Tuesday, June 23, 2015

Song of the Day # 520 Rage Against The Machine


Bullet In The Head. How I love you! The first Rage Against The Machine song I ever heard, round about the time of their first album, with a great studio clip of them doing it live for MTV which I watched on a sofa in Dortmund next to a dope fiend who was probably rolling a spliff at the time. Still their best song and the only one you'll ever need, although they did plenty of variants on it over the years. They only have one really don't they? But then again why would they need another?

The British weekly music paper, Melody Maker, now defunct, got a lot of mileage in the early nineties making fun of Rage Against The Machine most obviously for their name. It sums up all the irony of this stuff. Loud, angry music about conformity and mind control to allow like minded souls to leap around and lose themselves in an act of mind control and conformity before going back to their humdrum nine to fives to be controlled and to conform. Wonderful!

As I said Bullet In Your Head is their best. Better even than Killing In The Name Of, where for me the 'fuck you, I won't do what you tell me,' line tips the whole thing over the top into the arena of the teenage tantrum. Oh, and no you can't have the car.

Bullet In The Head meanwhile is lean and quite beautiful and it points outwards, not in. It has all the sleek energy, grace and murderous power of a lion in its prime, tracking, chasing and taking down a gazelle. Builds for five minutes and then detonates. What more could you want from a rock song! Tom Morello's guitar effects take it somewhere none of their competitors could ever go. And as for Zak De La Rocha. 'You've got a bullet in your fucking head!' No offence meant out there!

I bought the first album yesterday from a record stall owner in an indoor market in Canterbury who has a neat line in patter and who I always enjoy talking to and always gets me to buy the record. He knows what he's doing. Really I had to have the vinyl for the cover alone, that great, classic image of a Vietnamese monk setting himself aflame. I bought it the day after buying the Left Banke album. It makes a great companion piece. The lead singers may not have shared a desk if they'd have gone to school together. Oh and the vinyl of the Rage Against The Machine record is red. What more could you want! Have a nice day!

   

'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 read
That's how ya got a bullet blasted through ya head

Blasted through ya head
Blasted through ya head

I give a shout out to the living dead
Who stood and watched as the feds cold centralized
So serene on the screen
You were mesmerised
Cellular phones soundin' a death tone
Corporations cold
Turn ya to stone before ya realise
They load the clip in omnicolour
Said they pack the 9, they fire it at prime time
Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz
And mutha fuckas lost their minds

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

Run it!

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

Checka, checka, check it out
They load the clip in omnicolour
Said they pack the 9, they fire it at prime time
Sleeping gas, every home was like Alcatraz
And mutha fuckas lost their minds

No escape from the mass mind rape
Play it again jack and then rewind the tape
And then play it again and again and again
Until ya mind is locked in
Believin' all the lies that they're tellin' ya
Buyin' all the products that they're sellin' ya
They say jump and ya say how high
Ya brain-dead
Ya gotta fuckin' bullet in ya head

Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high
Just victims of the in-house drive-by
They say jump, you say how high

Uggh! Yeah! Yea!

Ya standin' in line
Believin' the lies
Ya bowin' down to the flag
Ya gotta bullet in ya head

Ya standin' in line
Believin' the lies
Ya bowin' down to the flag
Ya gotta bullet in ya head

A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
A bullet in ya head!
Ya gotta bullet in ya fuckin' head!

Yeah!

Yeah! '

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