Margo Price Drops Protest Mixtape ‘Days of Unrest’ for July 4th

Margo Price quietly shared a new album-length mixtape over the weekend. Days of Unrest arrived without warning, landing squarely on the Fourth of July celebrations for the country’s semiquincentennial. The timing is the message: these are songs of dissent, not patriotism.

The project leans heavily on covers chosen for their political weight. A studio version of Woody Guthrie’s “Deportee” — a lament for migrant workers — features Joan Baez, a figure Price calls an inspiration “both musically and as I’ve moved into the role of ‘cultural worker.’” It’s a direct collaboration that brings decades of protest lineage into the present.

Another standout reworks Blaze Foley’s “Oval Room,” written about Ronald Reagan in 1984. Price sees the song as elastic: “It feels like it could have been written for any president, especially Trump.” Her delivery is less tribute than confrontation, underlining lines about power and division. Elsewhere, she tackles Bob Dylan’s “Maggie’s Farm” and the traditional “De Colores” with Memphis Mariachi, expanding the mixtape’s folk spectrum.

Price frames the singing itself as protest, alongside marching at the Capitol. The mixtape doesn’t treat outrage as a pose. It records a working artist testing what voices — past and present — can still land a clear blow.