Don’t Fight The Young Lyrics – Young Fathers

Read the full lyrics of “Don’t Fight The Young” by Young Fathers, War Child (Charity) from the album HELP(2). Here, we have shared the complete “Don’t Fight The Young” Lyrics along with its music video, deeper meaning and song credits.

In the swirling constellation of 2026 music moments, one track quietly charged with urgency and layered meaning is “Don’t Fight The Young” from Scottish genre-melting trio Young Fathers, slated for release on March 6 as part of the all-star War Child Records charity compilation HELP(2), a project created to raise funds and awareness for children living through armed conflict. While full technical credits are still emerging ahead of release, the song already carries symbolic weight, positioned among contributions from artists spanning generations and genres, underscoring its role as both artistic statement and humanitarian gesture.

Young Fathers — Alloysious Massaquoi, Kayus Bankole and Graham G Hastings — have built their reputation on refusing neat categorisation. Since forming in Edinburgh in 2008, the trio have fused hip-hop cadence, gospel-like intensity, post-punk abrasion and experimental pop into a sound that feels raw yet meticulously constructed. That tension has always extended to their lyrics, which often explore power, vulnerability, race, belonging and survival. “Don’t Fight The Young” appears to sit squarely within this tradition, its title alone suggesting a confrontation between singerity and innocence, experience and emerging voice, a theme that resonates painfully in the context of children caught in the machinery of war.

Recorded for HELP(2), which was created in fast-paced collaborative sessions at Abbey Road Studios and distributed by War Child Records, the track is believed to be written and performed solely by Young Fathers, continuing their long-standing practice of collective singership and self-production, though the compilation as a whole is overseen by producer James Ford. The song is expected to be delivered in English and to lean into the band’s signature hybrid style — percussive, emotionally charged and rhythmically restless — sitting somewhere between experimental alternative, art-pop and politically conscious soul. Rather than offering literal storytelling, Young Fathers have historically preferred impressionistic lyricism, and early descriptions suggest “Don’t Fight The Young” channels that approach to evoke generational conflict, resilience and the cost of violence without didactic slogans.

The band’s past work lends added gravity to the release. From their Mercury Prize-winning debut Dead through the expansive Cocoa Sugar and the confrontational Heavy Heavy, Young Fathers have consistently examined how individuals endure systems of pressure, whether social, political or internal. That history makes their contribution to a War Child project feel less like a guest appearance and more like an extension of a long-running artistic conversation. Trivia surrounding the song already notes its place within HELP(2) as one of the more thematically pointed tracks, aligning the trio’s confrontational empathy with the album’s core mission.

In the end, “Don’t Fight The Young” stands poised to be more than a charity single. It feels like a distilled Young Fathers statement — urgent, compassionate and unafraid of discomfort — reframing the idea of youth not as something to be controlled or silenced, but as something that carries truth, fragility and the right to be protected. In a compilation crowded with big names, its power may lie in how quietly and insistently it asks listeners to reckon with who pays the price when the world chooses conflict over care.