The Battle Of Los Angeles, Definitions & Meanings Options

[Renegades]

Testify
About the misrepresentation of the Gulf War by the U.S. media. News anchors relay lies into the homes of Americans, because that's all the Americans, being empty people whose only concerns are the media's showcase of glamour and gossip, can handle. The only way for people to survive is through the opiates that they partake of every day in the form of celebrities and media. It uses the party slogan for the Oceania government in the book "1984": "Who controls the past, controls the future. Who controls the present, controls the past."

Guerrilla Radio
1)Hugh Pouliot
This song is about the worthlessness of democracy in the United States. Since the people don't truely understand "choice", and are only able to grasp a small glipse of those running to represent them in office, they are unconsciously under a one-party system. Rage are using music and sound as a weapon against such "low intensity warfare". This song was the first single from Battle of Los Angeles, and is the most recognizable as "Rage", in relation to their past releases. It's basically a manifestation of Rage's goal and purpose, acting as "guerrilla radio" to alert the masses of the change to radical ideas.

2) Elliot
Seemed to me that our gov. is more of a show and nothing more than that for us. and that the businesses really control our goverment. he countieally empasizes the word "monopolized" and that is one reason i though that. or the lines "Who stuff the banks Who staff the party ranks " which shows that companys run our country and not the people.

Calm Like a Bomb
Calm Like a Bomb sort of defines Rage's observations of the world. Zack practically lists everything he sees, sounding off a general "wake up call" to everyone, as well as urging them into change. This is Rage's vision of the world, as a whole, and in the individual cities. (Pick a point on the globe/Pick a point here at home).

Mic Check
Zack checking the mic to get the attention of the oppressed. I can imagine him on a soapbox, definately. The original version played live at the Mumia Abu-Jamal benefit in 1999 had the lyric in the chorus: "From the field, to the factory - mic check, ha ha ha!" The song is sometimes called "Mic Check (Once Hunting, Now Hunted)" referring to the police who were once "hunting from 9-to-5, through factory lines" are now hunted on "this modern day auction block". This song IS hip-hop, and Rage does it better than anyone else. The lyric, "To the young R-E-B-E-L, never give up - just live up," inspires on a personal level.

Sleep Now in the Fire
1) Hugh Pouliot
This is about the Westernization/influence of capitalism and the United States on the world. Numerous references to exploitative Western legacies (Columbus' ships, the fields overseer of the slaves in the American South, my agents of orange - the shit the US military dropped all over Vietnam, the priests of Hiroshima) "There is no other pill to take so swallow the one that makes you ill" (I think the pill is a metaphor for political system/government, and how the U.S. makes other countries switch to their idea off a democracy)

2) Veljko Tomic
First you must imagine that these lyrics is USA goverment singing to you.
The world is my expense
The cost of my desire
Jesus blessed me with it's future
and I protect it with fire
In the other words, they (USA) can do whatever they want to world and poor countries & they are explaning that as christan duty to destroy communist or others that don't want to be their servants.
so raise your fists....
or I'll drag you to your grave
This means that you must fight in their army for them, or they will kill you. You also must be their servant or they're gonna murder you.
I'm deep inside your children
They'll betray you in my name
He says that our children are mesmerised with USA and that they gonna suport the USA if we don't tell them the real truth.
hey, hey, sleep now in the fire
USA goverment singing to us
The lie is my expense...
and I protect it with fire
check out the first interprtation
I am the Nina, The Pinta, The Santa Maria
Were the ships that Chrispher Colubus first sailed to America on
The noose and the rapist
That are the crimes of USA goverment through history and today (atomic bomb--Hiroshima, agents of orange - based on "agent orange", a powerful weapon used in Vietnam)
For it's the end of history
They're not telling us the real truth and they want us to believe in their 'truth'
It's caged and frozen still
The truth is unspoken and ordinary people don't know nothing about the crimes because it is top secret...
There is no other pill to take
so swallow the one that made you ill
The USA goverment would let us die if it made a profit for them, check out AIDS in central Africa 03 - (Jim Bob) - 'its the end of history' phrase coined by political theorist fancis fukiyama (ckeck spelling), early ninties, after cold war, basically saying that all political options had been exhausted, and capitalism had one, 'its caged and fozen still', it wont cahnge, 'there is no other pill to take', 'so swallow the one that made you ill' .... CAPITALISM !!!

Born of a Broken Man
This is the most personal song, and it is about Zack's father's mental collapse when Zack was a younger man. Don't count on Rage to dwell in depression, however - this song declares that while Zack was born of a broken man, he is not a broken man himself. He can see the events that led to his father's breakdown, and avoid them on his own path.

Born as Ghosts
I think this song is about children born into very poor families inMexico where they have no advantages what so ever and their lives don't matter . The part in the song about Gates, Guns and Alarms shaping the calm of the dawn is in reference to the U.S./Mexico Border and Border Gaurds blocking the children's entrance to the U.S. where they can hopefully raise their state of living. Also the line about "One book and forty ghosts locked in a room" is in reference to the poor school system which children born into poverty must deal with.

Maria
"Maria" is about a woman who comes to the United States as an illegal alien and is basically murdered by her supervisor in a sweatshop. "The new line of Mason Dixon" is a reference to the US border with Mexico. The Mason Dixon Line (if you remember your American history) was the border that separated slave states from free states as a result of the Missouri Compromise.

Voice of the Voiceless
About Mumia Abu-Jamal. The lyric "And Orwell's hell, a terror era comin true. But this little brother's watching you too." That's a reference to the classic George Orwell novel 1984, where the state is basically this unseen authoritarian force that controls everything and everybody. The term Orwell uses for the government is "Big Brother" (which is still used as a metaphor for government over 50 years after he wrote the book in 1948) . So "little brother" in that lyric would be the average citizen, who's aware of the government's abuse/authority and knows it's wrong.

New Millenium Homes
New Millenium Homes is a song about capitalism and how it negatively affects the poor working class. Words like "old south order, new northern horizon" are in reference to the fact that large corporations make you think they have great positive ideals and practices when in actuality they have the same slave owning way of thinking of the old american south. The title New Millenium Homes I think is meant to be a slightly sarcastic way of saying so called charity is a fraud to make you believe something is actually being done about the problem of poverty.

Ashes in the Fall
1) Hugh Pouliot
It is my understanding that this song is about the future, after the collapse of modern society. I believe that Ashes In The Fall is a song that is about groups like political parties repackaging the same rhetoric over and over again saying that it has been drastically changed (ie. This is the new sound, just like the new sound). This explains the "Aint it funny how the factory doors close..." part. "Orwell's Hell" could refere to either the reference to the "peronal hell" that is descibed in the book "1984" or has it something to dowith Orwell's greatest fear; a totalitarian state.

2)Dee-Dee Halili
Of course, the song is about the future, and unfortunately, some of Zack's predictions are coming true.  Take, for
example, this lyric:

"In Appalachia / It's the priests that fuck you / As they whisper holy things..."

Accusations of priestly sexual abuse arose around 2001, and increased even more as molestation victims started to speak up about their ordeals.  The Roman Catholic Church is quite screwed, and the Vatican can only "reform" these priests, and before you know it, they're back in THE SAME PARISH! Perhaps the sexual repression that Catholicism puts on men of the collar contributes very much...and you wonder why it's so rampant in Catholic parishes!  Why doesn't the Vatican allow priests to marry, like Protestant ministers?  It saves a significant amount of sexual tension and repression. Like what Friedrich Nieztsche once said:  "All suppressed truths become poisonous."

War Within a Breath
Follow the Zapatista's example: Everything can change on a New Year's Day - seize the metropolis, it's you it's built on. This is all self-explanatory. "It's land or death" is a phrase that emphasizes that land, for the agrarian cultures of Chiapas, Mexico, is life - sustained by relationships with supernatural forces, and nurtured in communal and familial rituals. Land is the essential part of being, and is worked, cared for, and ritualized in a cultural, symbolic, and matter-of-survival context. When the Mexican government "changed" article 27 of the Constitution, eliminating community property, they also eliminated the people, dividing them into pieces, families, or individuals, and privitizing the land. If the Zapatistas don't take arms and fight for land - they face death.

[Radisshu]

a very interesting read, 'specially if you're unsure about what some of the songs were about.

[Recor S.]

Thats very interesting to read....from first glance at the lyrics on BOLA, they don't seem too deep (if you can understand that), but they really mean something and I think everyone should check out what Rage really means when they say what they do.

[Radisshu]

[Break it down Ja...]

Wow my eyes hurt...

[Sephiroth]

Isn't Born of a Broken man a sound track from some movie?

[rev79]

[Sephiroth]

[regilas]

I've read the lyrics over and over to Guerrilla Radio, and as I can see:

Verse 1: It discusses the mass media groups and corporations

Verse 2: Talking about a march on D.C. to destroy the media groups etc. and continues to basic revolution song. The meaning you (Renegades) mentioned seemed to plain

I agree with the meanings of the other songs.

[regilas]

I've read the lyrics over and over to Guerrilla Radio, and as I can see:

Verse 1: It discusses the mass media groups and corporations

Verse 2: Talking about a march on D.C. to destroy the media groups etc. and continues to basic revolution song. The meaning you (Renegades) mentioned seemed to plain

I agree with the meanings of the other songs.

[oppressedyouth99]

Is it just me or is this the only non parental rage cd?

[rev79]

There's only one curse word on the entire CD that I can think of:

"like the priest that fucks you as he whispers holy things"

..but I think that just goes to show you don't need to be a foul-mouth to produce something great.

[regilas]

Cursing in:

Guerrilla Radio
Mic Check
Ashes in the Fall

[ChucK Taylor]

[rev79]

Its minimal, anyway