Alt Rock Autumn Day One: Bulls On Parade By Rage Against The Machine
Day one.
Welcome to Alt Rock Autumn. Today is day one of this marvelous countdown that I am so thrilled to bring back. Last year, I sporadically reviewed Alt Rock songs for the month of October, but wasn’t able to stay consistent. Now for this month, I have a set schedule for every day and will have a new Alt Rock Autumn blog coming your way fo the month of October.
With today being a Saturday and a game day for college football players and myself being a former college football player, I wanted to cover an alt rock song that could double as a pump up song. Making their first appearance on the countdown for Alt Rock Autumn is Rage Against The Machine with their song Bulls On Parade.
Rage Against The Machine dropped Bulls On Parade on February 9, 1996 and it blurs the lines of alternative rock and metal rap in the most perfect way possible. It’s angry, it’s angsty, and it’s beautiful to hear. I’ve had this song on my lifting and game day playlist ever since I was a sophomore in high school and it’s never done me wrong.
While you may get lost in the famous guitar solo and ear drum shattering drum play, the lyrics have a deeper meaning. It’s an anti-war anthem. “Weapons not food, not homes, not shoes, Not need, just feed the war cannibal animal, I walk the corner to the rubble that used to be a library”. When you really get into the nitty gritty of the lyrics like the one above, you see their disdain for war and bombing foreign countries, leaving them with rubble where their communities were.
“They don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em, While arms warehouses fill as quick as the cells”. The band even delves into censorship on American soil of books. Around this time in history and a few years prior, the politicians were making a push to ban certain books and music. Eleven years prior, Tipper Gore and other politicians threatened metal music due to teen suicide and it being “immoral”. Rage Against The Machine wanted to lay down their sentiment towards acts like this.
When Rage Against The Machine performed Bulls On Parade on multiple shows, they dedicated the song to George Bush and Tony Blair for their roles in the war on terror.
The song has built up a large modern day presence amongst musicians and die hard rock fans. It’s been covered multiple times, but none of them stand close to Denzel Currys rendition of the song. In 2019, the rapper covered Bulls On Parade on the Australian radio station Triple J as a part of a segment. It’s a banger.
Bulls On Parade peaked on international charts at number one on both the UK Rock and Metal chart and Finnish charts in 1996. The highest it reached in the United States was number eleven in 1996 on the US Alternative Airplay chart. In addition, it was voted the fifteenth greatest metal song on VH1’s 40 Greatest Metal Songs.
With today being a Saturday, if you’re a college athlete, I recommend you throw this angry head banger on in either the locker room or your headphones and get ready to break some skulls. Zack de la Rochas vocals will fill your body with irate goosebumps. TURN IT UP.