“The Sound” by Switchfoot

"The Sound (John M. Perkins' Blues)" comes from Hello Hurricane, Switchfoot's seventh album, and it's an alternative rock song with a history lesson built into it. Jon and Tim Foreman wrote it after Jon read Let Justice Roll Down, the book by the civil rights activist John M. Perkins, and came away determined that more people should know the man's name.

So the song names him outright, then takes on the racism in the country's past that still hasn't let go, holding up love and a deliberate choice to forgive as the way through. It hit digital stores in 2009 and reached alternative rock radio in April 2010, where it became the band's first top-10 single since "Dare You to Move".

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.