Music has always been the heartbeat of London dissent. During today’s event, a sound system strapped to a bike trailer is blasting an unlikely mix: The Clash’s “London Calling,” Little Mix’s “Power,” and, oddly, Bon Iver’s “Skinny Love”—because even activists get melancholy. The DJ, a woman named Clara with purple hair, told me she’s curating a playlist called “Resist and Releaf” that goes from punk to folk to ambient. “Anger needs a soundtrack,” she said, “but so does hope.”
A spontaneous singalong broke out when someone started humming “I Will Always Love You” by Whitney Houston—not as a ballad, but as a sarcastic reclamation of the city’s housing market. It was weird, beautiful, and deeply London. That’s the magic: a protest can feel like a festival of collective exasperation.
