Song of the Day: Drive-By Truckers - Surrender Under Protest

Every Monday through Friday, we deliver a different song as part of our Song of the Day podcast subscription. This podcast features exclusive KEXP in-studio performances, unreleased songs, and recordings from independent artists that our DJs think you should hear. Today’s song, featured on the Midday Show with Cheryl Waters, comes from Athens Americana veterans Drive-By Truckers. "Surrender Under Protest" is the first single from their politically charged upcoming album, American Band, out September 30 on ATO Records.

Drive-By Truckers - Surrender Under Protest (MP3)Twenty years deep into Drive-By Truckers' amazing history as a rock band, they continue to find new inspiration from our ever evolving, and oftentimes maddening world. Of "Surrender Under Protest", Mike Cooley said the following: "'Surrender Under Protest' is... unlike any DBT song we've ever recorded... These are crazy times and we have made a record steeped in this moment of history that we're all trying to live through". If anyone can tell the story of 2016 America in an effective way, it's Drive-By Truckers. Their rich legacy, steeped in southern history and heritage, provides a foundation and an anchor for a time in constant flux. "Surrender Under Protest" is a protest song unlike any other, in that it begs for listening ears, in a time where everyone seems to be shouting with their ears covered. "Compelled, but not defeated", he sings on the chorus, "surrender under protest if you must". It's a song that empathizes with so many Americans who feel that no one candidate can champion their struggle with totality. But it's this admittance that allows for deeper conversation, deeper beyond an assurance of ideology, instead moving into collective action. Like Mike Cooley had described it, "Surrender Under Protest" is indeed unlike any DBT song around, but it's also exactly the type of song the world needs from them right now. It sets the stage for the ideas the band will dive headlong into on this record: what it means in 2016 to work your day job with conviction. For Cooley and Patterson Hood and the rest of Drive-By Truckers, it's what it means to be an American band.

Grab "Surrender Under Protest" above, and make sure to check out the rest of the band's eleventh studio album American Band when it drops September 30 on ATO Records. Drive-By Truckers will tour in support of the album, and they will be at Showbox on September 29, with support from Lydia Loveless. To see a full list of tour dates and to find more music, check the band's website and Facebook page. For now, watch a live version of "What It Means", the latest single from the forthcoming album: