Wake Up - Rage Against the Machine

Come on!
Uggh!

Come on, although ya try to discredit
Ya still never edit
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 s***
Hoover, he was a body remover
I'll give ya a dose
But it'll 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

'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
       Zack de la Rocha, singer and lyricist for Rage Against the Machine, went through hardships growing up. His grandfather was a Sinaloan revolutionary who fought in the Mexican Revolution. When he was only a year old, his parents separated. De la Rocha moved to Irvine when he was only a year old. He described Irvine as one of the most racist cities imaginable. He may have used this built up rage to fuel his passion for writing politically-charged lyrics for Rage Against the Machine. In the song “Wake Up” Rage Against the Machine uses many allusions regarding the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s to basically tell people that it is time for everyone to open their eyes.
       Zack also believes, as expressed in the song, that the government has assassinated more than just one Civil Rights leader. He also believes that they ordered someone to kill Malcolm X. “Networks at work, keepin’ people calm/Ya know they murdered X/And tried to blame it on Islam…And then came the shot.” He also makes his point known by saying “Through counter-intelligence it should be possible to/pinpoint potential trouble-makers…And neutralize them.” The potential trouble-makers would be the people standing up against the government for wronging a large amount of people, or standing up for some part of the government that they see wrong in general. In the song, the Civil Rights activists would be these people. The use of potential trouble-makers refers to the more radical activists, but de la Rocha uses the word “potential” to suggest that the government cannot tell the difference, nor do they care to find the differences, between the violent activists and the peaceful activists. If the government actually did kill these two men, then clearly they truly could not tell the difference between the two.
       De la Rocha stands firmly behind his beliefs, and in this case he is not the only one. Many people believe in the same conspiracy theory, but I think that he used these theories to convey a much deeper, but broader, topic. Both of these theories seem all too plausible, and several people have the same thoughts as de la Rocha, so I think that he used these examples to tell people that governments, or people in general, are always going to do things behind your back and all you have to do is open your eyes. He wants people to stop being so blind to everything that the government could have opposed in the past or what they will oppose in the future. He always seems to show the point he wants to get across by using repetition. “What was the price on his head?…I think I heard a shot…Wake up!” The “price on his head” would represent the opposition, the “shot” would be the government’s response, and he wants the world to “wake up” and see that the government hides more than the average person would think.
       De la Rocha’s lyrics often have a political view that can be also viewed on an everyday level. In “Wake Up” he wants people to realize that governments are full of more lies and more wrongdoing than the mind can perceive, but the song can also be taken from a completely different viewpoint; Listeners can use his advice everyday. To wake up does not only mean to be more aware, but to see past the conspicuous. People should not just take a fact and throw it around. They should dig deeper and find the full meaning, just like he is asking on a political level.       
       Zack de la Rocha, in the song, suggests that the government makes decisions behind the public’s back when they know that nobody will support what they want. For example, he says “Standin’ with the fury that they had in ‘66” to introduce his main topic for discussion, and gets his main point across by saying “Networks at work, keepin’ people calm/You know they went after King/When he spoke out on Vietnam…And then came the shot.” Many people were racist back then, and many people are still racist, but not many people would support assassination. Martin Luther King is not the only prominent Civil Rights figure that de la Rocha suggests that the government ordered to be killed though.