Wake Up (Rage Against the Machine song)

"Wake Up"
Song

"Wake Up" is a song performed by the rock band Rage Against the Machine. It is the seventh track from their self-titled debut album.

The lyrics discuss racism within the American government and the counter-intelligence programs of the FBI; a spoken portion of the song is taken from an actual FBI memo in which J. Edgar Hoover suggests targets for the suppression of the black nationalist movement.[1] The song also makes references to prominent black figures targeted by the government such as Malcom X and Martin Luther King Jr..

The opening riffs of the song are somewhat reminiscent of the opening chords of the Led Zeppelin song "Kashmir". A shorter version of the song is memorably featured at the end of the 1999 film The Matrix, a nod to both the band's name (the main antagonists of the movie are sentient machines) as well the name of the song (in the movie, humans are kept dormant so that they can be used to produce energy). The song is notable in that it features multiple musical parts, in an almost suite-like manner, and runs over 6 minutes. Its structure is very similar in this way to that of "Freedom," another track from the album, and it is a formula Rage would use many times throughout their career. There is also heavy use of quiet-to-loud dynamics, which was common in music during the early nineties. It is one of Rage's signature songs, although it has never been released as a single.