Song · Rise Against
“Prayer of the Refugee” by Rise Against
From the album The Sufferer & The Witness (2006)
“Prayer of the Refugee” by Rise Against appears on 22 radio countdowns from 13 stations between 2006 and 2023. It was first released in 2006 on the album The Sufferer & The Witness. Its best result is #5 on the KROQ Top 106.7 Songs of 2007. In the combined RockLists rankings it is the #23 alternative song of 2007, #2,840 alternative song of all time and #282 of the '00s.
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Video from YouTube (RiseAgainstVEVO). Pressing play loads YouTube's player. Watch on YouTube
"Prayer of the Refugee" was the second single from Rise Against's fourth album, The Sufferer & the Witness, in 2006, and it's punk with a conscience and a slow fuse. Tim McIlrath wrote the words about people forced out of their homes and everything that follows refugees wherever they land. The band builds it on push and pull: brooding, mournful verses, then choruses that explode into a frantic, full-throttle rush, with McIlrath and Chris Chasse on guitars, Joe Principe on bass and Brandon Barnes on drums. Bill Stevenson and Jason Livermore produced and recorded it, and Chris Lord-Alge mixed.
It climbed to number seven on the Alternative Songs chart and later went platinum. The video puts the band in a big retail store and cuts to foreign workers making the goods on its shelves, a jab at the way business as usual can let human rights abuses slide.
Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.
RockLists rankings
Alternative & Modern Rock
All Rock Formats
Year-end countdowns
All-time and decade countdowns
| Year | # | Station | Countdown | of |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2008 | 299 | KROQ | KROQ Flashback 500 (Memorial Day 2008) | 500 |
| 2009 | 95 | CFNY 102.1 The Edge | 102.1 The Edge Top 200 Songs of All-Time (2009) | 200 |
| 2010 | 104 | CFNY 102.1 The Edge | 102.1 The Edge Top 200 New Rock Songs of the Millennium | 200 |
| 2010 | 123 | 94.1 The Zone | 94.1 The Zone 210 Most Played Songs of the Decade | 210 |
| 2014 | 233 | 94.3 WCYY | WCYY CYY 500 Most Played Songs (2014) | 500 |
| 2015 | 250 | 94.3 WCYY | WCYY CYY 500 Most Played Songs (2015) | 500 |
| 2019 | 357 | 94.3 WCYY | WCYY CYY 500 Most Played Songs (2019) | 500 |
| 2023 | 358 | 94.3 WCYY | WCYY CYY 500 Most Played Songs (2023) | 500 |
Also listed as: The Prayer of the Refugee; Prayer of The Refugee; Prayer Of The Refugee.
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