Alynda Lee Segarra and Hurray for the Riff Raff have landed on many “song of the year” lists as 2014 draws to a close.

It should come as no surprise that NPR has singled out “The Body Electric,” one of the most politically motivated songs the band has written, as the “Political Folk Song of the Year.”’

Photo by Sara Danzinger

NPR music critic Ann Powers credits Segarra with making a strong stance against the persistent culture of violence against women, which has been making headlines of late as rapes on college campuses take center stage.

Powers points to the powerful video for “The Body Electric,” which features bounce diva Katey Red, as a siren call helping bring women’s issues to the forefront during 2014.

OffBeat writer John Swenson singled out the song in his February 2014 cover story on Segarra, reporting that “the crowd buzzed with the tension of a political rally” as Segarra performed the song at the Highline Ballroom in New York.

“I wrote the song with murder ballads in mind. I wanted to do a song in that style from a woman’s perspective asking for an end to violence,” Segarra explains in the article.

Jennifer Odell also singled out the song in her review of “Small Town Heroes,” the band’s ATO Records release:

“Segarra also tackles sexual violence in dichotomous terms on ‘The Body Electric,’ where a low-voiced refrain about ‘a man with a rifle in his hand’ echoes until, at the very end, Segarra flips it and makes it personal by asking about the rifle-holder’s own daughter.”

Watch the video for “The Body Electric” below, as well as the band’s video in support of the campaign for The Body Electric Fund, which raises money for the Trayvon Martin Foundation and the Third Wave Fund.