Remember when protest songs actually meant something—when they were raw, urgent, and spoke truth to power instead of parroting whatever the establishment wanted to hear? There was a time when music challenged authority, questioned government overreach, and gave a voice to the voiceless. Now, too many so-called “protest songs” are just corporate-approved virtue signals wrapped in buzzwords, more concerned with being liked by the left-wing gatekeepers than shaking the system. The spirit of rebellion has been replaced with safe slogans and TikTok-ready choruses, and the artists once brave enough to call out real corruption have either gone silent or sold out.
Those days are apparently long gone, as evidenced by Neil Young's embarrassingly amateur attempt at an anti-Musk anthem that would make even amateur college coffee shop performers cringe.
The perpetually aggrieved rocker, who’s clearly trying to maintain cultural relevancy from his Trump Derangement Syndrome, just released what might be the most cringe-worthy music video of 2025.
The song is called "Let's Roll Again."
In what can only be described as peak progressive performance art, Young appears on screen with his eyes hidden behind black bars, looking like a rejected concept from a 1980s MTV video.
The video for “Let’s Roll Again”—a sequel of sorts to his 9/11-themed track “Let’s Roll” from 2002—features rustic, rebellious images of everyday Americans. But its lyrics are a direct rebuke of Trump and Musk, who are prominently featured visually.
The rock legend highlights Cybertrucks painted with American flags, Musk’s provocative salute, and a “Heil Tesla” sign. A clip of Trump hawking Teslas in front of the White House earlier this year as the company’s value was falling is a prominent part of the video too.
So brave. So very brave.
Now, let's examine some of Young's deeply profound lyrics:
If you're a fascist
Get a Tesla
It's electric.
It doesn't matter.
If you’re a Democrat, taste your freedom
Get whatever you want, taste your freedom
Bob Dylan, he ain't. This is the kind of deep political analysis you'd expect to find scrawled in a middle school bathroom stall, not from a "legendary" musician.
The video features footage of President Trump promoting Tesla earlier this year because apparently supporting American jobs and industry is now problematic in Young's alternate reality. But what can you expect from someone who seems to think that attacking successful American businesses somehow makes him a hero of the working class?
Young wraps up his musical manifesto by begging Ford, GM, and Chrysler to "build something special that people need." Apparently, he's been too busy writing stupid songs to notice that Tesla has already created thousands of American jobs and revolutionized the electric vehicle industry. But facts don't matter when you're trying to virtue signal to your left-wing fan base who don't like the fact that Musk is cutting waste and fraud from the government.
At least the old protest songs had catchy tunes and meaningful lyrics. Now we just get washed up musicians hiding behind black bars jumping on the anti-Elon bandwagon just because they want to be noticed.
But hey, at least Young got his virtue-signaling quota filled for the month. Maybe for his next trick, he can write a song about how MyPillow threatens democracy.
