'Baraye', a Persian song to understand the normality that the people of Iran desire

It's a Sunday afternoon. You put on lipstick, tie your hair in a ponytail, slip on your favorite miniskirt, and head out for a walk.

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It's a sunny day. You're happy and walking down the street singing a song by your favorite heavy metal band. You're young, so who would mind a girl with a beautiful voice singing? A scene like this might be normal in any free country. The girl wouldn't suffer any consequences. She couldn't do it in Iran. There, it's mandatory for women to wear a headscarf in public. Makeup is prohibited. Heavy metal bands are banned. Women are prohibited from singing in public. Dancing is also prohibited. Wearing a miniskirt in Iran could get that girl arrested.

A video recorded in 2022 is circulating again these days, showing a young woman singing in the street in Iran. She isn't singing a protest song or one with a political message: it's "Khodahafez," a love song by Iranian singer Erfan Tahmasbi, which speaks of lost love and the pain left behind. At the end of the video, the song is interrupted by whistles: it's the regime's police arriving to prevent a woman from singing in public.

IRAN • Bu her yerde dolaşan güzel şarkı, aslında rejim destekçilerine ve tüm baskılara rağmen söylendi… 2022’de İran’da, genç bir kadın bir caddede özgürce şarkısını söylüyor. Videonun sonlarına doğru ise rejim güçleri, düdük çalarak müdahale etmeye ve sesi susturmaya… pic.twitter.com/kesHbfeRi6

— postmodern (@istbassavcisi) January 10, 2026

Iran is now experiencing massive protests against the Islamist dictatorship established in 1979, which has turned the lives of millions of people, especially women, into a daily nightmare. The protests have escalated into a true revolution that has now spread to 190 cities. In response to this popular uprising, the dictatorship has resorted to violence, massacring hundreds of protesters. It is yet another attempt to stifle cries for freedom with bullets.

The Iranian protesters, mostly young people, aren't fighting for any utopia: they just want normality. Things that are perfectly normal in free countries, like a girl being able to sing in the street, listen to heavy metal, wear a miniskirt, and not have to cover her head with a veil. Things as perfectly normal as having freedom of opinion —opinions that, under Iran's Islamist dictatorship, can lead to arrest, torture, and even execution.

In September 2022, a young Iranian woman, Mahsa Amini, was arrested and tortured for not wearing a headscarf in Iran. She died as a result of the beating she suffered at the hands of the religious police. That state crime sparked protests in the country, which were harshly repressed by the Islamist regime. Today, many Iranian protesters remember Mahsa, whose story inspired a song in 2022: "Baraye" (For). Its author is Shervin Hajipour, who was inspired by Mahsa's case to give voice and music to the weariness of many citizens of Iran.

Shervin posted the song on September 28, 2022, on his Instagram account. Within 48 hours, the music video had garnered 40 million views. On September 29, Shervin was arrested by the regime's police in the city of Sari. He was forced to delete the video, which became an anthem of the protests sparked by the assassination of Mahsa Amini. He was released on bail several days afterwardsShervin announced that he had been sentenced to 3 years and 8 months in prison for releasing that song, on charges of "inciting and provoking people to riot in order to disrupt national security" (3 years) and "propaganda against the regime" (8 months). In July of that year, Shervin commented in a video on the absurdity of these accusations (the video is in Persian; you can activate automatic English subtitles in the player's bottom bar):

On YouTube you can still listen to "Baraye", a song that speaks of normality and freedom, it is normality and that freedom that were taken away in 1979 from the people of Iran, who are now fighting in the streets to recover them:

You can read the original Persian lyrics of this song here:

برای توی کوچه رقصیدن
برای ترسیدن به وقت بوسیدن
برای خواهرم، خواهرت، خواهرامون
برای تغییر مغزها که پوسیدن
برای شرمندگی، برای بی پولی
برای حسرت یک زندگی معمولی
برای کودک زباله گرد و آرزوهاش
برای این اقتصاد دستوری
برای این هوای آلوده
برای ولیعصر و درختای فرسوده
برای پیروز و احتمال انقراضش
برای سگ های بی گناه ممنوعه
برای گریه های بی وقفه
برای تصویر تکرار این لحظه
برای چهره ای که می خنده
برای دانش آموزا، برای آینده
برای این بهشت اجباری
برای نخبه های زندانی
برای کودکان افغانی
برای این همه برای غیر تکراری
برای این همه شعارهای توخالی
برای آوار خونه های پوشالی
برای احساس آرامش
برای خورشید پس از شبای طولانی
برای قرص های اعصاب و بی خوابی
برای مرد، میهن، آبادی
برای دختری که آرزو داشت پسر بود
برای زن، زندگی، آزادی
برای آزادی
برای آزادی
برای آزادی

Here you can read the English translation:

For dancing in the alley
For being afraid to kiss
For my sister, your sister, our sisters
For changing rotting brains
For the shame, for not having money
For yearning for a normal life
For the child garbage collector and his dreams
For this dictatorial economy
For this polluted air
For the Vali-e-Asr and the withered trees
For Pirouz and its possibility of extinction
For the innocent forbidden dogs
For the endless crying
For the image of reliving this moment
For the laughing face
For the students, for the future
For this forced paradise
For the imprisoned elite
For the Afghan children
For all this, for the unrepeatable
For all these empty slogans
For the ruins of the thatched houses
For a feeling of peace
For the sun after a long night
For the pills for nerves and insomnia
For man, the homeland, prosperity
For the girl who wished to be like a boy
For woman, life, the freedom
For freedom
For freedom
For freedom

Some notes about the song. Vali-e-Asr is one of Tehran's main avenues. It was a beautiful tree-lined street during the Shah's reign. In 1946, there were 24,000 trees on that avenue. Due to the Islamist dictatorship's terrible management, by 2012 almost two-quarters of the trees had been lost. Pirouz is the name of an Asiatic cheetah born on May 1, 2022, in Iran. It died at 10 months old. It is the symbol of an endangered species: After its death, only 20 Asiatic cheetahs remained in Iran. The song also mentions "innocent dogs banned": since 2019, a religious law in Iran has prohibited walking dogs in the streets, so even walking these animals has become an act of rebellion.

Regarding the mention of Afghan children, in 2017 it was revealed that the Iranian dictatorship recruited these children to fight in Syria. Some of them were only 14 years old.

The song also speaks of "the girl who wished to be like a boy." It's not referring to anything related to the trans movement in the West, but to girls who lament their situation because of the serious discrimination that women and girls suffer under that Islamist dictatorship. A discrimination about which many Western left-wing feminists say absolutely nothing, as if it didn't matter to them.