Margaret Thatcher Dead: How Musicians Sang Their Opposition (VIDEO)

WATCH: Those Anti-Thatcher Songs You'd Forgotten

During her time in Downing Street, some of Lady Thatcher's sternest critics were to be found not in Parliament but on the radio.

She inspired outrage and often out-right hatred in a generation of musicians.

Mick Talbot and Paul Weller of the Style Council let rip at a CND Rally in London's Brockwell Park in 1983

Punk band Crass released How Does It Feel To Be The Mother Of A Thousand Dead? in 1982 - a direct attack on the waging of the Falklands War.

It led to questions being asked in the House of Commons and one MP suggested the band be prosecuted under the Obscene Publications Act.

The war also prompted less direct criticism from Elvis Costello who wrote and recorded the haunting Shipbuilding which became a Top 40 hit after it was covered by Robert Wyatt in 1983.

The song, written from the point of view of an out-of-work shipbuilder, measured his desire to return to work against the lives lost as a result of building warships.

Costello's 1989 album Spike made his criticism of Lady Thatcher more explicit in the track Tramp the Dirt Down which included the lines "when they finally put you in the ground I'll stand on your grave and tramp the dirt down".

Other chart critics included The Beat who released Stand Down Margaret as a single in 1980, while Morrissey's 1988 solo debut Viva Hate ended with a controversial track called Margaret on the Guillotine which described her death as a "wonderful dream".

The high tide of pop music's opposition to the Thatcher government came in the run-up to the 1987 election when left-wing singer-songwriter Billy Bragg brought together acts including The Style Council and The Communards as Red Wedge.

They toured the country in a bid to encourage their fans to vote Labour but to no avail as Mrs Thatcher was swept back into Number 10.

We've put together our Top 10 of the best anti-Thatcher songs. Unsurprisingly, they're all from the 1980s.

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