After the Shah and his anthem were deposed in the revolution of 1979, a new anthem would not be written for another year. In the meantime, a patriotic song that was commonly heard during the revolution was “Ey Iran”, a song written in 1944 by Hossein Gol-e-Golab, a musician, who was inspired to write a song about Iran to inspire the citizens during the British occupation of the country at the time. It was first performed in October of that year, to popular acclaim.
Despite being written as the result of a specific occasion, that of the British occupation, the song is neutral in that it doesn’t reference a particular ruler or political system, such as those of the era of the Shah, or the later Islamic Republic. Thus, the song quickly became an unofficial anthem during political protests, such as the 2020s protests against the Islamic republic. Therefore, in the time period between the fall of the Shah and the Islamic Republic stabilizing control and writing a new anthem, “Ey Iran” was used in an unofficial basis as the anthem by the provisional government.