“He’s a folk singer, a blues singer, a guitarist, a social activist, a Finn, a story-teller, a comedian, a philosopher, a conspiracy theorist and a lounge lizard.”

— MN LAW AND POLITICS

"Paul is a great artist. I always look forward to playing with him.”

— LYLE LOVETT

“Minneapolis to me is Willie Murphy, Curtiss A, and Paul Metsa”

— Sir Doug Sahm

“Paul Metsa is America’s answer to Billy Bragg.”

— AT THE OPERA, NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO

“Think of Paul as Bruce with a Midwestern drawl.”

— UTNE READER

“Pretty good stuff!”

— JERRY GARCIA

“Paul Metsa rocks the house and plays from the heart. I am happy to call him my friend.”

— JOHN HAMMOND

“Metsa is a great musician”

— DAVE PIRNER, SOUL ASYLUM

“Paul is an exquisite musician, fluent in every style”

— WEE WILLIE WALKER

Now Available for Free Download:
Paul Metsa’s Songs of Resistance & Resolve: 1984 to 2025

Fellow Patriots and Friends, I have decided to let anyone download Songs of Resistance and Resolve for FREE. My goal is to get these songs out to people who need to hear them. If you'd like to support my work feel free to donate to my Venmo which is very much appreciated. In the meantime, feel free to stream or download, and share with friends if you'd like as well.

— Paul Metsa

Release: 16 February 2026

Download Songs of Resistance and Resolve Songbook.pdf

Donate to Paul Metsa via Venmo

Listen / Download!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Protest Music Is Alive and Well on Paul Metsa – Songs of Resistance & Resolve: 1984–2025

"Paul Metsa is the other great folksinger from Minnesota's Mesabi Iron Range." Huffington Post

Four decades of truth-telling, defiance, and hope from one of the Midwest’s most enduring voices.

DULUTH, MN — Protest music is not a relic of the past—it is alive, urgent, and resonant on Songs of Resistance & Resolve: 1984–2025, a powerful retrospective collection from Paul Metsa. Spanning more than forty years of songwriting, the album gathers Metsa’s most uncompromising and socially charged work into a single, sweeping statement of conscience, courage, and conviction.

From the Cold War anxieties and labor struggles of the 1980s to the cultural, political, and spiritual reckonings of the present day, Songs of Resistance & Resolve traces a throughline of dissent rooted in empathy and lived experience. These are songs forged in union halls, back rooms, highways, and heartland towns—music that confronts injustice, questions power, and insists on human dignity.

Metsa has long stood apart as a songwriter unwilling to separate art from responsibility. Across folk, rock, blues-inflected roots, and acoustic confessionals, his work reflects a belief that songs can still bear witness, still rally, still heal. This retrospective captures that ethos in full: anthems of resistance, portraits of working people, meditations on faith and failure, and calls to stand up when silence becomes complicity.

More than a career-spanning anthology, Songs of Resistance & Resolve: 1984–2025 is a reminder of what protest music can be at its best—plainspoken but poetic, angry but compassionate, grounded in history yet unafraid of the present moment. In an era of division and noise, Metsa’s songs cut through with clarity and purpose.

With this release, Paul Metsa reaffirms his place in the lineage of American truth-tellers who understand that protest music isn’t about trends—it’s about telling the truth, again and again, until it’s heard.

Songs of Resistance & Resolve: 1984–2025 is available now.

If you believe in the power of independent music and community-driven art, we invite you to stand with Paul. Your support will help bring this record to radio stations and press outlets across the country, expand its reach through social media, and sustain the decades-long commitment he has shown to uplifting his community through song and service. Please consider making a contribution to Paul’s Venmo @Paul-Metsa and become part of the movement that keeps this music—and its message—alive. You can also purchase this record and more of Paul's music at https://paulmetsa1.bandcamp.com/

See the Paul Metsa interview in Home of the Brave

For interviews, review copies, or additional information, please contact:
Scott Herold
Hysteria Media
hysteriascott@gmail.com

No Kings, No Crown… NO ICE!

We are proud to present this video featuring recent images from the ICE occupation in our beloved Minneapolis as the bedrock for my song No Kings, No Crown that I was honored to record with Alan Sparhawk last October. It is an historic moment in time and we hope to warn other cities of the damage that ICE did here in Minneapolis. The artists involved in this project stand in solidarity and resistance to the madness. I consider some of my songs to be "bullets in the machine gun of peace and social justice.” Here's another one — dedicated to the memory of Renee Good and Alex Pretti.

Upcoming Shows

Paul Metsa’s Books

Blue Guitar Highway

This is a musician’s tale: the story of a boy growing up on the Iron Range, playing his guitar at family gatherings, coming of age in the psychedelic seventies, and honing his craft as a pro in Minneapolis, ground zero of American popular music in the mid-eighties. “There is a drop of blood behind every note I play and every word I write,” Paul Metsa says.

Alphabet Jazz: Poetry, Prose, Stories, and Songs

Alphabet Jazz is a collection of poetry, prose, stories, and songs that Metsa wrote between 1984 and 2022. Metsa describes it as "a personal diary of sorts- midnight blasts of inspiration, love letters in poem, personal tributes to musicians and friends who have passed on, true stories, letters to the editor and friends, and songs I have written along the way that I still perform."

Blood in the Tracks: The Minnesota Musicians behind Dylan's Masterpiece

The story of the Minneapolis musicians who were unexpectedly summoned to re-record half of the songs on Bob Dylan's most acclaimed album

Bob Dylan in Minnesota: Troubadour Tales from Duluth, Hibbing and Dinkytown

Bob Dylan was born in Duluth in Minnesota, grew up in Hibbing, Minnesota and cut his musical teeth in the folk scene of Dinkytown, Minnesota. This travel guide brings together wonderful stories from these key locations and the roots and early life of Bob Dylan.

Minnesota State Arts Board and Clean Water Land & Legacy Amendment logos.

Paul Metsa is a fiscal year 2022 recipient of a Creative Support for Individuals grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board. This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.