Dropkick Murphys album “For The People” on July 4th

"You've given the powerful even more power," the singer practically spits out these words. "And now we live in a hell on earth." In America these days, "knowledge is the victim" and "everyone craves the lies." Ken Casey paints grim pictures in the new Dropkick Murphys song "Fiending for The Lies": "The children are running, help isn't forthcoming, the guns are talking." A furious song about the America of the MAGA president on a (mostly) furious album.

In the song, Casey barks that those in power have blinded the people, saying they've "driven our minds crazy." "Don't be fooled by distractions, / it's all made up. / Fact is fiction, we're all so full of wisdom. / We're drowning in a wave of misinformation / designed to divide. / Man, we really need to pay attention!" It's also a broadside against official distortions of the truth and hate on social media.

Plain language instead of poetic euphemisms. It's no coincidence that "For The People" is released – initially digitally (then in October with five bonus tracks on CD and vinyl) – on the People's Day, the "Independence Day," the day on which the United States was born in 1776, and the day on which the separation of the 13 colonies from Great Britain was proclaimed by the Declaration of Independence. July 4, 1776, was America's "No Kings" Day.

The cover features the black rose of mourning, and behind it, in monochrome blue, are protesters against the Trump regime, with placards reading “Veterans are not government trash,” “Hands off our jobs,” and “No Kings”—two words that these days represent the rebellious awakening of Americans.

249 years after its beginning, US democracy is in danger of becoming unrecognizable - due to an erratic, vindictive and increasingly undemocratic First Man who vainly wants to see himself on Mount Rushmore and on dollar bills, has a strange affinity for Russian dictator Vladimir Putin and dreams of Greenland, Canada and at the same time of the Nobel Peace Prize - while he is currently scaling back support for Ukraine, which is being attacked by Russia.

So the alarm music fits – crashing, rattling punk rock. There's usually a lot of Irish folk in it, which makes it more pleasing. The Dropkick Murphys, founded in 1996 in Quincy, Massachusetts, are rough-and-tumble working-class rockers, following in the musical traditions of the Anglo-Irish Pogues around Shane MacGowan, who founded folk punk in the early 1980s, and of American protest culture, as demonstrated by their punk "translation" of the gospel song "We Shall Overcome," one of the most important songs of the 1960s civil rights movement.

Based in Boston, they are arguably the best-known Celtic punk band of our time. Singer and bassist Ken Casey is the only remaining founding member of the sextet, which had veritable hits with "I'm Shipping Up To Boston" (lyrics by political folk legend Woody Guthrie) and "Rose Tattoo" (also available as a duet with Bruce Springsteen), and has always been politically positioned on the side of freedom.

Most recently, they released the acoustic albums "This Machine Still Kills Fascists" (2022) and "Okemah Rising" (2023), on which they recorded unmusiced lyrics by Guthrie - similar to the Chicago band Wilco with the English songwriter and left-wing political activist Billy Bragg.

Now for "For The People." Bagpipes, flutes, rock-hard guitars: "Don't tell us everything's fine," roars Casey in the resistance song "Who'll Stand With Us?", which builds a proletarian self-confidence "in tyrannis." "Working people power the engine / while you pull the chain. / We fight the wars, build the buildings / for the profit of others." Today, the rich, the US "broligarchs" (aka tech billionaires), are richer than ever and sow discord among the people. "We're at each other's throats / even though we share the same fate / and the golden few laugh and laugh / while we take their bait."

The video for the song touches on a sore spot that Dropkick Murphys friend Springsteen addresses at his European concerts. The clip addresses the raids, arrests, and deportations of so-called illegal immigrants on the orders of the US government. People disappear as if the US were a dictatorship. In the video, a woman sticks a poster with the picture and name of a missing family member on a wall.

Meanwhile, as reported on July 3 by the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, among others, the president is enjoying the temporary prison "Alligator Alcatraz" in the Florida swamps, located in the middle of Hurricane Alley. He wants to have the "illegals" housed there taught to run in a zigzag pattern, the president joked, which would increase the chances of escaping the reptiles "by one percent."

Those who are strong enough are called upon to unite for the cause of the weak – as has always been the case in the lyrics of the blue-collar folk punks from Boston. But something has changed in the attitude, as Ken Casey says. "These days, I'm thinking primarily about the future of my children," Casey says, "and the next generation."

He wants a free life for them, and in the folk-rock waltz "Bury The Bones" – together with the Irish Mary Wallopers – he prophesies the downfall of America's powerful: "You spread your hatred to divide us / you want us afraid and alone. / But soon you will fall from grace / when you are dragged from your high throne." The name Trump remains unmentioned; that is tradition, making protest songs reusable for other times and other overthrowrs of democracy.

The Dropkick Murphys aren't just neck-deep in anger here. There are also more moderate, albeit serious, songs than those mentioned. "School Days Over" opens with the melody of "Amazing Grace," and in this piece about the end of childhood at 13 and subsequent hard manual labor in anthracite coal mines, Casey England's protest voice is joined on the microphone by Billy Bragg.

There's one more for Al Barr, the Dropkick Murphys singer, who left the band in 2022 to care for his mother, who was suffering from dementia and Parkinson's disease. In "The Vultures Circle High," he sings of an evil ruler who makes provisions for a heroic view of him by posterity.

And finally, they whirl over the green hills in a polka gallop. With "One Last Goodbye," Casey's men, together with The Scratch from Dublin, tip their hats to Shane MacGowan, the founder and first singer of the Pogues, who died in 2023 and is cult-worshipped by his fans. "We'll never see a man like you again," the Murphys are certain. "We've cried into a million empty bottles," they allude to MacGowan's dramatic penchant for whiskey. And then – under the sign of the black rose: "The hero goes down, / one last goodbye!"

The Dropkick Murphys put it bluntly. Demonstrations are currently underway under the Murphys' black rose. "It's great that the black rose from the cover of our new album 'For The People' has already been seen at rallies in Florida, Connecticut, Vermont, and Idaho," the band wrote on their Instagram account. As the Murphys emphasize, "the black rose also symbolizes change, renewal, rebirth, and new beginnings," and is associated with "courage, confidence, strength, and power."

It goes without saying that this band means all power for the people.

In the Name of the Rose: The cover of the album "For The People" features the symbolic Black Rose, with demonstrators against the Trump regime behind it.

Source: PIAS

Dropkick Murphys – “For The People” (Dummy Luck/Play It Again, Sam-Records) – released digitally, and on October 10th also on CD and vinyl (with five bonus tracks)

Dropkick Murphys live October 16, 2025 – Stuttgart, Porsche Arena; October 29, Hamburg – Sporthalle; October 31 – Leipzig, Arena; November 1 – Lingen, Emsland Arena; November 3 and 4 – Cologne, Palladium; November 11 – Würzburg, Posthalle; November 13 – Wiesbaden, Schlachthof.