By Tom Morello



AVAILABLE NOW (CLICK BELOW TO PURCHASE IN iTUNES)

http://bit.ly/UnionTown-iTunesUS

Earlier this year I performed in Madison, Wisconsin at the massive demonstrations against anti-union legislation put forward by that state’s right wing governor. While I’ve played hundreds of demonstrations, I’ve never seen anything quite like Madison. Bratwurst chomping Packer fans and Molotov tossing anarchists standing shoulder to shoulder fighting for justice everywhere you looked. (To read my dispatches from the front check out: Frostbite and Freedom: Tom Morello on the Battle of Madison: http://bit.ly/fgCCYp)

I was inspired by the 100,000 people marching in the street on a freezing cold Saturday afternoon. I was inspired by the solidarity of students, steel workers and firefighters of all ages, colors and creeds who had occupied the Capitol building. And I was inspired by the fact that there was something in the air that made nurses, teachers, farmers, and musicians realize that it was time to get off the sidelines and make history.

The day I got back I wrote the song “Union Town”. The next day I decided I was going to record an album of unapologetically pro-labor, pro-working class, pro-UNION songs and donate 100% of the proceeds to the union struggles across the nation. The Freedom Fighter Orchestra (Wayne Kramer, Carl Restivo, Eric Gardner, Chris Joyner and Anne Preven) lent a hand and I recorded the album in four days because I wanted to capture the energy I felt in the streets of Madison before my frostbitten fingers had thawed.

Some of the songs are mine. Some are class war classics. Here’s a breakdown of the tracks:

UNION TOWN (by Tom Morello): I just wrote down what I did, what I saw and what I felt during that whirlwind 36 hours in Madison. Then I added a badass guitar solo. Check out the union made video here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a5ZT71DxLuM

SOLIDARITY FOREVER (by Ralph Chaplain): This song was written by IWW member Ralph Chaplain in 1915 in the midst of a West Virginia coal miners strike and stakes out that groundbreaking union’s radical manifesto. As a card carrying member of the Industrial Workers of the World myself this labor classic was a must include. I just put an Irish fighting song beat to it and hit the gas.

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON? (by Florence Reece): This song was written in 1931 by a twelve year old Kentucky coal miner’s daughter when her father was out on strike with the United Mine Workers. I tried to capture the vibe of a whispered invitation to a secret outlawed meeting.

A WALL AGAINST THE WIND (by Tom Morello): May Day, May 1st, is celebrated around the world as International Workers Day and commemorates the struggles, sacrifices, victories and achievements of the labor movement. Although commemoration of May Day was inspired by events in the United States (The Haymarket Affair), our “worker’s holiday”, Labor Day, was moved to September during the Cold War era to disassociate it from global demonstrations of international solidarity. With “A Wall Against The Wind” The Nightwatchman is bringing May Day back home.

16 TONS (by Merle Travis): The 1955 recording of this song by Tennessee Ernie Ford reached number one on the US charts and went on to sell more than 2 million copies, which is incredible given the grim subject matter. My family were coal miners in the small town of Marseilles, Illinois and I remember hearing stories as a child of the Morello men going down into the mine before dawn and not coming back up until after sundown, their entire lives lived in the dark. I first heard about this song via The Clash who did a “16 Tons Tour” of England. Like coal miners, bands sometime find themselves “another day older/and deeper in debt.”

THIS LAND IS YOUR LAND (by Woody Guthrie): This song was written in 1940 by Woody Guthrie as an angry class war anthem. It was written specifically in answer to Irving Berlin’s “God Bless America” which Woody thought missed the whole point, and left out a lot of people. When you learned this song in the third grade they censored out the more “controversial” verses. I put ‘em back in. As a bonus you get three generations of Morellos singing the chorus on this one.

I DREAMED I SAW JOE HILL LAST NIGHT (by Alfred Hayes/arrangement by Tom Morello): I first became aware of this song when reading a biography of the great IWW songwriter/martyr Joe Hill. I was leveled by the lyrics but I’d never heard a recording of it so I just made up my own music, melody and arrangement. It’s actually the very first piece of music I ever sang around the house as The Nightwatchman was rounding into form. In the studio we turned down all the lights and tried to capture a conversation with a ghost.

UNION SONG-LIVE-CAPITOL SQUARE, MADISON, WISCONSIN FEB. 21, 2011 (by Tom Morello): This song first appeared on my ‘One Man Revolution’ album. I wrote it in the aftermath of the FTAA protests and riots in Miami in 2003. That day our peaceful demonstration of tens of thousands of workers got tear-gassed. Afterwards I performed at a union rally and realized that I didn’t have any of my own songs to play on days like that. So I wrote this one. Problem solved. In this live version from the steps of the Capitol building you can feel the frost in the air and the power in the streets.

THE ‘UNION TOWN’ EP IS AVAILABLE NOW ON NEW WEST RECORDS AND ALL PROCEEDS GO TO THE AMERICA VOTES LABOR UNITY FUND. YOU CAN GET IT HERE: http://bit.ly/UnionTown-iTunesUS

I’d like to express my support and thanks to all the unions that are standing up and standing strong in this ongoing struggle and those that have pushed this music forward, some of which are listed here:

American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE), International Brotherhood of Teamsters (IBT), Sheet Metal Workers’ International Association (SMWIA), Change to Win, Utility Workers Union of America (UWUA), International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), National Education Association (NEA), International Alliance of Theatrical Stage Employees (IATSE), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), Service Employees International Union (SEIU), Transport Workers Union (TWU), International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), American Rights at Work (ARAW), Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), Union Label and Service Trades Department, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC), Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) 

Later this summer a brand new full length Nightwatchman album, ‘World Wide Rebel Songs’ and tour will be fanning the flames of discontent in a Union Town near you. Until then, take it easy…but take it.

Solid,

Tom Morello/The Nightwatchman

Web: http://nightwatchmanmusic.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/TomMorello
Twitter: http://twitter.com/tmorello

I met my friends at a local townie bar across the street. At this bar were two big, burly, drunken Packers fans. The kind of fellas I might normally avoid if I ran into them on tour, but things are different here in Madison. These big, teddy bear Packer fans were even more militant in their support of the union and of the protests than the kids in the Capitol. Together they led the entire bar in blaring pro-union chants (and anti-Governor Walker slurs); and they may have even bought a round of shots or two for some of the skinny musicians in the corner.

After a few spirited hours, I was certain: these people in Wisconsin are not going to give up, they are not going to give in and if there is any justice in this world these good people will defeat Governor Walker’s awful anti-union bill. This right-wing governor has tried to take advantage of a recession brought on by Wall Street malfeasance to try to ram through legislation that would roll back decades of social progress. But he and his corporate shot callers miscalculated by taking on THESE people. We didn’t ask for this fight; Governor Walker tapped us on the shoulder and said, “Let’s fight.” Okay, dude, it’s on. And now we’re going to knock your legislative teeth out.

The next morning, we met with union representatives and each of the musicians was assigned a local Wisconsin worker to do our interviews side-by-side, because it was important for all of us to keep the emphasis on the workers involved in this struggle on a daily basis. I spent the next few hours doing press with Natalie Parker, a nurse and member of SEIU 1199, and her young daughter. I learned from them that this is not a fight about fixing a broken state budget as the Governor claims. The unions have already conceded every single economic issue at hand. The only issue that they won’t concede, that they should never concede, is the right to collectively bargain – the right to be in a union and the right to stand together. Especially in the area of education this is crucial. The five states where collective bargaining is currently outlawed (S. Carolina, N. Carolina, Georgia, Texas, and Virginia) are the five states with the lowest SAT/ACT scores in the country. Where does Wisconsin rank with it’s strong teachers’ union? Second in the nation.

At noon we were off to Capitol Square, to finally play some music. Madison’s Mayor estimates that more than half a million people have marched here over the past ten days, without a single arrest. So despite the frigid temperatures and a whipping icy wind, the crowd was huge, peaceful and pumped. First up was Ike Reilly, whose homespun tales and improvised lyrics about the struggle struck a chord with the crowd of thousands. Next up was Street Dogs who played an inspired cover of Billy Bragg’s “There is Power in a Union” and an original called “Up the Union” that had the crowd roaring. Wayne Kramer then rocked a number of great tunes as we awaited the rest of the day’s labor delegation to arrive. Poor Wayne’s luggage had not made the trip to Madison, so in a thin coat, Wayne was out there fighting the good fight as his fingers turned frostbite blue. Tim from Rise Against somehow played dexterous versions of Neil Young’s “Ohio” and Credence Clearwater’s ” Who’ll Stop the Rain” while his angelic punk-rock voice echoed through the streets.

Next up was yours truly, The Nightwatchman. I opened my set with “Union Song,” a song I wrote for days like this. (”Now dirty scabs will cross the line/while others stand aside and look/but ain’t nobody never got nothin’/that didn’t raise their voice and push!”) By the end of “Union Song,” I had no feeling in my fingers and it felt like I had frozen crab claws at the end of my arms. I actually dropped my guitar pick at one point and didn’t even realize it because I couldn’t feel my claws. For the finale all the musicians came on stage for a version of Woody Guthrie’s “This Land is Your Land.” We re-inserted the radical verses that were censored when you learned this People’s Jam in the third grade, like: “In the squares of the city/in the shadow of the steeple/near the relief office/I see my people/some are grumblin’/and all are wonderin’/if this land’s still made for you and me?” The crowd pogo-ed all around the capital, and with the spirit of solidarity in the air, it was clear to me that if we stick together we are going to win this fight.

Next, the whole gang went into the Capitol building, which was thunderous with a wild drum circle punctuating a speech given by the President of the International Steel Worker’s Union, who vowed to keep steel workers in the capital building 24/7 to defend the protestors from being evicted. He dared Governor Walker to come and debate this issue face to face. The rotunda was DEAFENING with chants and drums. It really felt like the eye of a hurricane, the dawn of a thrilling new movement. The scene made me think of the famous Gandhi quote: “First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.”

I was standing down the hallway from the speeches wanting to get a closer look, when all of a sudden several union reps started yelling, “Clear a path for The Nightwatchman! Clear a path for The Nightwatchman!” Well, The Nightwatchman and his crab claws just wanted to warm up and watch the festivities, but all of a sudden someone shoved a bullhorn in my face and stood me up on top of a rickety chair, and I was pressed into delivering an impromptu speech. I related our experiences so far and what an inspiration the people of Wisconsin were to me and to all those who support workers’ rights around this country. I told them that I’ve been a proud union man for 22 years, as part of Musicians Local 47 in Los Angeles, and a Red Card carrying member of the IWW, and that for me this fight was personal, because my mom, Mary Morello, was a public high school teacher for almost three decades in Libertyville, Illinois. And while we never had much money, we always had enough food on the table and we had clothes on our backs because my mom was a union teacher. And if Governor Walker is going to attack the rights of people like my mom, then The Nightwatchman is coming for his ass.

The Clash Legacy

by Tom Morello

I had the good fortune to see the Clash play at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago when I was a teenager. It was an experience that changed my life. Even before the first note was played the transformation began. I bought a t-shirt in the lobby. I was used to buying heavy metal t-shirts with lots of garish wizards and dragons on them, but this Clash shirt was different. It just had a few small words written over the heart. It said, “the future is unwritten.”

And when I saw the Clash play, I knew exactly what that phrase meant. The Clash performed with passion, commitment, purpose, righteousness, and an unflinching political fire. There was such a sense of community in the room that it seemed like absolutely anything was possible. I was energized, politicized, changed by the Clash that night, and I knew that the future was unwritten. And maybe we fans and that band were going to write it together.

Joe Strummer was even playing through the same little amp that I had in high school. They proved to me that you didn’t need walls of Marshall stacks and a castle on a Scottish loch to make great music. All you had to do was tell the truth, and mean it. I had never seen a better band before that night, and I have not seen a better band since.

The Clash were one of those rare bands that were greater than the sum of their parts, and yet the parts were amazing. Mick was the brilliant arranger and tunesmith, always looking forward musically, and pushing the boundaries of what was possible for a punk band, of what was possible for any band. Paul was just so damn cool looking, and the image of him smashing his bass on the cover of London Calling sums up the fury and beautiful force of the band. He also wove in the reggae influence that completed the Clash chemistry of three chords, a funky groove, and the truth. Terry Chimes provided the cavalry charge beats that propelled some of their early anthems, but it was Topper who made it all possible with his drumming. He effortlessly, and with great originality and skill, steered the band through genres undreamt of by their peers. But really, they had no peers, because at the center of the Clash hurricane stood one of the greatest hearts and deepest souls of twentieth century music, at the center of the Clash stood Joe Strummer.

Joe Strummer died on December 22, 2002.

But when Joe Strummer played, he played as if the world could be changed by a three minute song, and he was right. Those songs changed a lot of people’s worlds forever, mine at the top of the list. He was a brilliant lyricist who, with anger and wit, always stood up for the underdog. His idealism and conviction instilled in me the courage to pick up a guitar and the courage to try to make a difference with it.

In the great Clash anthem White Riot, Joe sang:

Are you taking over,

Or you taking orders?

Are you going backwards,

Or are you going forwards?

When I first heard that, I wrote those four lines down, put them on my refrigerator, and answered those four questions for myself every day. And to this day, I still do.

Joe Strummer was my greatest inspiration, my favorite singer of all time, and my hero. I miss him so much and I was so looking forward to him standing on this stage, and rocking with his friends tonight. And I know he was too. I am grateful though, to have the tremendous legacy of music that the Clash left behind. Through it, Joe Strummer and the Clash will continue to inspire and agitate well into the future.

In fact, the Clash aren’t really gone at all. Because whenever a band cares more about its fans than its bank account, the spirit of the Clash is there. Whenever a band plays as if every single person’s soul in the room is at stake, the spirit of the Clash is there. Whenever a stadium band, or a garage band, has the guts to put their beliefs on the line to make a difference, the spirit of the Clash is there. And whenever people take to the streets to stop an unjust war, the spirit of the Clash is definitely there.

Tonight we will honor the Clash and Joe Strummer with toasts and applause, but the best way to honor them is by putting the Clash’s philosophy into practice, by waking up each morning knowing that the future is unwritten, and that it can be a future where human rights, peace and justice come first. But it is entirely up to us.

To me, that’s what the Clash was all about. They combined revolutionary sounds with revolutionary ideas. Their music launched thousands of bands and moved millions of fans and I can’t imagine what my life would have been like without them.

During their heyday, they were known as “the only band that matters,” and 25 years later, that still seems just about right.

At the time, I was playing in a punk rock band. Most of our songs were amusing, funny ditties with names like “She Eats Razors” and “Beat Me, Whip Me, Make Me Feel Cheap.” A week after my first listen to London Calling, I penned the first political song of my life, a song called “Salvador Death Squad Blues,” a rocking commentary on the Reagan administration’s egregious practices in Central America. Shortly thereafter, there was a rebellion at the school paper. The conservative teacher didn’t want us writing articles about apartheid, or U.S. support of death squads, or the fact that the dean was a dick. There was a mass exodus from the paper and a very popular underground paper was born called “The Student Pulse.” The Clash pushed me into making political music and taking a political stand as a teenager.

Later that year, I got the chance to see the Clash at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, and was totally blown away. Not only were they the greatest live band of all time, but they also cured my musical inferiority complex. Before this show, I had thought that you had to have a $10,000 Les Paul and a huge wall of Marshall amplifiers in order to make “real” rock and roll music. But Joe Strummer had the same cheap little Music Man amp that I did. It was just sitting on a chair, much like my amp sat on a chair at my high school band’s rehearsals. And yet they were making the most passionate and compelling music I had ever heard. A lot of kids left the hall that night knowing that they could do it too. The Axis of Justice motto, “the future is unwritten” is taken from a t-shirt I purchased that night.

On the early Rage Against the Machine tours, Clash tapes and bootlegs were always the most important part of my on-the-road music collection. They were a tremendous inspiration and consolation on those long, freezing European bus rides. And in listening to those crappy quality bootleg tapes, you could still always hear in Joe Strummer’s voice that he did truly believe that the world could be changed with a three minute song, and that each night, he was up there not playing for ego, self-gratification, money or rock star glory. He was playing with the determination to save the soul of everybody in the room, his included.

The Sex Pistols were the flashpoint that made the world notice punk rock. The Clash, sewed politics into punk and rock and roll irreversibly. And Joe Strummer was the heart, the soul, and the conscience of the Clash.

No one had more of a true punk rock look than Joe Strummer. I always thought he had the greatest no-sell-out teeth in the business. The Clash were great because they realized that it did not in any way impinge their integrity to be a “performing” rock and roll band, and they looked, sounded and dressed the part of the rebel rockers they were.

One thing I always admired about the Clash was their great attention to what it meant to be a band, outside of the music. They would have countless meetings where they would discuss their lives, their opinions, their political views, what they meant to each other, and what it was important for them to say in their songs and how to maintain the highest level of integrity and commitment to continuing to be “the only band that matters.”

Joe was also insistent on choosing singles not based necessarily on their potential hit value, but rather based on their relevance. The Clash wrote and released “The Call Up” as a single in response to the reinstitution of draft registration in the United States. It was a huge issue at the time and with the shadows of Vietnam creeping across Central America, a song like “The Call Up,” with its poetic and brutally true lyrics helped a lot of young people make up their minds about what they would do if a draft actually came.

I’ve always been really pissed at the way that the British press turned its back on the Clash. There seemed to be a real petty jealousy that British publications had towards the Clash after their debut album. Once the rest of the world caught on to their hometown little secret, they stomped their feet like spoiled brats and turned their backs on such amazing albums as London Calling and Sandinista (The London Calling album, by the way, was voted the album of the decade by Rolling Stone magazine).

The Clash always resisted the temptation to reunite for the big money. And their reasons spoke to the greatness of the band and the people in it. It wasn’t out of some elitist pomposity that they dare not reconvene for fear of besmirching their “legend,” but rather because their friend and drummer Topper Headon, a heroin addict, wasn’t healthy enough to do it. And as Joe says near the end of the great Clash documentary “Westway to the World,” a band’s chemistry is everything. Joe gives a tearful speech lamenting the dismissing of first Topper Headon and then Mick Jones. It’s a speech worth listening to, because it truly is a band chemistry that matters. There is a potency to that classic Clash line-up that, had they stayed the course, it is likely that to this day, U2 might still be opening for them.

Throughout my time in Rage Against the Machine, journalists would always ask the question, “what the hell is a band with the politics of Rage doing on Epic Records?” I would often answer with long and flowery sermons about spreading an important message around the globe. But I really could have answered with two words: The Clash. I was energized and politicized and changed by the Clash. And the reason I heard about them was because Dave Vogel bought London Calling at Musicland Records at the local Hawthorne Mall in tiny Libertyville, Illinios. And the reason Dave could get his hands on this album at a nearby mall was because the band was on Epic Records. If in the history of Rage Against the Machine we were able to energize or politicize one person in the same way that the Clash effected me, the decision to sign with Epic Records was not just well worth it, but was crucial.

A couple years ago, I had the opportunity to play on a Joe Strummer record. He was doing a song for the South Park soundtrack, and Rick Rubin asked me to come down and play guitar, because the guy that they had doing it (who incidentally plays in a very popular rock-rap band) just couldn’t cut it. I had never been more nervous in my life as I drove up in my 1971 muscle car to the studio and was introduced to the great Joe Strummer. Joe did not disappoint. While the song was not the best, he certainly was. It seemed like very little recording got done, but a lot of storytelling over quickly ingested bottles of red wine did. Joe told us the story of how he used to always travel with an enormous flight case filled with all his music. Everywhere he went, he carried every cassette and album he owned, so they would always be at the ready for him to listen to. After a couple of decades of doing this, he had grown very weary of having to show countless customs agents his entire reggae collection. So he had boiled it all down to one scratchy 30-minute cassette of an obscure Mexican band that he played for us. He absolutely loved it, and it was the only tape he brought with him from then on. I sat the re listening and beaming like an idiot.

Joe was fascinated with my muscle car. It’s a 1971 hemi-orange Dodge Demon. It was a bizarre site for me to see my greatest rock and roll hero crawling around the front seat of my car marveling over the original Demon-designed floormats with his unique and unchanged accent.

At the studio, he would disappear for hours at a time into his ancient Cadillac, where he would work on lyrics for the song, and listen to the latest mixes that were coming out of the control room. Rick Rubin and I would sit in the control room waiting as a gofer would shuttle notes back and forth from Joe that would read like “I think there could be more treble” or “I’ve almost got the second verse.” Or sometimes they’d be obscure quotations or ramblings that kept us in stitches as we waited for Joe to come back in the room. I took one of these opportunities when Joe was in his Caddy to pick up and strum for myself his famous Telecaster with the “Ignore Alien Orders” sticker on it. Joe was of course the reason why I play a Telecaster, and holding this amazing, historic guitar that had written and performed my favorite songs through the years was a sublime moment. And don’t think I didn’t bring my camera to preserve that moment. Taped to the guitar was an ancient Clash s! etlist , and I marveled over it and wrote the setlist down to keep for posterity, although Joe couldn’t remember what show it was from.

The last time I saw Joe Strummer was when he and his band The Mescaleros played at the Troubadour a year and a half ago. I was truly impressed. Joe played with all the passion and intensity that he had in the Clash’s heyday. And his new music and lyrics were forward-looking and challenging. He was clearly a vital artist to the end. And when he threw in the Clash gems Bank Robber and London’s Burning, the place went absolutely nuts. I yelled so loud I lost my voice for about a week.

In the song “White Riot,” Joe sang:

“Are you taking over
or are you taking orders?
Are you going backwards
Or are you going forwards?”

Write those four lines down, put them on your refrigerator, and answer those four questions for yourself every day. I do.

Joe Strummer was my greatest inspiration, my favorite singer of all time, and my hero. His passing came as such a shock and surprise, and I am deeply saddened by it. I already miss him so much, and I am grateful to have the tremendous legacy of music he left behind. The Clash was one of those bands that even their most remote b-sides are far superior to anything on the radio today. If you haven’t checked out this great band, run don’t walk to all the Clash albums. I am certain that Joe Strummer and the Clash will continue to inspire and agitate well into the future. God bless you, Joe.