No Shelter
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| “No Shelter” | |||||
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| Single by Rage Against the Machine from the album Godzilla Soundtrack |
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| Released | 12th February 1998 | ||||
| Format | CD, 7", 12" | ||||
| Genre | Alternative rock | ||||
| Length | 4 min 3 s | ||||
| Rage Against the Machine singles chronology | |||||
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"No Shelter" is a politically charged song released by Rage Against the Machine in 1998 that was featured on the Godzilla soundtrack. The song is about how the media and movies distract the public from more important issues in the world.
The song discusses materialism and criticizes the feigned rebelliousness of teenaged consumerism, mentioning Nike and Coca-Cola particularly. Its central theme, however, is media control over public sentiment. In particular it attacks the historical accuracy of Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad.
In an ironic twist, despite appearing on the Godzilla soundtrack, the song even contains the lines:
| “ | Godzilla pure mother fuckin' filler,
To keep your eyes off the real killer. |
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It was also featured as a bonus track on the Australian edition of The Battle of Los Angeles.
[edit] Music video
This video has a retro, 1920s "Golden Age" theme. It resembles the Industrial Revolution with scenes of workers in assembly lines, while company owners oversee the operations. The band plays throughout the video in a room that seems to be part of a abandoned building or factory. In the "board room", executives and developers plot out a sort of "helmet" with a video screen that covers the face. They experiment by putting the helmet on a teenager who is perturbed and upset. The video screen displays a mouth smiling. The executives declare the helmet a success, and shake hands. They take the teenager away in a van, and kill him in a remote area. Because the song was released for the 1998 film Godzilla, satirical "spoofs" of movie's phrase "Size does matter" appear on billboards in the city scenes. They are;
- "Mumia Abu Jamal's cell is this big" (a tiny cell) -- "Justice does matter!"
- "The crater at Hiroshima would stretch from here"... (zooms out to other end of city)... "to here." -- "History does matter!"
- "Babies born into poverty in the U.S. each year would fill this building" (large building) -- "Inequality does matter!"
- "Land stolen from Mexico equals five states" (darken area of US map, covering from California to Texas) -- "Imperialism matters!"
[edit] External links
- Official Website
- Axis of Justice Tom Morello and Serj Tankian's Activist Website "Axis Of Justice"
- Vietnow.org Rage Against The Machine news resource and forum
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