Tom Morello draws parallels between slavery and the political state to his new song “You Belong to Me,” which the guitarist released Friday along with a music video for the track.
“Our present is connected to our past. The referee’s whip and nose are back in the policeman’s stick & gun today, ‘Morello said of the track. “I had a very clear idea that I wanted to express myself with the song and the video and that is: Sometimes enough is enough.”
“A tall man rides with shiny boots / On a horse named Robert E. Lee / Now whip will cut men’s backs and tears / And ankle chains will glow,” Morello sings on the acoustic track. “He said somewhere fly and rabbits run / And fire leaps from tree to tree / You may think you belong to you / But you belong to me.”
In the last verse of “You belong to me,” Morello recalls Nat Turner’s rebellion, “Master’s shot went wide / Nat Turner stood on his knees / The plantation burned around her / Master cursed and whispered, ‘Please. ‘”
Told Morello Rolling stone in 2012 he worked on music inspired by the Turner uprising. “Whether it’s biblical narratives or civil war narratives, there are often stories that have been woven into my DNA all my life, that have never stopped resonating, and one is the Nat Turner story, said Morello at the time. “It’s not a biography, but it’s a song about who belongs to whom.”
“You Belong to Me,” for sale at Bandcamp, follows Morello’s recent protest song “Stand Up.”
“There are a lot of non-black people fighting back as well,” Morello recently told our Rolling Stone Interview: Special Edition video series. ‘And you see that in the streets. And the music she pumps is Rage Against the Machine and some of my own music. I’m very proud of it. ”
