58. Freedom by Rage Against the Machine

"Freedom" by Rage Against the Machine

Written by Rage Against the Machine (Tim Commerford, Zach de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk)
Produced by Garth Richardson and Rage Against the Machine
Released on Rage Against the Machine (November 3, 1992)
Released as single August 23, 1994
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Warning: Explicit Lyrics

It is impossible to write about Rage Against the Machine without getting political. Rage Against the Machine (RATM) are a political band. Their politics are front and center in the lyrics of all their songs. Despite that, not everyone noticed or paid attention to their politics, no matter how loudly Zach de la Rocha screamed.

A few years back, Rep. Paul Ryan listed RATM among bands he enjoyed listening to while working out. I get why people were shocked by this. There are not too many things more diametrically opposed than the policies that Ryan campaigned on and the policies that RATM sang/rapped about. At the same time, when working out, typically I want music that pumps me up, and Rage definitely does that. Sometimes it is possible to listen to them without paying too much attention to their lyrics, but something is always going to seep through. Representative Ryan's affinity for Rage and their music could have been a result of a woeful ignorance of their lyrics, or it could show that he actually doesn't really believe the policies he claims to support. That's always a question I have about politicians: do they actually believe what they say or do they say what we believe just to get elected and gain power?

While it can be hard to read politicians, Rage Against the Machine have been very clear and up front about their beliefs. I once read a feature about their guitarist, Tom Morello, where he claimed to read Chairman Mao's The Little Red Book to his kids like a bedtime story. That's a pretty strong endorsement. You can also hear their beliefs in every song they record, and you hear them loudly. Zach de la Rocha's vocals are always loud and angry and clear. I'm not sure any other rapper or singer displays the level of passion and heart that is felt in every word he spits into a microphone.

So I guess the question remains, how do I feel about their music and politics?

As for the music, I both struggled to figure out which song of theirs to include in my top 100 and also struggled to figure out how many songs of theirs I should include. When I made this list, I felt pretty good about "Freedom" being my favorite Rage song. Now, I'm not as sure. Despite only producing 4 albums (including one of covers), Rage made a ton of great songs. They packed their albums full of bangers.

There's lots to love about "Freedom:" It has a great guitar riff; it's not all loud all the time; it's angry; it has a great coda. But the big thing for me is it features one of the greatest guttural, primal, wails in rock history. I love a good wail, whether it's a "yeah" or a "woo" or anything else. Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, Jon Fogerty, Wilson Pickett, and John Lennon were all champion wailers. That's a big reason why I love them so much. But here, at about the 4:45 mark, Zach de la Rocha starts this long slowly building wail, and then the real fun begins. As he alternates between "Freedom, yeah!" and "Freedom, yeah right!" I'm not sure I fully understand how he still has working vocal chords. It is full volume, full on screaming, and I love every second of it.

As for the politics, my beliefs have clearly become more liberal as I've gotten older. My dad could probably have counted on one hand the number of times he voted for a Democrat. He would often just mark the box on his ballots to automatically select every Republican. I'm not sure my mom voted quite that uniformly, but the impression I always had was that we were a Republican household. One of my most influential teachers and coaches in high school was incredibly conservative, and at that time, everything he said seemed to make sense.

Once I left home for college, I found myself starting a slow drift towards the left side of the political spectrum. While I still related more to fiscal conservatism in government, I was beginning to become more socially liberal. I could no longer justify the death penalty; I abandoned any final qualms I had with being pro-choice; and I could no longer justify why our military was so big and expensive. All I wanted to do was cut spending and let people live their lives. Give me libertarianism or give me death!

Every year my beliefs shift and change and find focus. I'm much more open to liberal talking points than conservative, but up to a point. I'm still not willing to call myself a Democrat. Mostly I just find myself becoming more and more disillusioned about the whole system. Whichever side I look to, it seems like it's more about money than beliefs. Businesses that are "too big to fail" (which means they're simply too big) gain more and more influence and power, and the rest of us just retweet talking points and think the other guy's got to be better than whoever we don't agree with.

The last few times I've taken a political compass test online, I've been told that I'm a left-libertarian. That's nice to know, but it's also frustrating that my personal political philosophy is not shared by anyone whose name is likely to show up on a ballot that matters. I can't think of the last time the choices weren't simply about picking the lesser of two evils.

While I am not ready to fully embrace the economic philosophies of RATM, there is a lot that they rap about that I agree with. After committing to a system of genocide against the indigenous populations on our continent, does our government continue to malign and ignore those who survived? Yes. Do school curriculums generally ignore marginalized populations? Yes. Are our policies set less by the will of the people and more by the wants and needs of a bloated military-industrial and prison-industrial complexes? Yes.

All of this was true in 1994 and is still true today. As a teacher, I would love to say that we have improved and changed what we teach and how we teach it, but I can't speak for everyone. Sure there are individual schools and individual teachers trying to give voice to those who have been muted or erased, but too many schools and teachers are still teaching the same tired and biased curriculums that we all grew up with. At some point we need to begin owning and learning from our ancestors' mistakes. We are still making too many of those mistakes again and again.

That's probably why I love Zach de la Rocha's screaming so much, because sometimes that's exactly what I want to do. Just scream into a microphone hoping someone will pay attention. Someone might, but it seems more likely that most people will ignore it completely or just turn up the volume and keep cranking out reps at the gym.

Right now "Freedom" by Rage Against the Machine is (probably) my 58th favorite song of all time.