I think that it is fair to say that all of the artists that I have taken the liberty of posting here are great artists performing at peak form, that all of the work is moving, and that all of it, by intention and design, is implicitly to overtly political (closer to overtly), and that the political views are expressed with intelligence, subtlety, grace, humor, and depth of feeling.

This is a late 20th century masterpiece.
Lyrics, by a leader of the Attica uprising. He was killed.

"I think the combination of age and a greater coming together is responsible for the speed of the passing time. It’s six months now, and I can tell you truthfully few periods in my life have passed so quickly. I am in excellent physical and emotional health. There are doubtless subtle surprises ahead, but I feel secure and ready. As lovers will contrast their emotions in times of crisis, so am I dealing with my environment. In the indifferent brutality, the incessant noise, the experimental chemistry of food, the ravings of lost hysterical men, I can act with clarity and meaning. I am deliberate, sometimes even calculating, seldom employing histrionics except as a test of the reactions of others. I read much, exercise, talk to guards and inmates, feeling for the inevitable direction of my life."

Give it a minute or two. Unless you have good audio, the opening few minutes of notes are barely audible. 
 

Mimi is Joan Baez’s kid sister.
Richard was a beat poet and writer most famous for his only novel that he completed “Been Down So Long It Looks Like Up To Me” before he died in a motorcycle accident in his late 20s.

”It’s a protest song!”

@mahgister 

I met both Oppens and Rzewski when I was attending The Cooper Union. Dore Ashton, the highly regarded art history scholar, Dean of the art school, a card-carrying communist and the most important influence on my intellectual development, didn’t need any excuses to veer off topic and bring people like them in to speak to her classes. 
 

I was very blessed. 

God Save the Queen by the Sex Pistols comes to mind.

The entire Blows Against the Empire album by Paul Kantner and The Planet Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra is another, as are Volunteers, Crown of Creation by the Airplane.

Then there’s Gorecki’s Symphony #3. Sorta relevant given the sadness that is Ukraine today:

Words Accompanying
Górecki’s Symphony No. 3
(in translation)

First Movement

My son, my chosen and beloved
Share your wounds with your mother
And because, dear son, I have always carried you in my heart,
And always served you faithfully
Speak to your mother, to make her happy,
Although you are already leaving me, my cherished hope.
(Lamentation of the Holy Cross Monastery from the "Lysagóra Songs" collection. Second half of the 15th century)

Second Movement

No, Mother, do not weep,
Most chaste Queen of Heaven
Support me always.
"Zdrowas Mario." (*)
(Prayer inscribed on wall 3 of cell no. 3 in the basement of "Palace," the Gestapo’s headquarters in Zadopane; beneath is the signature of Helena Wanda Blazusiakówna, and the words "18 years old, imprisoned since 26 September 1944.")
(*) "Zdrowas Mario" (Ave Maria)—the opening of the Polish prayer to the Holy Mother

Third Movement

Where has he gone
My dearest son?
Perhaps during the uprising
The cruel enemy killed him

Ah, you bad people
In the name of God, the most Holy,
Tell me, why did you kill
My son?

Never again
Will I have his support
Even if I cry
My old eyes out

Were my bitter tears
to create another River Oder
They would not restore to life
My son

He lies in his grave
and I know not where
Though I keep asking people
Everywhere

Perhaps the poor child
Lies in a rough ditch
and instead he could have been
lying in his warm bed

Oh, sing for him
God’s little song-birds
Since his mother
Cannot find him

And you, God’s little flowers
May you blossom all around
So that my son
May sleep happily
(Folk song in the dialect of the Opole region)

As someone who is an artist himself, and whose work involved political commentary and often found himself in court over speech and other constitutional issues (see https://www.oyez.org/cases/1994/93-1525), I find this discussion to be impossibly binary. 

@mahgister 

i have all of his work on LP. I have the Oppens performance of People United, but the performance I shared here by a student at SUNY Stonybrook is remarkable. 

The performance of Cottonmill Blues shared here is also insanely good. 

Of course, Rzewski’s performances are not to be missed. Most can be found on YouTube these days. 

I have the performance on an HMV 78 in near mint condition. Hard to find on YouTube in similar shape. I guess I’m lucky: I’ll have to put it online myself.
This is it for today. 

I lied. One more, by the great Laura Nyro. I love the way she curls up her hands into fists and pounds the keyboard at 0:23

@mahgister

Likewise.
check out the link to the oral argument in my case that was decided by SCOTUS, Scalia opinion in my favor (yes, dialectical materialists and Originalists  can see eye to eye). Have a good weekend.

Who among us of a certain age can forget this chestnut. With a few changes, it could have been written yesterday