The Song the Square Made

There are songs you encounter at the exact moment they become necessary. "Sout Al Horeya"—Voice of Freedom—is one of them. Hany Adel and Amir Eid wrote it during the eighteen days of the Egyptian revolution, and the track carries that urgency throughout: acoustic guitar, voices that sound like they haven’t slept, words people were actually saying in Tahrir Square while the world watched. Mubarak resigned on February 11, 2011, and this was the sound playing underneath. Some protest music ages into a historical artifact. This one still lands in the chest.