In 1991, a political activist challenged R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe with one of the musician's own lyrics. "The time to rise has been engaged," the activist said, summoning a line from "Finest Worksong" to provoke Stipe to take more definitive action against the Gulf War.

Stipe responded with another of his own lyrics, this one from "Talk About the Passion." "Not everyone can carry the weight," Stipe said. "I'm going to breakfast. See you later."

Three decades earlier, Bob Dylan expressed a similar sentiment when he introduced his first performance of "Blowin' in the Wind" with the statement, "This here ain't no protest song or anything like that, 'cause I don't write no protest songs."

These and countless other examples illustrate the strained relationship that musicians have with their own "protest songs." The performers learn rather quickly to avoid the pitfalls of being politicized and allowing the media to transform them into heroic effigies that will have their brains promptly bashed in by fans resentful of the fact that musicians can't actually save the world.

Yet, despite those misgivings, the lure of the protest song seems almost inescapable for most acts who stay in the game for any length of time.

This strained relationship extends to the fans, as well. The same people who search hungrily for songs to fill their need for moral outrage one day will deride the music as pretentious and empty-headed the next.

Through it all, the protest song persists, occasionally making its way into the popular culture. In this quiz, we explore ten protest songs that made particularly potent impressions.