Kim Gordon isn’t done fighting. This week, the Sonic Youth legend released ‘BYE BYE 25!’, a searing rework of ‘BYE BYE’ from her GRAMMY-nominated second solo album The Collective. But this isn’t just a remix — it’s a call to arms.
All proceeds from ‘BYE BYE 25!’ and its accompanying t-shirt are headed to NOISE FOR NOW, a nonprofit supporting reproductive rights. The track doubles down on Gordon’s signature icy, spoken-word delivery — this time rattling off a list of words vanishing under Trump-era rhetoric like “ADVOCATE,” “UTERUS,” “TRAUMA,” and “NON-CONFORMING.”
While Trump continues to weaponise “cancel culture” as a dog whistle for white grievance politics, anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment and regressive gender roles, Gordon spits these banned terms with venom — a quiet act of defiance against the erasure of marginalised voices.
Producer and collaborator) Justin Raisen had this idea to redo ‘Bye Bye’ starting at the end of the song. When I was thinking of lyric ideas, it occurred to me to use words taken from a site that had all the words that Trump has essentially banned, meaning any grant or piece of a project or proposal for research that includes any of those words would be immediately disregarded or “cancelled.” I guess Trump does believe in cancel culture, because he is literally trying to cancel culture. Kim Gordon
She isn’t just listing words — she’s carving a sonic monument to resistance, dragging the ghosts of language and policy out into the open. Among the institutions that have felt the sharp end of these ideological purges: the CDC, HHS, NASA, and even the National Cryptologic Museum.
‘BYE BYE 25!’ feels less like a song and more like a siren — an unsettling reminder that language is often the first casualty in political warfare. And Gordon, as ever, refuses to go quietly.
NOISE FOR NOW enables artists and entertainers to connect with and financially support grassroots organizations that work in the field of Reproductive Health, Rights and Justice. Reproductive health care services, including access to legal abortion, are under attack. Learn more at noisefornow.org
