"Testify" | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|
Single by Rage Against the Machine | ||||
from the album The Battle of Los Angeles | ||||
Released | June 7, 2000 | |||
Genre | Nu metal [1] | |||
Length | 3:29 | |||
Songwriter(s) | Tim Commerford, Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk | |||
Producer(s) | Rage Against the Machine, Brendan O'Brien | |||
Rage Against the Machine singles chronology | ||||
|
"Testify" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. It is the opening track from their third album The Battle of Los Angeles (1999), and was released as the third single from the album.
The cover of the single was taken from the 1968 Olympics Black Power Salute. The song's lyrics notably make reference to George Orwell's novel now turned movie 1984 through use of "The Party" slogan "Who controls the past (now), controls the future. Who controls the present (now), controls the past."
A song titled "Testify" was performed at the KROQ Almost Acoustic X-Mas, 12.12.1993. The song is completely unrelated to the Battle of Los Angeles track except for the title. Although the song was played only this once and disappeared, some of the lyrics were used for "Down Rodeo" and the final version of "People of the Sun".
"Testify" made its live debut under the working title "Hendrix" on January 23, 1999, at a surprise club show at the Troubador in West Hollywood, CA. [2] While the instrumental part was identical to the final version, the lyrics were completely different.
Rage Against the Machine opened most of the concerts in its reunion tour with "Testify".
The song, like many Rage Against the Machine songs, is notable for Tom Morello's unorthodox use of his guitar to create unusual sounds, as well as his use of drop D (D-A-D-G-B-E) tuning. Morello plays the sweeping sound in the song's intro and verse using a mixture of effects and techniques. First, he sets a DigiTech Whammy pedal to harmonize a minor 7th above the note being played, and the delay pedal is set to a short, slap-back setting that almost sounds like reverb. Morello creates the sound by simply picking the open low D string and using his wah-wah pedal to slowly shift back & forth between the bass and treble frequencies. [3] For the song's solo, Morello removes the lead from the jack of his guitar and taps it against the bridge, while manipulating his Whammy and wah pedals, creating a squealing noise; Morello sometimes uses this technique to improvise on songs live. During more recent live performances of the song, Morello sometimes claps the lead in his hands while manipulating his pedals for the solo.
The bass in the song is also tuned to drop D, and Commerford plays the verse by simply sliding on the lower D string from the 12th fret to open string then back to the 12th fret.
The music video, directed by Michael Moore, features a group of aliens, with the title card "Aliens plot to conquer Earth!" followed by "Launch the mutant now!", after which a number of clips showing the two presidential candidates at the time (George W. Bush and Al Gore for the 2000 US Presidential Election) stating the same policies and views on important issues, and the movie aims to highlight the lack of choice in the US electoral system. This is spoofed in the video as the images of Bush and Gore are morphed together, thereby creating a "mutant" that "appears as two but speaks as one."
Other key themes in the video focus on America's reliance on oil, with several clips of the Gulf War, and lines at gas pumps accompanied by the lines "Mass graves for the pump and the price is set." Other clips display modern industrialization and the military industrial complex, juxtaposed against images of third world nations.
Other organizations, topics, and individuals displayed in the video include: Exxon, George W. Bush's reaction to same sex relationships, Richard Nixon, Kenneth Starr, Bill Clinton, Oliver North, Monica Lewinsky, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Pope John Paul II, General Norman Schwarzkopf, the Christian Coalition, monster truck rallies, the Republican Revolution, and the corporate donations that each candidate has received.
The similarities between the two candidates are displayed through sound bites of their speeches. Among the topics that George W. Bush and Al Gore agree on, as shown in the video: support of the death penalty, prosperity through free trade, investing in the future, support of clean air, and a ban on soft money. Each candidate concludes by stating "God Bless America."
The video ends with a quote from Ralph Nader: "If you're not turned on to politics, politics will turn on you." [4]
Chart (2001) | Position |
---|---|
Canada (Nielsen SoundScan) [5] | 186 |
An effects unit, effects processor, or effects pedal is an electronic device that alters the sound of a musical instrument or other audio source through audio signal processing.
The guitar is a stringed musical instrument that is usually fretted and typically has six or twelve strings. It is usually held flat against the player's body and played by strumming or plucking the strings with the dominant hand, while simultaneously pressing selected strings against frets with the fingers of the opposite hand. A guitar pick may also be used to strike the strings. The sound of the guitar is projected either acoustically, by means of a resonant hollow chamber on the guitar, or amplified by an electronic pickup and an amplifier.
Slide guitar is a technique for playing the guitar that is often used in blues music. It involves playing a guitar while holding a hard object against the strings, creating the opportunity for glissando effects and deep vibratos that reflect characteristics of the human singing voice. It typically involves playing the guitar in the traditional position with the use of a slide fitted on one of the guitarist's fingers. The slide may be a metal or glass tube, such as the neck of a bottle, giving rise to the term bottleneck guitar to describe this type of playing. The strings are typically plucked while the slide is moved over the strings to change the pitch. The guitar may also be placed on the player's lap and played with a hand-held bar.
The Parents Music Resource Center (PMRC) was an American committee formed in 1985 with the stated goal of increasing parental control over the access of children to music deemed to have violent, drug-related, or sexual themes via labeling albums with Parental Advisory stickers. The committee was founded by four women known as the "Washington Wives"—a reference to their husbands' connections with government in the Washington, D.C. area. The women who founded the PMRC are Tipper Gore, wife of Senator and later Vice President Al Gore; Susan Baker, wife of Treasury Secretary James Baker; Pam Howar, wife of Washington realtor Raymond Howar; and Sally Nevius, wife of former Washington City Council Chairman John Nevius. The PMRC eventually grew to include 22 participants before shutting down in the mid-to-late 1990s.
The Clavinet is an electric clavichord invented by Ernst Zacharias and manufactured by the Hohner company of Trossingen, West Germany, from 1964 to 1982. The instrument produces sounds with rubber pads, each matching one of the keys and responding to a keystroke by striking a given point on a tensioned string, and was designed to resemble the Renaissance-era clavichord.
The lap steel guitar, also known as a Hawaiian guitar or Lap Slide Guitar, is a type of steel guitar without pedals that is typically played with the instrument in a horizontal position across the performer's lap. Unlike the usual manner of playing a traditional acoustic guitar, in which the performer's fingertips press the strings against frets, the pitch of a steel guitar is changed by pressing a polished steel bar against plucked strings. Though the instrument does not have frets, it displays markers that resemble them. Lap steels may differ markedly from one another in external appearance, depending on whether they are acoustic or electric, but in either case, do not have pedals, distinguishing them from pedal steel guitars.
A vibrato system on a guitar is a mechanical device used to temporarily change the pitch of the strings. It adds vibrato to the sound by changing the tension of the strings, typically at the bridge or tailpiece of an electric guitar using a controlling lever, which is alternately referred to as a whammy bar, vibrato bar, or tremolo arm. The lever enables the player to quickly and temporarily vary the tension and sometimes length of the strings, changing the pitch to create a vibrato, portamento, or pitch bend effect. Instruments without a vibrato have other bridge and tailpiece systems.
"Killing in the Name" is a song by the American band Rage Against the Machine, and appears on their 1992 self-titled debut album. It features heavy drop-D guitar riffs. The lyrics protest police brutality, inspired by the beating of Rodney King and the 1992 Los Angeles riots.
"Bulls on Parade" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. It is the second song from their second studio album, Evil Empire (1996). It was released as the album's first single to modern rock radio on February 9, 1996.
Open D tuning is an open tuning for the acoustic or electric guitar. The open string notes in this tuning are : D A D F♯ A D. It uses the three notes that form the triad of a D major chord: D, F♯ and A.
"Mofo" is a song by Irish rock band U2. It is the third track on their 1997 album Pop, and was released as the album's final single on 8 December 1997. The song was partially written about lead vocalist Bono's mother, who died when he was 14 years old. Other songs which Bono wrote about his mother include "Lemon", "I Will Follow", "Iris " and "Tomorrow".
"Know Your Enemy" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine. It features Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan on vocals during the bridge section, and Jane's Addiction drummer Stephen Perkins playing additional percussion. Allmusic describes the song as "immediately memorable" and "surprisingly straightforward" while music critic Joel McIver cited it as "a standout track" of the album. "Know Your Enemy" had received significant radio airplay by 1993, despite never being released as an official single.
The DigiTechWhammy is a pitch shifter pedal manufactured by DigiTech. It raises or lowers the pitch of an audio signal by up to two octaves, controlled with a treadle. The first model, released in 1989, was the first mass-market digital pitch shifter.
"Calm Like a Bomb" is a song by American rock band Rage Against the Machine from their third album The Battle of Los Angeles. Like their song "Tire Me" from the 1996 album Evil Empire, “Calm Like a Bomb” never had a music video or was released on any media formats. It did, however, receive enough radio airplay to become an album favorite.
"Show Me How to Live" is a song by the American rock supergroup Audioslave. It was released in June 2003 as the third single from their first album, Audioslave, released in 2003. It peaked at number 67 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, number 2 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks and number 4 in the Modern Rock Tracks.
Brian Gibson is an American musician, artist, and video game designer based in Providence, Rhode Island. Gibson is best known as the bassist for the band Lightning Bolt. In the summer of 2015 he co-founded the game development company Drool. At Drool, he created the art and music for the video game Thumper and co-designed the game alongside Marc Flury. Thumper was released with critical acclaim in October 2016. He was previously a lead artist working at video game company Harmonix since 2001, but quit in the summer of 2015.
"Original Fire" is a song by American hard rock band Audioslave. It was released in July 2006 as the first single from the album Revelations.
Dive bomb is a guitar technique in which the tremolo bar, or whammy bar is used to rapidly lower the pitch of a note, creating a sound considered to be similar to a bomb dropping. One of the most recognized pioneers of this technique is Jimi Hendrix. Other musicians who used this technique are Ritchie Blackmore, Dave Murray, Herman Li, Eddie Van Halen, Randy Rhoads, Brian May, Joe Satriani and Tom Scholz of Boston. Some guitarists, such as K.K. Downing, Glenn Tipton, Jeff Hanneman and Dimebag Darrell have used a variation of this technique in which a harmonic, most commonly a pinch harmonic, is used instead of a normal fretted or open note creating a sound arguably closer to that of a bomb due to the squealing sound created by the harmonic.
"Promenade" is the second single by rap rock supergroup Street Sweeper Social Club from their debut self-titled album. The version that was released as a single differs from that on the album, the original version on the album is 2:31 in length whereas the extended version is 3:40 in length. The extended version features a guitar solo by Tom Morello, the extended version is also on The Ghetto Blaster EP, but is listed as the 'Guitar Fury remix'.
"Suicide Note" is a two-part song by American heavy metal band Pantera from their eighth studio album, The Great Southern Trendkill. The first half of the song was released as the album's second single in 1996. The combination total time is 9 minutes and 3 seconds.