SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE LYRICS TV

The music video ends with the claim that RATM caused the NYSE to close down.and no money was hurt. 'Then why are you here?' asks Bane, unimpressed. There's nothing to steal,' says one of the day-traders.

Despite the problems with that film, there's a moment of significance when Bane (the bad guy) takes over the Gotham Stock Exchange. The interpolation of the stock exchange reminds me of the film The Dark Knight Rises, which attempted (and failed) to capture the zeitgeist of the then-important Occupy Wall Street movement. The idea that the system abuses the masses and the masses love it, adore it, accept it is all summarized in the title of the song and its entire refrain: 'Sleep now in the fire.' Within that commentary, we see people confused by reality (see the woman's response at 1:24 about uninsured people) and obviously guessing at the systemic flaws (see, for example 1:36-1:38). In other words, the game provides the commentary about the corruption of the system as the song, in the Voice of the System, crows its successes and mechanisms for maintaining them (the oft-repeated 'fire'). The details inside of the questions were pretty much correct for 1999 (when the song was released), including answers about the gender pay gap, quantity of people without health insurance, and the amount of wealth controlled by the top 10% of the earners. The game was more complicated than RATM's version, but the Filthy F&#%ing Rich style relies, as I said, on binaries, drawing a stark line around the problems the song is protesting. The criticism of capitalism is reduced down to a binary, which also serves as the parody of Millionaire. In the original game show, contestants had to pass multiple choice trivia questions to earn up to the eponymous millions.

SLEEP NOW IN THE FIRE LYRICS TV

This critique is further enhanced with the parody of the then-popular TV show, Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? For the RATM version, it's Who Wants To Be Filthy F&#%ing Rich? (seen at :35). This critique presses throughout the entire video, complete with the understanding of the irony of it all: The band itself, dressed to the nines during their green-screen cuts, gives the appearance of conformity, with their image being bourgeois, their lyrics being bourgeois, their message being proletarian. The video begins with the sound of a typewriter as the words on the screen bring up a familiar idea: 'Wall Street announces record profits, record layoffs.' The perennial criticism of capitalism is that it's a system that enriches the few at the expense of the many (with the counterargument that rising waters lift all ships, and though some become ultra-rich, a vast majority are bettered because of the system understood but not agreed to). Once you're up to speed, we'll move along. If you aren't down with heavy critiques on capitalism and its inherent injustices and abuses, then you may want to step away today.Īs before, I have the music video below, as well as the lyrics.

Not like 'Hillary's on the left!' kind of 'left' (which she isn't, but whatever), but I mean- seriously far left. Oh, and in case you were unaware of Rage Against the Machine's politics, it's far, far left. That there is an additional story behind the making of the music video, as well as the video's connection to the band ultimately breaking up after the music video lost to one of Limp Bizkit's back in 2000 drops more potential interpretations into a way to read this piece. In the case of Rage Against the Machine, there's always a lot to unpack lyrically, and the choices they made for this music video add complicated layers. As always, I'm looking to the video to help provide a different reading of the text of the song. This is the fifth of my music video analyses.

Sleep now in the fire lyrics