Angry Mob Song

Wickedness must be punished!

"Raise the flag! Sing the song!
Here we come, we're fifty strong,
And fifty Frenchmen can't be wrong!
Let's kill the Beast! Kill the Beast!"

— The Mob, "The Mob Song (Kill The Beast)", Beauty and the Beast

Musical Theatre is Serious Business. There's a lot of drama. And given that it's musical theatre, it's intense drama with a great soundtrack. So logically the angry mob with Torches and Pitchforks get their own Crowd Song about how much they want to Burn the Witch! If there's a public execution about to take place, you'll hear the same mob singing.

La Résistance also commonly get their own song, which falls under this trope since a lot of revolutions in theatre are angry mobs with a political agenda. Expect this to sound like a military march, or at least have a fife and some snaredrums.

Very rarely is it not a Crowd Song. It doesn't have to be a Villain Song, but it certainly often is.

Compare Revenge Ballad.

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Examples

Fan Works

• "Serves Them Right" from the Calvin at Camp episode "Champion Charlie Brown."

Films — Animation

• The 3 Little Pigs: The Movie: While not exactly a full-fledged musical number, the dinner guests at The Inn of The Gentle Wolf get into a pretty decent rhythm when demanding a refund, after the main course of their dinner and a show gets kidnapped.
  "Money back! Money back! Or else we'll beat you blue and black!"
• Beauty and the Beast: "The Mob Song", where a crowd of angry villagers wielding Torches and Pitchforks sings about its intention to preemptively protect themselves from the Beast by killing it and Gaston goads them on to secure his own position of power. This is later parodied in House of Mouse, where it's referred to as "The Angry Villager People".
  Let's slay the Beast tonight!
  Let's slay the Beast alright!
• My Little Pony: A New Generation: "Danger Danger", in which Sprout, the film's antagonist goes about whipping the ponies of Maretime Bay into an angry mob, with lyrics emphasizing the ponies giving into base emotions over logical thought and giving authority to the pony egging them on, such as "it's all gonna work out painlessly if you follow my orders brainlessly" and "this is no time for sober thinking".
• Pocahontas: "Savages", which includes the line "They're not like you and me, which means they must be evil! We must sound the drums of WAR!", sung by both sides at the same time.
• The Prince of Egypt: The slaves' part of "Deliver Us", in the way that "Look Down" from Les Misérables is this; a desperate, bitter, pleading sort of anger.
• South Park: Bigger, Longer & Uncut: "Blame Canada" & the kids' part of the "La Resistance'medley.

Films — Live-Action

• "Hang the Bastard" from Cannibal! The Musical, meant to sound as much as possible like a cheery old-school-style excuse-to-dance number.
• The Dracula puppet musical from Forgetting Sarah Marshall features an angry mob chorus during the final song.
• In The Ladies Man, after finding out that Leon is the one who slept with their wives, a formerly depressed mob is so glad to have a new goal that they cheerfully dance through the city on their way to his workplace while singing about their plan to castrate & kill him.
• Les Misérables (2012): From the convicts' opening lines in "Overture", through "Do You Hear the People Sing?" and "Empty Chairs, Empty Tables".

Live-Action TV

• "Poor Slobs With Terrible Jobs" from Dinosaurs, about the disatisfaction the WESAYSO workers feel with their jobs.
• Parodied in Galavant, Sid rallies the peasants to revolt, and leads them in an Angry Mob Song. Unfortunately, it's focused entirely on how valiantly they will die fighting the royalty. By the time he's done, everyone has abandoned him.

Music

• St John Passion: The chorus represents the crowd demanding Jesus' death. There are some angry choral sequences in response to Pilate's unwillingness to prosecute Jesus, and later there's a chorus consisting of "Kreuzige" ("Crucify") in polyphonic 4 part harmony.
• Somewhat subverted by Black Sabbath's "Iron Man". The song is from the perspective of a rejected hero who turns against the people he once tried to save (but who rejected him).
• "White Riot" by The Clash.
• Raise the Black Flag from Food for the Gods by Fireaxe.
• "The Rise of Abimelech Dumont" by the Gravel Pit features an angry mob trying to overthrow the man who's taken over the town. They all get shot to death.
• "Execute" from !HERO: The Rock Opera, which ends with Hero's crucifixion.
• The satirical song "The Angry Mob" by the Kaiser Chiefs is about a middle class angry mob getting riled up by things reported in the British press.
• the Mountain Goats:
  • "If You See Light" by is an interesting version - it's from the perspective of the person against whom the mob is rallying.
  • "Heretic Pride". While the narrator for "If You See Light" is frightened and desperately hiding from the mob trying to tear down the door, the narrator to "Heretic Pride" laughs and promises the crowd a reckoning.
• In The Protomen, an angry mob tries to lynch Dr. Light, on Dr. Wily's behest. Notable in that Light has been found innocent of murder and they still want to kill him.
  • The song in question is titled, quite appropriately, "Give Us the Rope".
• "Burn The Witch" by Queens of the Stone Age. At least until the halfway-point.
• Dark folk artist Reverend Glasseye is especially fond of this trope, having more than a few across his three albums. Notable tales include a song about man who incites a crowd to lynch the man courting his daughter ("Mother's a Carpegian") and some religious zealots killing a man who won't provide him wood for their temples ("Black River Falls").
• "Witch Hunt" by Rush is a typical example.
• "Panic" by The Smiths.
• "We're Not Gonna Take It" by Twisted Sister
• "Stakes and Torches" from Voltaire's album To the Bottom of the Sea is a mob song about the poor rising up to overthrow their leader, the Robber Baron.

Theatre

• "Christian Charity Reprise" and "More Blood/Kill the Bat Boy" from Bat Boy: The Musical are sung by the townspeople as they intimidate the town vet into preventing Bat Boy from attending a revival meeting and get riled into a homicidal frenzy, respectively.
• "The Chase" from Brigadoon. The townspeople aren't intending to kill Harry Beaton, only to prevent him from leaving Brigadoon and condemning the town to vanish forever. Unfortunately, Harry meets Death by Falling Over.
• "Deep in the Darkest Night" from Dracula. An exception, in that (depending on the production), it may be a crowd song sung by the angry mob, or a solo song that Jonathan Harker sings to the angry mob. A further exception is that, rather than being a dark song about how much the angry mob wants the titular Count dead, its actually a heroic, inspiring song, bordering on Theme Music Powerup.
• The operatic version of The Emperor Jones frames the first scene with choruses of angry natives chanting for the death of the title character. No pitchforks here, though; only a Silver Bullet will do.
• Frozen has "Monster", in which Elsa tries to wrestle with the consequences of her actions - and even contemplates killing herself to end the sudden winter - while the Arendellians march on her ice castle to capture - and possibly kill - her (although, to his credit, Hans does tell them to capture her alive).
• The last act of Giacomo Meyerbeer's opera Les Huguenots, featuring the St. Bartholomew's Day massacre, has the Assassins' Chorus, "Abjurez, Huguenots, le ciel l'ordonne" (Repent, Huguenots, Heaven ordains it).
• The short-lived Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of The Hunchback of Notre Dame had the act one finale "Esmerelda", which culminated in Frollo basically tearing Paris apart to find the gypsy girl.
• "The Arrest" and "Trial Before Pilate" in Jesus Christ Superstar include parts of angry mob singing about how they "got him" and demanding "Crucify him!" from Pilate.
• "Kill Your Own Kind" from Lestat, in which the entire population of the Theatre des Vampires, lead by Armand, condemn Claudia to death for her attempted murder of Lestat himself.
• The Likes of Us, the little-known first-ever Webber/Rice musical, has two: "Hold a March" and "We'll Get Him". The latter is also reprised. Both are sung by crowds of displeased Londoners who think Thomas Barnardo is an interfering prat.
• In "Passió" in the Hungarian rock opera Mária evangéliuma (Gospel of Mary), the mob shouts "Crucify him!" and yells at Mary, and John comments on it.
• Martin Guerre had a "knife dance" in the original version, cut in the rewrites. Also, the part of "Justice Will Be Done/I Will Make You Proud" sung by the villagers.
• French (wannabe) Revolutionaries once again get their own song in Les Misérables: "Do You Hear the People Sing?"
  "The blood of the martyrs will water the meadows of France!"
  • "Look Down" Though not so much an Angry Mob Song than a resigned, bitter Mob Song with angry tones about the long, dreading years of prison sentence.
  • The reprise of "Look Down" is often staged as this, although nowhere moreso than in the 2012 film adaptation, as seen here.
  • The act one finale, "One Day More", is set the night before the June Rebellion, and naturally features the revolutionaries riling up the people in preparation for the revolution to come. The fact that history calls it a rebellion, and not a revolution, should tell you how well it goes for them.
• "Catch Hatch," a Massive Multiplayer Ensemble Number from One Touch of Venus.
• "Where will you stand when the flood comes?" from Parade, in which the demented evangelist Tom Watson whips up hatred and violence against local Jews (sadly, this is Based on a True Story).
• "In the Hall of the Mountain King" from Peer Gynt, though the instrumental suite version is more familiar, originally had a chorus of trolls shouting, "Kill him!"
• "Now is gossip put on trial" and "Who holds himself apart" from Benjamin Britten's opera Peter Grimes.
• The extended climax of The Phantom of the Opera includes a mob pursuing the Phantom in "Track Down This Murderer", a reprise of the title song with significantly different lyrics.
• In Revoltuion Francaise there are "A Bas Tous Les Privaleges" sung mostly by Danton, and "Retour A La Bastille"
• "Madame Guillotine" is the theme song of radical Parisian revolutionaries in The Scarlet Pimpernel.
• The Screen-to-Stage Adaptation of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers has "The Townspeople's Lament", which is actually a To the Pain style description of what the angry townspeople wish to do to the titular brothers.
• In Spring Awakening, Melchior and the other schoolchildren sing : "Totally Fucked" after Melchior is expelled for writing an essay about sex.
  "Totally fucked, will they mess you up? Well, you know they're gonna try!"
• "We're Not Gonna Take It/See Me, Feel Me" from Tommy.
• "Gira la cote" from the opera Turandot, sung by a mob breathlessly anticipating a beheading.
• Urinetown:
  • "Look at the Sky" (and to a lesser extent, "We're Not Sorry").
  • The truest Angry Mob Song song is "Snuff That Girl." It's a double threat: La Résistance actually gets the Burn the Witch! song!
• "Down with the Flowers of Progress!" in Gilbert and Sullivan's Utopia, Ltd.
• The ensemble version of "Tonight" from West Side Story, with each gang anticipating its revenge on the other.
• "March of the Witch Hunters" in Wicked.
• Variation: "Guinevere" from Camelot, "City On Fire" from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, and "City Under Siege" from Der Glöckner von Notre-Dame are more like choruses about angry mobs than the songs of the mobs themselves.

Web Animation

• The second part of "In the Haven" from Episode One of Of Weasels And Chickens where the Haven animals are insulting Marcus.

Webcomics

• Twisted Tropes: The crowd gathers with Torches and Pitchforks to get Frankenetsin's Monster to surrender, as a daily musical.

Western Animation

• Clarence: In "The Tails of Mardrynia," Percy imagines the woodland animals he brought into his home singing "End the Boy," a parody of Beauty and the Beast's Mob Song as they go to attack Clarence.
• My Little Pony:
  • My Little Pony 'n Friends: "We're Gonna Make You Sorry" climaxes "Bright Lights, Part 2". The residents of Graydale aren't happy with the return of former resident Knight Shade, since the Deal with the Devil he made with the serial's villains allowed them to steal their shadows and render them sickly and miserable.
  • My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Combined with "The Villain Sucks" Song there's "Bats!" (aside from Fluttershy's part, where she defends the bats), where the main characters sing about their intention to run the fruit bats out of Applejack's orchard in the episode of the same name.
• "Buford is in Trouble" from an episode of Phineas and Ferb. Baljeet gets the ability to clone himself, and soon the Baljeets descend into mob mentality to avenge themselves against the neighborhood bully.
• In Pluto's Judgement Day, the song "We've got Pluto!"
• Parodied with a bit of Lyrical Dissonance in the Rocko's Modern Life episode "Zanzibar". Rocko rallies the other citizens of O-Town against Conglom-O due to the latter's polluting practices, but they're cheery the entire time.
  Rocko: We demand to see the board of directors!
  Security Guard: And you would be?
  Heffer: We're a big unruly mob!
  Other Citizens: (singing happily) We're a big unruly mob!
• Ready As I'll Ever Be from Tangled: The Series is a mob song where both sides sing about how "now the line's in the sand" as they prepare to go to battle with one another. Except the "mob" part only comes from the side of Cassandra as she rallies the soldiers to attack Varian.

Real Life

• Real Life French revolutionaries sang "Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira...les aristocrates à la lanterne!"; or, roughly, "string 'em up!"
  • The French national anthem, "La Marseillaise", started out this way too. Its lyrics are really bloodthirsty; it mentions a bloodstained banner on the fourth line, and the chorus (y'know, the part that you repeat and actually remember) urges citizens to form up into battalions and kill their oppressors "until impure blood drenches our fields."
    • In similar vein, the rarely-sung third verse of The Star-Spangled Banner mentions that "their [i.e. the invaders'] blood has washed out their foul footsteps' pollution." (There's probably a reason it's rarely-sung.)
    • During Red October the Bolsheviks had their own version, called "Worker's Marseillaise".
• Horst-Wessel-Lied of the National Socialist party of Germany. The Die Fahne hoch became an unofficial Party anthem after the murder of Wessel and after the Nazi coup, an unofficial national song.
• Although it wasn't used until after the events of the protests, "Do You Hear the People Sing?" from Les Misérables was sung by mourners at a vigil following Tienanmen Square.
  • "Do You Hear the People Sing" is also popular amongst protesters in Hong Kong.

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