Whither the protest song in 2026? In January 1970, John Lennon wrote and recorded ‘Instant Karma!’ in a single day and had it in the shops a little over a week later – no mean feat given the mechanics of physical record production at the time.

Nowadays, when the practicalities of releasing music are infinitely more streamlined, it has never been easier for artists to react to current events within moments of them occurring. And with the febrile news churn packing a year’s worth of drama into each week, there is certainly no shortage of material.

A small man with big ideas and a loud voice, Bono is a veritable magnet for ridicule

Yet in an online culture already gerrymandered along algorithms of age, gender, political bias and nationality, it is far easier to speechify on Instagram or X than write a song, and harder than ever for marginal voices to preach to anyone other than the converted. With apologies to any thrusting Greenlandic rappers flying under my radar, when it comes to protest music, it has of late been left to those with the largest footprint – and, often, the most hefty ‘old media’ presence – to cut through.

Last month, over the course of a weekend, Bruce Springsteen wrote, recorded and released ‘Streets Of Minneapolis’. It landed while the city remained in a siege state following the killings by ICE of Renée Good and Alex Pretti. Springsteen knows his onions, and kept things simple. Musically, the song is a turbo-charged version of a Woody Guthrie folk broadside, with simple chords and a fist-pumping tune. As a direct response to ongoing events, its most obvious precedent is ‘Ohio’, Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young’s angry elegy for four students shot dead at Kent State in May 1970.

Springsteen is steeped in this stuff and understands that protest music is a blunt instrument. ‘Streets Of Minneapolis’ is far from his best song – it doesn’t hold a candle to ‘Streets Of Philadelphia’ – but it marks a significant moment, offering a point of focus not only for those who agree with its sentiments, but also for those who do not.

U2 have taken a little longer to post their response to world affairs. A six-song EP, Days Of Ash, was rush-released last week and includes tracks commemorating activists killed while protesting in Iran, Palestine and the US; in the latter case, Renée Good is again referenced directly in the lyrics.

These are among the first new songs U2 have put out in almost a decade. They will be dismissed as the usual wishy-washy liberal hand-wringing by those on both the ideological right and left, for whom Bono provokes an allergic response. A small man with big ideas and a loud voice, he is a veritable magnet for ridicule. And yet, admirably or otherwise, he keeps on going.

Far more than ‘Streets Of Minneapolis’, ‘American Obituary’ devolves to spray-can sloganeering to make its point. Even as reportage, the lines concerning Good are objectively bad writing. ‘Renée Good, born to die free/ American mother of three/ Seventh day January/ A bullet for each child, you see.’ Elsewhere, Bono sings, ‘I love you more than hate loves war’, and ‘The power of the people is so much stronger than the people in power’.

This is the childlike vernacular of Lennon’s protest songs. Even 50-odd years ago their naiveté was easy to deride; now they seem almost insultingly banal. The great curse of baby boomer bands is to believe that rock’n’roll can still change the world.

Yet the inconvenient truth is that the songs on Days Of Ash are rather good – punchy and melodic. Where ‘American Obituary’ is appropriately rowdy, ‘Song Of The Future’ is lithe pop which wears its intent lightly. Written for teenage women’s rights protester Sarina Esmailzadeh, killed by Iranian forces in 2022, it boasts funky bass and a slinky chorus.

The great curse of baby boomer bands is to believe that rock’n’roll can still change the world

There is a shadow side to U2 which, admittedly, isn’t easily apparent to those not minded to pay attention beyond the surface noise. At times, the EP stirs memories of the woozy grace and beauty of early songs such as ‘Promenade’ and ‘Running To Stand Still’.

‘The Tears Of Things’ is musically and lyrically closer to the labyrinthine ambiguity of Leonard Cohen than the UN lectern. ‘One Life At A Time’ commemorates the death last year of nonviolent Palestinian activist Awdah Hathaleen. The best song here, it is elegant, ambient rock music, and acknowledges the seed of self-doubt in Bono that is often missed. ‘You say you want to save the world/ Well, how you gonna get that right?’

He never will, of course. Like ‘Streets Of Minneapolis’, Days Of Ash will change nobody’s mind about the state of the world or the qualities of the man singing about it. So why bother? Because, presumably, to bother is the entire point.