Rage Against the Machine is not the type of music I usually listen to, so when I conceded to let my younger brothers listen to ’’Killing in the Name-Rage Against the Machine’’ in my car, I was surprised. I didn’t hear screaming on the topics of the devil, or drugs, or God knows what else those kids scream about nowadays, I heard my favorite topic of all. Politics and human rights!
To tell a bit about the band, Rage Against the Machine is an American band from Los Angeles, California. Their first debut was in 1991. The genre can be described as hard rock and rap combined. Their website (and this impressed me) contains calls to blackball Taco Bell for the horrible working conditions in their tomato fields, as well as write-ups on various political activists.
The picture on the cover is a historical photograph of Quang Duc, a Buddhist monk who burned himself to death on a Saigon street to protest persecution of Buddhists by the U.S.-backed South Vietnamese regime of Ngo Dinh Diem. His last words were for peace and equality for all religions from Diem. This picture haunted me as I listened to the lyrics and music and found a deeper meaning than if I had heard it in passing on the radio or something.
My favorite song on this album is Bullet In the Head. It is about how Americans believe what the government through the media tells them to.
This is a stanza from the song:
’’This time the bullet cold rocked ya
A yellow ribbon instead of a swastika
Nothin’ proper about ya propaganda
Fools follow rules when the set commands ya
Said it was blue
When ya blood was red
That’s how ya got a bullet blasted through ya head
Ya standin’ in line
Believin’ the lies
Ya bowin’ down to the flag
Ya gotta bullet in ya head’’
To a typical patriotic American, these sound like words of treason. To an educated mind, they should be calls to learning the truth, questioning authority, and making the government responsible to you.
This CD is not for anyone who dislikes curse words, who is patriotic to America, or who gets migraines easily.
Also, it should come with a warning label: Warning, will produce independent thought!! And in the name of another song, we should ’’Take the Power Back.’’