Right about now, the only time I really care to hear “Hail to the Chief” is when it’s played by the McKinley High band on the penultimate episode of Freaks and Geeks (the one where Vice President George Bush visits the school, and Ben Stiller guest stars as a disgruntled Secret Service agent). For others with a great deal more fondness for Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief than the U.S. presidential anthem, here’s a look at some of the most powerful protest songs of yesterday and today.

On the Barnard Bulletin list of “top 10 protest songs of our generation,” Roz Eggebroten name-checks Bright Eyes, a favorite for ThisNexters Ambrosia and hurricanelindsay. “This tune sings like a rambling poetic rant against Bush complete with country-influenced guitar riffs behind a frantic western drawl,” says Roz of “When the President Talks to God,” a UK single taken from the 2005 album I’m Wide Awake, It’s Morning.

One of Bright Eyes’s greatest influences, Bob Dylan gives us one of the most gripping protest songs of all time with “Masters of War,” available on the revolutionarygirl-recommended Limited Edition Catalog Box Set. With that classic Dylan ability to “bring out social frustrations” - as Ilse Eriksson puts it in her shopcast for No Direction Home: Bob Dylan - the 1963 song “remains strikingly relevant today,” notes Tad at Sand is Overrated (whose post graciously provides an mp3).

Another master of the protest song, Neil Young has given us countless politically charged classics over the course of his decades-spanning career. You can go for timeless tracks such as “Rockin’ in The Free World,” “Ohio,” and “Southern Man” (all available on Neil Young’s Greatest Hits), or you can turn to a new number like “Let’s Impeach the President.” Culture Bully offers an mp3 of the 2006 rant, while 500 Words praises the way that Young “raises his voice and sings about injustice in much the same way that he has for his entire career.”

Patti Smith may not be as heavily played on classic rock radio as Young and Dylan, but her political passion has only become more inspiring over the years. In fact, “People Have the Power,” which Bill Bradley adopted as his campaign song during the 2000 presidential election, is perhaps even more stirring today than when originally released in 1988. In a recent post, Left in the Dust dropped a few lines from the song (available on the must-have double disc Land), announcing that “it’s time to ‘…wrestle the world from fools.’”

Often mentioned in the same breath as Patti Smith, Sleater-Kinney turned in “one of the first true post-9/11 protest records” with 2002’s One Beat, says Doing the Dance. At Heartache with Hard Work you can score an mp3 of “Combat Rock,” which blogger Charles Olney says “questions the uniformity of response to 9-11 and notes the dearth of musical protest to the Administration’s responses.”

And one of my most beloved protest songs will always be the very unsubtle “Youth Against Fascism” from Sonic Youth’s 1992 record Dirty (also a favorite for Three). The Anita Hill and L.A. riot references are quite dated now, and a line as simple as “The president sucks” may not be nearly as poetic as those crafted by Bob Dylan or Patti Smith, but it sure gets you all riled up still.