The aspect of ‘hateful’ music has been around for awhile, but with the breakout of Rage Against the Machine, it brought a whole new side of freedom of speech. Rage Against the Machine was formed in 1991 and has since been an icon of political denouncing. Their songs, all filled with hate and aggression, get influence from many earlier heavy metal bands and also from a lot of rappers such as Public Enemy. This went to such an extent as burning American flags, and even telling interviews that their president, then George W. Bush, should be shot. This theme of country ridicule is show in many songs, but the true hate of it came with “Wake Up”.
This song shows the true potential of Zach de la Rocha’s songwriting abilities. In the song it shows the government’s roles in killing ‘key leaders’, such as Malcolm X. The biggest line of the song is the allusion, “How long? Not long, 'cause what you reap is what you sow”. This is from a famous Martin Luther King Jr. speech, and when analyzed more it really says everything you do will end up coming back to you (i.e. Karma). His political parodies of J. Edgar Hoover, “Hoover, he was a body remover”, points out the FBI’s racism attempts to stop black nationalists. “Ya know they murdered X, and tried to blame it on Islam”, is a direct paradox stating that the government killing of Malcolm X was indeed blamed on a religion instead of taking the blame for it, and his imagery of “I think I heard a shot” over and over again paints the picture of the assassination.
Rocha goes on and on about the government, in such motifs as “Networks at work, keepin’ people calm”, saying that people are purposely used to keep people calm in trouble times. “He turned the power to the have-nots, and then came the shots” is a powerful motif stating that a ‘leader’ gives power to the people that don’t have it, but eventually gets ended in a unexplained murder. The hyperbole “’Cause all these punks, got bullets in their heads.” Shows that rebellious ‘punks’ all are getting shot down by the national government.
Rocha adds so much more to the song in the way he speaks, from swears that actually mean something to his stress/screaming of certain parts. Even with the other Rage Against the Machine songs, he still stresses so much about the government and almost prays for a revolution. The way he speaks out to make people aware makes him seem almost like one of the ‘leaders’ that he sings about.
