The songs that made me travel differently

The songs that made me travel differently. For me, it began with Neil Young's Rockin' in the Free World in 1989, two years after I travelled around the world.

Photo. Rockin` in the Free World (1989) by Neil Young. A different kind of map for seeing the real world. Generated by DALL·E 2 - Chat GTP4 from OpenAI. 

Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World" (1989) is often mistaken for a patriotic anthem because of its huge, anthemic chorus. In reality, it's a deeply ironic protest song about the gap between the American ideal of freedom and the lives of many ordinary people.

I wasn't prepared for what I saw during my first long journey. The poverty, homelessness, addiction and inequality were unlike anything I had experienced before and changed the way I saw the world.

What protest music taught me about travelling

During my year travelling around the world, I saw many of the same realities that Neil Young was singing about. Poverty, people sleeping rough, drug addiction and people struggling simply to get by weren't distant issues any more; they were part of the places I was visiting. It made the song feel less like a political statement and more like an observation about the world. Travelling didn't give me all the answers, but it made the questions in those lyrics much harder to ignore.

During my year travelling around the world, I visited dark places in the USA, South African townships, Brazilian favelas and other communities where poverty, inequality, homelessness and addiction were part of everyday life. Neil Young's lyrics no longer felt like a commentary on someone else's world; they echoed what I was seeing with my own eyes.

I began searching for music that challenged me in the same way. Political music became an unexpected guide to the places, people and histories I encountered along the way. The Clash led me towards questions of war, racism and unemployment. The Jam wrote about British society, class and the political tensions of their time. Chumbawamba introduced me to anarchist ideas, challenging capitalism, consumerism, nationalism and social inequality while championing workers' rights, anti-fascism and direct action, while Gang of Four examined many of the same themes through a sharp critique of capitalism, consumer culture and power.

The Tom Robinson Band, Dead Kennedys, Manic Street Preachers, and Billy Bragg showed me that politics could be deeply personal rather than simply ideological. Their songs encourage listeners to question power, history and the stories societies tell themselves, rather than simply expressing anger or protest.

One of my biggest favourites are "Beds Are Burning" by Midnight Oil. As I see it, it`s one of the most important political rock songs ever written, and that is because it connects music so well with travel, history and Indigenous perspectives.

Not to forget Dead Kennedys with satirical, sharp critiques of American politics and consumer culture, and Propagandhi with technically brilliant melodic hardcore covering anti-capitalism, animal rights and foreign policy.

The good old band Proletariat fascinated me for a different reason. Emerging from Boston's early-1980s punk scene, they drew heavily on British post-punk bands such as Wire and Gang of Four. Even their name pointed directly towards class, labour and Marxist ideas.

The music that really opened my eyes

Then came heavier sounds. Rage Against the Machine, System of a Down and Body Count turned political anger into something almost tangible. More recently, bands such as IDLES, High Vis, Home Front and Dead Pioneers reminded me that this tradition never disappeared. The circumstances changed, but the questions remained.

Then I recently discovered the Irish avant-garde punk artist Meryl Streek, who confronts institutional abuse, power and accountability with an uncompromising blend of spoken word and punk.

So discovered Dead Pioneers, and the perspective shifted again. Their music confronts colonialism, Indigenous experience, inequality and the stories nations tell about themselves. It echoed something I had encountered repeatedly while travelling: history depends enormously on who is telling it.

A monument can celebrate a pioneer. A history book can describe a conquest. A border can seem permanent on a map. But stand in the same place with someone whose ancestors experienced those events from the other side, and the story changes.

These are the artists and music that changed not only what I listened to, but how I travelled.

Travelling beyond the postcards

That is where music and travel came together for me. From High Vis and Home Front to Dead Pioneers, I kept hearing different versions of the same unsettling question: whose world are we actually looking at?

As I travelled, I began noticing things I might once have walked past: workers leaving before dawn, abandoned factories, strike memorials, Indigenous histories, political graffiti and neighbourhoods reshaped by money and power.

Perhaps political music became a different kind of travel guide. It taught me that adventure is not simply about reaching remote mountains, deserts, ancient wonders or forgotten places. Sometimes the greater adventure is questioning the story you arrived with.

Dead Pioneers marked another turning point. Until then, I had mainly listened to songs about class and political struggle. They pushed me to ask a broader question: who gets to write history in the first place?

Some songs that change the way I see the world: 

• Neil Young – Rockin' in the Free World
• The Clash – Clampdown
• Gang of Four – Natural's Not in It 
• Chumbawamba – Enough Is Enough 
• Manic Street Preachers – If You Tolerate This Your Children Will Be Next 
• Rage Against the Machine – People of the Sun 
• Dead Pioneers – Bad Indian 

Once you begin listening to the people who experienced history from the other side, even familiar landscapes start to look different. Perhaps that is what these songs ultimately gave me: a different kind of map. They taught me that adventure is not only about reaching remote mountains, ruins or forgotten roads. It can also mean stepping into someone else's history and trying to understand what made people organise, protest, fight, sing, or simply refuse to accept the world as it was.

The music that taught me to look closer

Just as Neil Young`s song, Rockin`in the Free World, I realise now that a song could sound celebratory while delivering a sharp political critique. That discovery naturally leads into artists such as The Clash, Chumbawamba, Gang of Four, System of a Dawn, Home Front, Body Count and Dead Pioneers, all of whom also use music to challenge accepted narratives.

The further I travelled, the more I realised the songs were never taking me away from the world. They were teaching me how to see it.

Stein Morten Lund, August 2026