My 2001 Hit Song, ‘Superman,’ Is for the Hostages in Gaza

Originally published in the Wall Street Journal’s Free Expression Newsletter on June 17, 2025.

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When I first released “Superman (It’s Not Easy)” in April 2001, I couldn’t have imagined it would become an anthem for first responders, men and women in uniform, and the broken everyday people working to heal our country. My song struck a chord because it wasn’t about capes or flying. It was about the vulnerabilities we all share and the burdens we all carry.

The country felt united after 9/11. Red and blue became meaningless labels. We all felt the same fear, the same heartbreak, and the same determination to rebuild. Music bridges divides. I saw that firsthand when I performed “Superman” at the Concert for New York City on Oct. 20, 2001. I took pride in the American spirit, our resilience after such an atrocity. I remember somehow locking eyes with a 250-pound union worker in the crowd who held a beer in each hand. We sang “Superman” together, loud and proud, and the tears streaming from his eyes were my tears, too.

Decades later, “Superman” didn’t die. Oceans away, it found a second life.

After Hamas massacred and kidnapped innocent Israelis on Oct. 7, 2023, I dedicated “Superman” to hostage Alon Ohel, now 24, and all the innocent souls held captive in Gaza. I joined a broader awareness campaign about the hostages: their names, their stories, their families and the outrage of their captivity. I felt a special kinship with Alon because he’s a piano player like me. Instead of sharing his art, he’s trapped in a tunnel beneath Gaza.

I turned to “Superman,” hoping to remind the world that the hostages are people, not statistics. They are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters, husbands and wives. Music would bring out this shared humanity after the Jewish people experienced their worst trauma since the Holocaust, just like music uplifted an America shattered by 9/11.

“Superman” is a message of hope, solidarity and unity. Yet the unity of 2001 feels elusive. In response to my compassion for the hostages, I’ve been called a sellout and propagandist. For whom or what, I don’t know. I’ve been told I should “stick to music.” My new video with Alon’s family—shared by hostage families, supported by human-rights advocates, played in synagogues and town halls—triggered an onslaught of online vitriol.

“Superman” isn’t political. It’s emotional. It’s all of us. I can’t understand how connecting it to the obvious cause of Israeli hostages unleashed a torrent of hate from people who have never listened to the lyrics, never watched the video, and never cared to understand what this moment is truly about. To them, taking a stand—any stand—means choosing sides in someone else’s war. Yet the hostages aren’t political. This is a basic moral issue.

I’ve written political music before. When I released “Blood on My Hands” in 2021, condemning the botched U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, I expected blowback. I got it. But I accepted that because the song was overtly political. It pointed fingers, demanded accountability. It became the voice for veterans of the war in Afghanistan who were gutted by the withdrawal. Similarly, I wrote “Can One Man Save the World” to support Ukraine, and then recorded a video for it with a Ukrainian orchestra in the bombed-out Antonov airport. I chose a side, and again expected the criticism I received.

Yet there is no way to pick a side over Oct. 7. The horrors of that day stand alone. My critics believe that expressing empathy for one group means you must hate another. You have to either be “oppressor” or “oppressed,” though I’m not sure who Alon Ohel is oppressing from the tunnels of Gaza. In the face of these absurd labels, there’s no room for conversation, let alone reality.

When did we lose the ability to say “I see suffering, and I choose to respond with compassion”? How can anyone be reluctant to say a simple phrase like “Free the Hostages”? Would anyone prefer they stay put, starving and abused underground? When did we become so tribal that Americans could label a song dangerous, divisive or, worse, genocidal, simply because it refuses to dehumanize one side over the other?

Music is where we should be able to meet honestly without enmity. As I sing in “Superman,” I’m not naive. I know a song can’t stop a war, but it can start a conversation. It can open a heart. It can remind us that behind every headline is a human being who bleeds and loves and cries just like we do.

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Mr. Ondrasik, a singer-songwriter, is known by his stage name, Five for Fighting.