Calm Like A bomb
Throughout time music has been used to express the way a musician feels. Sometimes a musician will sing about love, sometimes hate, and sometimes he or she will go as far as singing about current political issues involving war and injustices. In 1797, Jozef Wybicki wrote the Polish national anthem in Italy while fighting the Russians. The song called for an independent Poland and motivated the people of Poland to stand up against the Russians and fight for their freedom. In the 70's it was the Rolling Stones and Crosby Stills Nash and Young that sang out against the Vietnam War and motivated many "hippies" to stand up against the United States government. In the 90's it was time for a new type of music, punk. The band Rage Against the Machine made an enormous contribution to the musical scene. Their songs inspired many to stand up for their rights and also brought enormous attention to the Zapatista movement in Mexico. Their hit song Calm Like a Bomb is one of their more controversial songs that challenges civilization. It uses the themes of society paradigms, recurring problems around the world, the need for society to rebuild from the beginning and the need for people to stand up for their rights.
The song says "Like Baldwin home from Paris" (Rage Against the Machine, 4). The line "And tha riot be tha rhyme of tha unheard" (Rage Against the Machine, 23) is telling the listener that sometimes it is necessary to think outside of the box if you want to be listened too. The destruction of a country is not implying the death of its entire population but instead the destruction of the country's government. A paradigm is simply a set of rules that filters information and sets boundaries and borders for what humans can and can't do. This line is making reference to the late James Baldwin. The "critical mass" is making reference to a nuclear bomb and the point where a nuclear bomb can no longer be stopped. It is clear that Rage Against the Machine feels very strongly that there is still hope for society to obtain its' goal of equality and happiness throughout the world but there is a price and that price will have to be paid soon. However, Rage Against The Machine believes that for this idea to ever come true, civilization needs to start over and rebuild itself. The song also states "Hope lies in tha smoldering rubble of empires" (Rage Against the Machine, 30). The mall is symbolic of the culture of consumerism which causes people to take out loans and in turn creates debt and poverty. The idea of equality and happiness throughout the world is a marvelous idea. It gives an example of a poor country when it says, (Rage Against the Machine, 11-14) Same bodies buried hungry But with different last names These vultures rob everything Leave nothing but chainsThese lines are discussing the poor who are dying of starvation while the governments do nothing to help. Rage Against the Machine encourages the listener to stand up for his/her rights and not be discouraged by the establishment. What would happen if everything went from calm like a bomb to just being calm? Should the listener believe or not believe in the ideology of Rage Against the Machine, he or she must question whether their belief is a paradigm or not. These two lines imply that no matter where on earth you look, the problems are the same.
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