Tom Morello: “History, like music, is not something that ‘happens’. It’s something you make”.
During a concert several years back, Bruce Springsteen introduced his guitarists Steve Van Zant and Nils Lofgren from his E Street Band at the start of the song “The Ghost of Tom Joad”, as “great” players.
He then introduced a guest guitarist, “one of the greatest guitarists in rock and roll and a great voice, Rage Against the Machine and The Nightwatchman, Mr Tom Morello”.
They then launched into a raging, incendiary fusion of protest and high volume.
Morello recently followed Springsteen on to a different stage. He was awarded the Woody Guthrie Prize.
The award is given to an artist, in the words of the Woody Guthrie Centre, who “best exemplifies Woody Guthrie’s spirit and work by speaking for the less fortunate through music, film, literature, dance or other art forms and serving as a positive force for social change. Past recipients of the award include Joan Baez, Chuck D, Kris Kristofferson, Norman Lear, John Mellencamp, Pete Seeger, Bruce Springsteen and Mavis Staples.”
Woody Guthrie was one of the greatest champions of the oppressed, downtrodden, vulnerable members of society. Through songs such as “This Land is Your Land”, “Dust Bowl Refugee”, “Ludlow Massacre” and “Deportee”, he gave a voice to the voiceless.
His guitar was marked “this machine kills fascists”. His songs have been covered many times by many artists. When Guthrie was dying of Huntington’s disease, a young Bob Dylan visited him. Dylan wrote “Last Thoughts on Woody Guthrie”.
Morello has continued the Guthrie declaration on his guitar, which says “Arm the Homeless”.
On receiving the award, he said: “Really honoured to be the 2024 Woody Guthrie Prize recipient! Thank you. Woody Guthrie is a great hero of mine. He was a fearless agitator, a six-string instigator, a poetic truth teller and a harmonising hell raiser.
“He was the original punk rocker whose life, music, art and lyrics were beacons of justice and liberation for the downtrodden and oppressed. In my own work, Woody has been an inspiration to tell it like I see it without compromise or apology and to play my songs (and his songs) on the picket line and at the barricade whenever and wherever people are taking a stand.”
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Morello lowers the volume but not the message when he swaps the electric guitar for an acoustic as his political alter-ego The Nightwatchman in the studio, at protests, small clubs, and on tours such as with Billy Bragg. And he keeps alive Guthrie’s songs such as here (below) with This Land is Your Land.
Morello is no stranger to protest. Indeed, his whole musical career carries it. Even when he was at Harvard University, completing an arts degree, he was pushing against the establishment. His band, Bored of Education, won the Ivy League Battle of the Bands in 1986. He has protested against apartheid, and more recently for the rights of students to protest at the war in Gaza.
Last year, Rage Against the Machine, which he co-founded, were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. RATM were protest at jet engine roar and missile attack speed. They announced themselves, their intent and attitude and merging of music styles of heavy metal and rap with “Killing in the Name” (below) from their debut album. It slammed police brutality in America, spurred by the Rodney King beating and Los Angeles riots.
When Morello collected the Hall of Fame citation (his fellow members weren’t there) he cited his mother Mary, also an advocate for protest, that “history, like music, is not something that ‘happens’. It’s something you make”.
He elaborated: “The lesson I learn from Rage fans is that music can change the world. Daily, I hear from fans who have been affected by our music and in turn have affected the world in significant ways. Organisers, activists, public defenders, teachers, the presidents of Chile and Finland, have all spent time in our mosh-pit.
“When protest music is done right, you can hear a new world emerging in the songs skewering the oppressors of the day and hinting that there might be more to life than what was handed to us. Can music change the world? The whole aim is to change the world or at a bare minimum, to stir up a shit-load of trouble.”
Morello will not go gently. Guthrie’s spirit lives on.
CODA: As an aside, Morello is also an innovator in modelling the sound that emanates from an electric guitar, and he can rock out like no other. Witness his work with Audioslave and Prophets of Rage, and his various solo and collaborative work, such as Interstate 80, with Slash.
