A Protest Folk Anthem for Troubled Times

“Los Angeles Is Burning”
A Protest Folk Anthem for Troubled Times

INTRODUCTION (spoken, slow acoustic strum)
In the city of angels, a storm has awoken,
Where fire speaks louder than any word spoken.
Steel birds in the sky and boots on the ground,
When freedom cries out, do we silence the sound?

STANZA 1
Down in the streets of the neon sprawl,
Footsteps rise like a battle call.
From Compton corners to downtown flame,
The voices cry, but who takes the blame?
ICE came knocking, one hundred strong,
Now the people chant: “You did us wrong!”

STANZA 2
The Guard rolled in with rifles tight,
Under orders to crush the night.
They lined up near detention gates,
Where fire met fate, and silence waits.
A flag was raised—red, white, and green—
Above a blaze where truth had been.

STANZA 3
Flash-bangs thunder and tear gas stings,
Rubber bullets clip the wings
Of press and people side by side,
While leaders mock and truths divide.
The governor shrugs, the mayor stalls,
But justice dances through broken walls.

STANZA 4
Waymo cars in blazing ruin,
Streets like drums, a nation stewin’.
Freeway blocked with human chains,
All for lives they tried to detain.
A masked face near a car aflame—
We all have seen, and none’s the same.

CHORUS
Oh, Los Angeles is burning bright,
Not from joy but from the fight.
They call it riot, we call it plea,
For the shackled soul of liberty.
Raise your voice or raise your fist,
But do not dare pretend this don’t exist.

BRIDGE
Who owns the sky above our heads?
Who writes the lines the soldier treads?
Do borders bleed? Do papers breathe?
Does fire speak more than what we read?
Where is the law when law forgets
That men are more than silhouettes?

CODA
Sirens echo, morning yawns,
And something sacred is withdrawn.
The smoke still lingers, not from ash—
But from the truth we cannot stash.
And though they paint the night as crime,
The spark has leapt across all time.

EPILOGUE (spoken, fading banjo)
So ask yourself before the sun is high:
Are we the watchers… or the reason why?
When the system shakes and the streetlamp blinks,
Who decides what freedom thinks?
Sing it soft. Sing it loud.
But sing it true—
The streets remember…
even if the cameras do not.