Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name

Rolling Stone’s not my usual source of reading or listening material but earlier in August an article with Tom Morello peaked my interest as he was talking about Killing In The Name where Morello revealed that the track started out as an instrumental.

Speaking on Rolling Stone‘s Music Now podcast (via Music-News), Morello recalled performing the song live for the very first time, saying: “It was originally an instrumental.There’s a Rage Against the Machine video from Cal State Northridge – which is our first public performance – where we open the show with an instrumental version of ‘Killing in the Name’ and Timmy [Commerford, bassist], I think, came up with that really cool bass riff. [Drummer] Brad Wilk’s crowd-bouncing beat is there from the very, very beginning. And then Zack [de la Rocha, vocalist] laced it with the historic lyrics.”

He added: “We actually left the lyrics off of the lyric sheet of the first record, because I think it’s two lines, 16 ‘fuck yous’, and one ‘motherfucker.’ And we’re like, in the midst of all this grand political poetry, let’s just that one stand for itself. The dunna-dunt [before de la Rocha raps, ‘and now you do what they told ya’] that was an important part! I remember our A&R guy, Michael Goldstone, who’s a genius. He’s got Pearl Jam. He was really the fifth Beatle early on. He was a great help, but he wanted us to take that part out of the song. I think he heard ‘hit single, as long as he doesn’t have that crazy part where it just stops a lot!’ That was a bit of a lift from Zeppelin’s ‘Good times, Bad Times,’ that part. We’ve felt pretty confident that needs to stay in the song, and I think history has borne that out.”

Morello went on to praise the song’s one-line breakdown, saying that de la Rocha’s “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me” chant remains a “universal sentiment” despite its simplicity. “While it’s a simple lyric, I think it’s one of Zack’s [de la Rocha] most brilliant,” he added. Last month, Morello praised protesters in Portland for chanting the aforementioned ‘Killing In The Name’ line to police officers. “Well that’s what it’s for!” he said on Twitter.

Ripped from the CD single release to motherfucking MP3 @ 320kbps

Rage Against The Machine - Killing In The Name

1.       Killing In The Name

2.       Darkness Of Greed

3.       Clear The Lane