Protest song

Anyway.

So getting back to protest songs, we've been talking about this on the break, I think, about songs like Stop Children, What's That Sound, songs like that.

Fortunate Sons, even one.

Marvin Gaye singing What's Going On.

What are some of the protest songs that inspired you to start becoming more into writing songs like that in that genre?

I mean, a lot of the protest songs that I hear are actually the chants that are on the street.

Those are the ones.

I don't know if they have names because they're just kind of like chants.

This is James's

protest song.

But the interesting thing about this is it's not a protest song that's politically motivated.

It is a protest song of spiritual warfare.

It is a protest song that says when things aren't going well, remain in the Lord.

And guess what? Those cries that you cry, the prayers that you pray, even though you may feel voiceless, are heard in heaven.

God hears the protest song of your heart.

James chapter five helps us imagine a world that is coming, not just the world that is.

I'm Jim Ryan, Merrip's Executive Director, and today is October 1st, 2026.

Today on the program, we have my interview with Nafiseh Sharifi about her recent essay in Middle East Report, Soundtrack of Dissent, Protest Music in Iran.

Sharifi is an Iranian anthropologist and an honorary research fellow at the Institute for Arab and Islamic Studies at the University of Exeter.

She has written extensively on gender and sexuality politics in Iran, including her 2018 book, Female Bodies and Sexuality in Iran and the Search for Defiance.

In Soundtrack of Dissent, Sharifi gives us a fascinating short history of protest music in Iran since the 1979 revolution, drawn from her own experiences in student protests in the 2009 Green Movement and the more recent wave of protests that culminated in January's day protests that preceded the U.S. and Israeli war.

I spoke with Nafisa Sharifi about how protest music under the Islamic Republic connects back to protest movements under the regime of the Shah, and how massive changes in media and technology have altered both the mood and the prevalence of Iranian protest music.

I also had the opportunity to ask her about her recent visit to Iran, and about how politics and music have been playing out on the streets and in homes in Iran since the recent war began.

One note before we begin.