CPM Blog – Center for Popular Music

7 Popular Songs Inspired by the Life of Martin Luther King Jr.

January 15, 2025 - 10:30 am

Many schools and places of business observe the federal holiday for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday on the third Monday in January, but his actual birthday is today, January 15. King would be 96 today and had an immeasurable influence on the world through his writings, speeches, and actions advocating for marginalized and disenfranchised people around the world, especially African Americans, as he fought against racial discrimination, Jim Crow laws, and segregation during the 1950s and 1960s.

King’s influence is still felt today through popular music in a variety of genres. There are countless songs that quote, mention, or even sample Martin Luther King Jr., but here are seven tracks that celebrate the work and life of Martin Luther King Jr. or are in conversation with him in some way and personally resonate with me. One was released during his lifetime, and the rest grapple with or are inspired by his legacy of fighting for civil rights and social justice.

1. “A Change Is Gonna Come” by Sam Cooke (1964)

Although it opens with a lush flourish of strings and a horn section courtesy of Brill Building producers Hugo & Luigi, 1964’s “A Change is Gonna Come” is actually a protest song from singer-songwriter and “King of Soul” Sam Cooke. Its lyrics were influenced by Cooke’s own experiences of being turned away from a Holiday Inn in Shreveport, Louisiana because he was Black, along with “Blowin’ in the Wind” by Bob Dylan and Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech that was delivered the year before the song was released. Sam Cooke also met King at the Atlanta airport and promised to dedicate a song to him. “A Change Is Gonna Come” acknowledges the difficulties that Cooke has faced because of the color of his skin, such as Jim Crow laws not allowing him to go to certain restaurants or movie theaters. Sam Cooke was even unjustly arrested for disturbing the peace when the horn on his Maserati malfunctioned one night. By releasing “A Change Is Gonna Come,” he also risked alienating his white fans, who enjoyed his R&B love songs but weren’t ready for more personal songs about the Black experience. However, with its powerful lyrics, timeless sound, and hopeful message, “A Change is Gonna Come” became one of Cooke’s most important songs and has been covered or sampled by a variety of artists, including Otis Redding, Beyoncé, and Lil’ Wayne. Its lyrics are also on the walls of the Contemplative Court at the National Museum of African American History and Culture.

2. “Happy Birthday” by Stevie Wonder (1980)

Without Stevie Wonder’s 1980 single “Happy Birthday” from his 19th album studio, Hotter Than July, Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday may not have become a national holiday. Wonder took a four-year hiatus from recording albums to campaign for a federally recognized holiday to commemorate King’s life and work. He worked closely with King’s widow, Coretta Scott King, organizing concerts and rallies and even attending Congressional hearings about the topic. He faced opposition from critics (Including then-president Ronald Reagan), who cited Martin Luther King’s personal character, political views, and even the cost of lost earnings as reasons why he shouldn’t get his own federal holiday. However, a bill making Martin Luther King Jr’s birthday a federal holiday passed through both houses of Congress and was signed into law by President Reagan on November 2, 1983. In 1986, Stevie Wonder performed “Happy Birthday” at “An All-Star Celebration Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.” which celebrated the passing of the bill. Musically, the track is a joyful synth-driven anthem composed and played by Wonder on a Fairlight CMI with female backing vocals that evoke a gospel choir. It’s a plea to honor a man who laid down his life for racial equality in the United States and directly opposes the detractors of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

3. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” by U2 (1984)

Martin Luther King’s life and work crossed oceans and influenced international artists like Dublin, Ireland’s U2, who included not one, but two songs about him on their 1984 multi-platinum album The Unforgettable Fire. “Pride (In the Name of Love)” was the lead single from that record, and in its third verse, U2 frontman Bono sings about the day King was assassinated at a Memphis motel. (He was in town to support a sanitation workers’ strike.) Bono’s lyrics and emotive vocals, combined with The Edge’s signature guitar sound, paint a picture of a man who was fighting for peace but was killed violently. Because they grew up and released their early albums during “The Troubles” in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland, many of U2’s songs are about wars, conflicts, and the fight for civil rights, including “Sunday Bloody Sunday” and more recently, “Walk On” about imprisoned Burmese politician Aung San Suu Kyi. “Pride” is no exception and is a celebration of Martin Luther King’s selfless, turn-the-cheek love for his fellow human beings

4. “They Killed Him” by Kris Kristofferson (1986)

Kris Kristofferson’s 1986 single “They Killed Him” from the album Repossessed is a country rock hymn to martyrdom, specifically focusing on Mahatma Gandhi, Jesus Christ, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, and, of course, Martin Luther King. Each verse lists off the good things each man did for humanity before closing with the powerful refrain, “They killed him!” According to rock critic Randall Beach, Kristofferson wrote the song after watching the 1984 Best Picture-winning biographical film Gandhi and making connections between the Indian civil rights activist and American activists, who were murdered in the prime of their lives. “They Killed Him” was also recorded by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan and covered live by the country supergroup The Highwaymen, which consisted of Kristofferson, Cash, Willie Nelson, and Waylon Jennings. “They Killed Him’s” subject matter definitely fits the outlaw country genre and provokes reflection about the senseless deaths of good men across the ages, but especially in the 1960s in the United States.

5. “My President” by Jeezy ft. Nas (2008)

“My President” by Jeezy and Nas preemptively celebrates the election of the first Black president of the United States, Barack Obama. It was recorded in June 2008 for Jeezy’s album The Recession when Obama became the Democratic nominee but wasn’t released as a single until after he won the presidential election in November. Featuring the memorable hook “My president is Black, my Lambo’s blue,” the song argues that Barack Obama becoming president is the culmination of Martin Luther King Jr.’s dream because a Black man now holds the highest office in the land. In the second verse, Jeezy talks about how Obama’s campaign has made him feel hopeful for once after experiencing and learning about so many tragedies in the world, like Hurricane Katrina (Jeezy opened his Atlanta home to Katrina survivors.), the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, and the deaths of Southern rappers Soulja Slim and Pimp C. Nas’ guest verse is hopeful as well, but after mentioning that many Black men can’t vote because of felonies, he charges Barack Obama to “never lose your integrity” hinting at the corrupting nature of power. All in all, “My President” brings Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Had a Dream” speech into the 21st century with pulsating beats from Tha Bizness and a swagger-filled message of hope, change, Lamborghinis, and spinach dip to the dark days of the Great Recession. It was also on my 2008-2009 high school basketball warm-up CD, to the delight of some and the displeasure of others, depending on their political leanings.

6. “Backseat Freestyle” by Kendrick Lamar (2012)

Kendrick Lamar opens the song “Backseat Freestyle” from his 2012 major label debut album Good Kid, M.A.A.D City with the line “Martin had a dream.” However, what follows in the track isn’t a rhymed close reading of Martin Luther King Jr.’s “I Had a Dream” speech but a pointed critique of a younger Kendrick Lamar, who solely cared about hedonism and not social justice like the current-day Lamar. Immediately after name-dropping King, the Compton, California, rapper starts discussing his sexual prowess, sports cars, drugs, and violence in a very graphic manner. Legendarily recorded in only two takes, Kendrick Lamar’s nimble flow transports the listener back in time to his teenage psyche and desire for “money and power,” which is the exact opposite of the “riches of freedom and security of justice” that Martin Luther King mentioned in his famous speech. “Backseat Freestyle” is a flashback to chapter one of K-Dot’s journey as an artist that truly blossomed in his next album, To Pimp a Butterfly, which was heavily influenced by the history of African-American music. Butterfly also featured the track “Alright,” which became an anthem for the Black Lives Matter movement, ringing out during many anti-racist and anti-police brutality protests in the late 2010s and early 2020s as “Martin’s dream” became “Kendrick’s dream.”

7. “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)” by Run the Jewels ft. Tunde Adebimpe (2016)

Numerous songs have alluded to or sampled Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech. However, hip-hop duo Run the Jewels, consisting of Atlanta rapper Killer Mike and New York rapper/producer El-P, chose to sample his “The Other America” speech instead in the outro of their track “Thieves! (Screamed the Ghost)” from the 2016 album Run the Jewels 3. This 1967 speech addresses racial and economic inequality in the United States and contains the famous line “… a riot is the language of the unheard”. Using the framing narrative of a ghost story, El-P and Killer Mike document the 2014 Ferguson unrest that happened after police officer Darren Wilson fatally shot Michael Brown and dig into the systemic reasons for the riots and protests in a similar manner to what King did in his “The Other America Speech.” For example, American prison workers produce $11 billion in goods and services while being paid virtually nothing, so Killer Mike argues that there’s a profit motive for sending people of color to prison for non-violent offenses. The inclusion of and allusions to a Martin Luther King Jr. speech in “Thieves!” also shows the cyclical nature of history because anti-Black racism and police brutality continue to be major issues in the United States decades after King’s death. With the assistance of metaphors from horror and science fiction stories in a similar manner to the films of Jordan Peele and the classic Twilight Zone television show, Run the Jewels applies Martin Luther King Jr’s speeches and ideology to current events and beyond taking aim at systemic racism and the American penal system with a ripple righteous anger offset by TV on the Radio’s Tunde Adebimpe’s pleading guest vocals in “Thieves'” bridge.

Thank you for reading this blog post, and have a restful MLK Day! Feel free to share your thoughts on the article and comment with what you’ll be listening to on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday on our Facebook, Instagram, or X posts.

-Logan Dalton

The views expressed in this blog are the staff member’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.

The 5 Best Popular Music Biopics

December 18, 2024 - 8:15 pm

Welcome to the Center for Popular Music (CPM) blog! This blog is edited by CPM librarian and popular culture critic, Logan Dalton. It will showcase items and collections in our Archive and Reading Room and connect them to current happenings in the world of popular music through list, feature, interview, and review articles. This blog will be more in-depth than our social media posts, less in-depth than an academic article, and often have a companion playlist on the CPM Spotify account.

Best Popular Music Biopics Playlist

In honor of the upcoming Bob Dylan biopic A Complete Unknown, starring Timothée Chalamet as the legendary singer-songwriter, our first blog article breaks down the five best popular music biopics. (Unfortunately, the CGI-chimp starring Robbie Williams biopic Better Man is being released in January and didn’t make the cut for consideration despite getting surprisingly good advance reviews.)

5. Weird: The Al Yankovic Story (2022)

Sadly, Dewey Cox isn’t an actual person, so the 2007 rock biopic spoof Walk Hard wasn’t eligible for inclusion on this list. However, despite flights of fancy featuring Madonna (An unhinged Evan Rachel Wood) and Pablo Escobar, Weird: The Al Yankovic Story does have biographical information about the master of popular music parody and is eligible. “Weird Al” Yankovic himself co-wrote the film, and it stars Daniel Radcliffe, who continues to choose roles that are the polar opposite of Harry Potter. Weird explores actual elements of Yankovic’s life and influences like his love for polka music, his relationship with the eccentric radio host Dr. Demento, and even the idea of the “Yankovic bump” where if “Weird Al” Yankovic parodied a song, it would get a sales and airplay boost. But it turns these real-life incidents, like Yankovic getting his first accordion from a door-to-door salesman and Madonna asking him to parody “Like A Virgin”, up to eleven for maximum comedy gold. By the time Weird reaches an action-packed climax, Radcliffe loses himself in rock’n’roll excess and sheer silliness as classic “Weird Al” Yankovic cuts like “Eat It” and “Amish Paradise” find new life in the heightened reality of the film.

4. Straight Outta Compton (2015)

Although it hews a little too closely to hagiography because of Dr. Dre and Ice Cube’s involvement as producers, Straight Outta Compton captures the limitless energy of West Coast gangster rap in the 1980s and 1990s and chronicles the birth, death, and resurrection of hip hop group N.W.A. and its key members Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, and Eazy-E. Director F. Gary Gray’s action chop on films like Set It Off and The Negotiator serve him well in building tension in sequences like the opening police raid on Eazy-E’s stash house to any time Death Row Records co-founder Suge Knight (A menacing R. Marcos Taylor) appears in the frame. The standout performance in Straight Outta Compton is O’Shea Jackson Jr. as his father, Ice Cube. Jackson channels the seemingly contradictory rage, creativity, and humor of the artist responsible for the anti-Semitism and homophobia of “No Vaseline” but also the soulful vignettes of “It Was A Good Day” and the raucous comedy of the Friday screenplay. Because some of its events coincide with the 1992 Los Angeles riots, Straight Outta Compton has a lot of social commentary about police brutality and systemic racism. However, the film is at its most effective when it shows the power of music to escape one’s circumstances, like an early scene where Dr. Dre (Corey Hawkins) sprawls out on the floor at his mother’s apartment, listens to Roy Ayers records, and mentally starts to put the funk into the G-funk subgenre of hip hop.

3. 24 Hour Party People (2002)

The 2002 British film 24 Hour Party People isn’t just a biopic of a single figure, but surveys the entire indie/rock/dance music scene in Manchester from 1976 to the late 1990s centered around Factory Records founder Tony Wilson (Steve Coogan) and the Hacienda night club, which was co-owned by the members of New Order. At times, the movie resembles a documentary, like a sequence with early concert footage of the Sex Pistols playing at Lesser Free Trade Hall. However, it occasionally plays fast and loose with the facts, like a cheeky scene where Buzzcocks frontman Howard Devoto (Played by Coronation Street actor Martin Hancock) is having an affair with Wilson’s first wife, and the actual Devoto turns to the camera and states that this actually never happened. Director Michael Winterbotham juggles a whole range of tones in 24 Hour Party People, from solemn after Ian Curtis (A heartbreaking Sean Harris) dies by suicide to frenetic and stressful as the Happy Mondays use the last of Factory Records’ cash to record a missing-the-vocal-tracks stinker of a record in Barbados. The film is a showcase for a generation of British character actors, like Simon Pegg, Paddy Considine, and, of course, Coogan, to pay homage to their guitar, rave, and synth heroes and a rare time and place when art for art’s sake and not just commercial gain had the upper hand for once. (Of course, the Hacienda is luxury apartments now.)

2. Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980)

Featuring an Academy Award-winning acting and singing performance from Sissy Spacek, Coal Miner’s Daughter is the gold standard for traditional popular music biopics. It follows the rise of “The First Lady of Country Music” from an impoverished upbringing as one of eight children in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, to marrying hard-drinking, fast-driving former military man Doolittle “Mooney” Lynn (Tommy Lee Jones) at 15 and finally finding fame as a country singer-songwriter and one of the Grand Ole Opry’s brightest stars. Spacek brings a naivete and vulnerability to the role of Lynn without making her the butt of the joke, and her warm chemistry with Beverly D’Angelo’s Patsy Cline is easily one of the highlights of the film and provides a counterbalance to Lynn’s turbulent relationship with Mooney. Coal Miner’s Daughter spends most of its runtime in Appalachia and rural Washington, establishing a wellspring of authenticity from which Loretta Lynn’s songs bubble up and reach the masses as the story progresses. The cherry on top of this biopic is getting a glimpse of pre-tourist-destination Nashville, including cameos from Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff, and Minnie Pearl as themselves.

1. I’m Not There (2007)

Director Todd Haynes already explored fame and musicians in his 1987 directorial debut Superstar: The Karen Carpenter Story and the 1998 glam rock fever dream Velvet Goldmine, but I’m Not There is basically his doctoral dissertation on the subject matter featuring six actors of different genders, races, and ages representing and playing aspects of Bob Dylan’s personality, body of work, and influences. There’s the precociously brilliant Marcus Carl Franklin embodying Dylan’s Depression-era blues and folk roots as he rides the rails hoping to catch a glimpse of his hero and namesake Woody Guthrie, and Ben Whishaw’s Arthur Rimbaud providing poetic insights in stark black and white film stock. Then, there’s Jack Rollins (Christian Bale), whose “finger-pointing” songs take the folk scene by storm and lead to a biopic within a biopic starring Robbie Clark (Heath Ledger), who epitomizes the rebelliousness (and male chauvinism) of the actors in New Hollywood films like Easy Rider. There is also the aging outlaw charms of Billy the Kid (Richard Gere), whose story is a slice-of-life Western about urbanization destroying the simple life on the frontier. However, a chameleon-like Cate Blanchett’s Jude Quinn is the most compelling character in the film and brings in a burst of life and controversy when he “sells out” and “goes electric” with fans, critics, and “friends” fighting for a piece of his identity and projecting themselves on him. I’m Not There transcends the biopic genre, uses the iconic figure of Bob Dylan to provide insightful commentary on the history of American popular music, and also acts as a visually fragmented portrait of the man himself, even though his name is never spoken in the film.

Honorable mentions: Runaways, Sid and Nancy, Elvis (1979), La Bamba, Ray, Selena, 8-Mile, Walk the Line, The Doors, Get On Up, Cadillac Records, Bird, Control

We hope you enjoyed this first CPM blog post. Feel free to comment with your thoughts or your own personal favorite popular music biographical film on our Facebook, Instagram, or X posts.

-Logan Dalton

The views expressed in this blog are the staff member’s own and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Center for Popular Music and Middle Tennessee State University.

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December 10, 2024 - 3:30 pm

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