RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE - BULLS ON PARADE

"Bulls on Parade" is a song released by Rage Against the Machine in 1996, and can be found on their second album Evil Empire. One of Rage's signature songs, it deals with what is commonly referred to as the "military-industrial complex", which is the tendency of industry (the arms industry in particular) to encourage military action in order to gain military contracts, and therefore increase its profits. Lines such as "Weapons; not food, not homes, not shoes, not need, just feed the war cannibal-animal," and "what we don't know keeps the contracts alive and moving / they don't gotta burn the books they just remove 'em" are just a couple of examples of the several allusions to the military-industrial complex throughout the song. With the words, "Terror rains, drenching, quenching the thirst of the power dons," the song suggests that the fear of terrorism is used to manipulate the American populace into supporting dubious military action. The phrase "terror rains" also serves as a double entendre, which suggests that "terror reigns" by way of the government terror as a tool.

The song was performed on Saturday Night Live in April of 1996. Their two-song performance was cut to one song when the band attempted to hang inverted American flags from their amplifiers, a protest to having presidential candidate Steve Forbes as guest host on the program that night.

The song features one of Tom Morello's most famous guitar riffs and a highly unusual solo that sounds more like a turntable than a guitar by making use of the toggle switch and rubbing his hand along the strings parallel to the neck of the guitar. It is usually cited as the most famous example of Tom Morello's extremely innovative guitar playing antics, along with Calm Like a Bomb from their next album The Battle Of Los Angeles.