So many to choose from. Here's a few:

Alice's Restaurant - Arlo Guthrie

The Times They are A-Changing - Bob Dylan

Volunteers - Jefferson Airplane

US Blues - Grateful Dead

Lives in the Balance - Jackson Brown

Fortunate Son - CCR

chopper wrote:  Is Us and Them particularly left-wing? I thought it was more anti-war.

Same thing :)

There's more to it. Power. Conformity. Corruption. Racism.

Not to get off-topic, but Hitler was a fascist. Mao and Stalin were not Communists, either. One minute Mussolini called himself a Socialist, and then being an opportunist, started the Fascist Party. Just look up the political definitions. Communism (and capitalism) has never happened.

SteveG wrote: Why are anti war songs considered left wing? Songs that propose socialist reforms and pro union stances are left wing. For those you have to go back to Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger singing songs like Union Maid. Most of the songs listed above are "protest songs" and don't always conform to some ideology.

You're right - Guthrie and Seeger are the best examples, but things changed in the decades to come. You had the entire country behind WWII, but with Vietnam, it was the first time a large part of the country was against the war. I think that was the big issue of the day, and with that war and all its financial cost, there could be no funding of "The Great Society".

Chronologically speaking, you wouldn't have protest songs after we had real change with FDR, for example. After Truman's Taft-Hartley Act, there wasn't a revival among folk singers about unions. We only had Jimmy Hoffa, another misunderstood man. Stupid movies being referenced as history drives me crazy, because it's what people remember the most.

And no, YOU don't make sense... LBJ - a left-winger? Gimme a break... Was that before or after he called to abolish private property? Changing the modes of production? The workers taking over.

Get a dictionary, man. Otherwise, you're talking bullsh*t.

I did my thesis on this exact subject in 1975! Finally , someone who has read history! The difference between a pundit/blogger/commentator and a historian is that the latter seeks out both or multiple sides of the issue , "Le pour et le contre" in French and then synthesizes (it is a prog site after all) into a factual, unbiased essay. Fascist and Socialist have been the 2 sides of the same coin for centuries and to think that in this "enlightened" 21st century, that we still have ONLY two vulgar failures to root for or against is another sign of our small pettiness in this 'Internet is my psychiatrist' age. To prove the point , the new twist is to play with labels , saying that this is not fascism and this is not communism! LABELS that only prove that the point is actually COMMON-ism , aka Same ole crapola since Eden. The amount of lying, deceit, omission, deception and misrepresentation online is monstrous. The only left wing and right wing that matters are on birds, it helps them fly.....

From the British-American area I would pick several early Dylan songs, and a lot of songs from The Clash - Sandinista.

Left-wing rock was very dominant in Scandinavia in the 1970's. In Denmark the most famous band was probably Røde Mor (Red Mother). One of my favourites is this moving song to Salvador Allende:

 

The Waterboys - Red Army Blues

 

nothing beats this:

and of course the songs of the German band Ton, Steine, Scherben (German for "Clay, Stones, Shards"). the names of two of their songs, "Keine Macht für Niemand" ("No Power for No-one") and "Macht kaputt was euch kaputt macht" ("Break what breaks you") became left-wing slogans in Germany in the 70s

The power of equality - Red Hot Chilipeppers

Fight the power - Public Enemy

The age of self - Robert Wyatt

Sci Finance(revisited) - Peter Hammill

Sun City Night life - Peter Hammill (anti apartheid song)

Big Money - Rush (to me it's left wing anyway because any song that calls out "big money" more or less is)

Don't kill the whale -Yes (how many right wing conservatives work for green peace?)

Mostly for the pun plus the fact that people always call out for it at concerts. More of a joke than anything else. Left wing folks believe in freedom and right wingers just think they do. So it could be interpreted either way although it's very unlikely LS were left wing.

I don't remember all of it....sadly it's much of the best bits I can't recall.

Most songs by Midnight Oil.

Oh, and the obvious Part of The Union by The Strawbs.