m sure it has, Bette.
Let’s take a look at some of these lyrics, shall we?
“We’ll battle ICE together/Until they cut and run/Just like in Minneapolis/And when the midterms come,” Midler sings, “You’re bound to lose/You fascists, bound to lose.” She continues: “Trying to distract us from the Epstein files/You gas and beat and murder us, protecting pedophiles/Let’s turn the screws/You pervs are bound to lose.”
I think I just threw up in my mouth a little.
I love how she thinks they “battled” ICE until they “cut and run” from Minneapolis.
If this was true fascism we were experiencing, the ending in the Twin Cities would have been a whole lot worse, and ICE would probably still be in Minnesota rounding up citizens and immigrants alike to this day.
Oh that evil Donald Trump, he’s such a fascist the way he checks notes got on the phone with the governor of Minnesota and promised to scale back ICE operations.
The idiocy of these people knows no bounds.
Also, “gas and beat” you? In what world?
Are we talking tear gas here, or gas chambers? You might want to be a little more specific because one is what actual fascists use and is a lot worse.
Oh, and I don’t think anyone is trying to distract from the Epstein files given that millions of pages of documents have been released, most of which featured unfounded claims of cannibalism from (at best) unreliable sources.
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But other than that, great work! Woody Guthrie would be proud.
This got me thinking: have protest songs always been this bad? And I think the answer is “yes.”
Protest songs, by their very nature, are very lame and cringey.
For example, the other day I was in a restaurant and I heard “Ohio,” the song about the Kent State shooting by Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young playing over the speakers, and I realized I never paid attention to the lyrics.
So I looked them up, and yeah, they’re just as cringey as Midler’s ode to Woody Guthrie, albeit slightly more poetic.
“Tin soldiers and Nixon’s comin’/We’re finally on our own/This summer I hear the drummin’/Four dead in Ohio/Gotta get down to it/Soldiers are gunning us down/Should have been done long ago/What if you knew her and/Found her dead on the ground?/How can you run when you know?”
ZERO BS. JUST DAKICH. TAKE THE DON’T @ ME PODCAST ON THE ROAD. DOWNLOAD NOW!
Piss off!
No wonder Lynyrd Skynyrd hated these pricks so much.
From this point forward, I’m protesting protest songs.
I have to draw the line somewhere, and I encourage you to do the same.
