“Island’s Sunrise,” composed by the Taiwanese punk rock band Fire Ex. for the 2014 Sunflower Movement, has become one of Taiwan’s most iconic protest anthems, maintaining its resonance a decade later during the Bluebird Movement through performances by the ad hoc Troubadour Ensemble. Against this backdrop, the study explores three central questions: How has “Island’s Sunrise” retained its enduring impact on contemporary social movements in Taiwan? What forms of affect does it elicit among listeners, and what effects does it produce within protest contexts? To answer these questions, the study adopts an approach that balances the analysis of the music itself with consideration of its broader social and political contexts. It first conducts music analysis, approaching “Island’s Sunrise” as a multi-layered text. Employing Turino’s semiotic framework to analyze text, sound, and image, the analysis situates the song within Taiwan’s serial colonial histories. It explores how musical symbols generate a distinctive sense of “Tai” (台) or “Tai-flavor (台味),” a contested discourse linking cultural and national identities, among whose multiple connotations is the support for a key aim of contemporary civic movements—the pursuit of Taiwanese sovereignty. Building on the analysis, the study draws upon popular cultural archives and semi-structured interviews to examine the song’s role in social movement contexts, the emotions it evokes, and its mobilizing effects. By integrating music analysis with ethnographic perspectives, this study demonstrates how “Island’s Sunrise” serves as both a cultural and political agent, shaping civic identity, evoking affect, and supporting nationalist aspirations. It further highlights the role of music in mobilizing participants and sustaining protest movements, explaining why the song has remained influential in Taiwan’s sociopolitical soundscape.