Wake Up!

I'm in a surly mood, so I'm going to quote some heavy-handed lyrics from Rage Against the Machine. They sang this song the first time I saw them in concert. I had no idea who they were at the time (it was a multi-band tour) and immediately found myself getting pissed off and ready to kill the next g-man I saw... The emphasis are my own.

Wake Up!
Rage Against the Machine - self-titled album
Come on! Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never read it
The needle, I'll thread it
Radically poetic
Standin' with the fury that they had in '66
And like E-Double I'm mad
Still knee-deep in the system's shit
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it can never come close
To the rage built up inside of me
Fist in the air, in the land of hypocrisy

Movements come and movements go
Leaders speak, movements cease
When their heads are flown
'Cause all these punks
Got bullets in their heads
Departments of police, the judges, the feds
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
You know they went after King
When he spoke out on Vietnam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Yeah!
Yeah, back in this...
Wit' poetry, my mind I flex
Flip like Wilson, vocals never lackin' dat finesse
Whadda I got to, whadda I got to do to wake ya up
To shake ya up, to break the structure up
'Cause blood still flows in the gutter
I'm like takin' photos
Mad boy kicks open the shutter
Set the groove
Then stick and move like I was Cassius
Rep the stutter step
Then bomb a left upon the fascists
Yea, the several federal men
Who pulled schemes on the dream
And put it to an end
Ya better beware
Of retribution with mind war
20/20 visions and murals with metaphors
Networks at work, keepin' people calm
Ya know they murdered X
And tried to blame it on Islam
He turned the power to the have-nots
And then came the shot

Uggh!
What was the price on his head?
What was the price on his head!

I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard a shot
I think I heard, I think I heard a shot

[Quoting from a CIA training manual]
'He may be a real contender for this position should he
abandon his supposed obediance to white liberal doctrine
of non-violence...and embrace black nationalism'
'Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to
pinpoint potential trouble-makers...And neutralize them,
neutralize them, neutralize them'

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

This is a great, pissed off, shove-it-in-their-face song. Probably one of the reasons this band broke up after a short lifespan...

Flipping through the Oxford Dictionary of Quotations today to find something, I stumbled on this, labeled as a Celtic Battle Chant:

"Cherish the man who stands next to you in battle;
Take strength from the righteousness* of your cause;
Feel only the pain you suffer upon your enemies."

*may be rightness

...and this from Su Tung P'O:
"Families, when a child is born
Want it to be intelligent.
I, though intelligence,
Having wrecked my whole life,
Only hope the baby will prove
Ingorant and stupid.
Then he will crown a tranquil life
By becoming a Cabinet Minister."

OK, I'm done ranting.

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