50 Best Rock Songs About Revolution

Best Rock Anthems for Rebellion and Change

There’s a charge that hits when the world feels tilted and no one in power seems to notice. You feel it in the gut before the mind catches up. That twitchy urge to throw something loud into the quiet, to shake off whatever keeps people still. Rock has always been good at that. It flirts with danger, screams where others whisper, stomps on the polite rules that keep everything neat. Some of these tracks were written in chaos. Some only sound like they were. But they all stir that spark that makes a person want to flip a table and call it progress.

You can almost see it—crowds pressed too close, cigarette smoke hanging in the dark, someone with a guitar grinding out chords that sound like a warning siren. The best protest moments never come wrapped in speeches anyway. They leak out through amps, cracked microphones, and sweaty choruses that people yell until their voices break. These aren’t calm songs. They crawl, they bite, they stumble into something freer. Even the tracks that weren’t meant to lead any charge carry that restless heartbeat. They fit the feeling when things need to move, fast or ugly or loud.

The list doesn’t stay locked in one genre either. Some moments belong to pure rock fury, others bleed into pop, rock, country, and R&B songs that somehow share the same fever. A few aren’t technically tied to revolution at all, yet the tone, the edge, the pulse—they fit right in. Every one of them sounds like a match striking against rough ground. Here are the best rock songs about revolution.

1. 'Killing in the Name' by Rage Against the Machine

2. 'Fortunate Son' by Creedence Clearwater Revival

3. 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised' by Gil Scott-Heron

4. 'War Pigs' by Black Sabbath

5. 'White Riot' by The Clash

6. 'My Generation' by The Who

7. 'Anarchy in the U.K.' by Sex Pistols

8. 'Sunday Bloody Sunday' by U2

9. 'For What It's Worth' by Buffalo Springfield

10. 'Revolution' by The Beatles

11. 'Imagine' by John Lennon

12. 'Won't Get Fooled Again' by The Who

13. 'Children of the Revolution' by T. Rex

14. 'American Idiot' by Green Day

15. 'Street Fighting Man' by The Rolling Stones

16. 'Ohio' by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

17. 'Zombie' by The Cranberries

18. 'Redemption Song' by Bob Marley & The Wailers

19. 'God Save the Queen' by Sex Pistols

20. 'Talkin' Bout a Revolution' by Tracy Chapman

21. 'Masters of War' by Bob Dylan

22. 'Beds Are Burning' by Midnight Oil

23. 'Gimme Shelter' by The Rolling Stones

24. 'What's Going On' by Marvin Gaye

25. 'Born in the U.S.A.' by Bruce Springsteen

26. 'I'd Love to Change the World' by Ten Years After

27. 'Kick Out the Jams' by MC5

28. 'Get Up, Stand Up' by Bob Marley & The Wailers

29. 'Rise Above' by Black Flag

30. 'London Calling' by The Clash

31. 'Know Your Enemy' by Rage Against the Machine

32. 'Edge of a Revolution' by Nickelback

33. 'We're Not Gonna Take It' by Twisted Sister

34. 'The Times They Are A-Changin'' by Bob Dylan

35. 'The Rising' by Bruce Springsteen

36. 'Disposable Heroes' by Metallica

37. 'A Change Is Gonna Come' by Sam Cooke

38. 'War' by Edwin Starr

39. 'Rebel Rebel' by David Bowie

40. 'Holiday in Cambodia' by Dead Kennedys

41. 'Cult of Personality' by Living Colour

42. 'Eve of Destruction' by Barry McGuire

43. 'This Is The End (For You My Friend)' by Anti-Flag

44. 'Viva La Revolution' by The Adicts

45. 'I Fought the Law' by The Bobby Fuller Four

46. 'Blowin' in the Wind' by Bob Dylan

47. 'The Revolution Starts Now' by Steve Earle

48. 'We Shall Overcome' by Pete Seeger

49. 'People Get Ready' by The Impressions

50. 'Rockin' in the Free World' by Neil Young