It takes a worried man to sing a worried song, I'm worried now, but...I'm (nine days) late again....
[Blogger's Aside: Two down, one to go....]
I couldn't begin to remember when I was introduced to this week's song, though it probably had something to do with either reading about labor unions or celebrating Labor Day. I actually have featured it before on Labor Day in 2014, but it's such a killer pro-union song that I felt it truly deserved its own post....
The Nightwatchman (his backing band is called the Freedom Fighter Orchestra) is Rage Against the Machine's (wrote about in Jukebox CDLXXXVII) guitarist Tom Morello's alter ego for when he wants to perform political songs. Few people in the music business have had a career as varied as Morello. He has a B.A. in social studies from Harvard and worked for a time as an exotic dancer when he graduated and moved to Los Angeles. During his career, Morello was in the aforementioned RATM, Audioslave, Prophets of Rage, Street Sweeper Social Club, released solo albums, and has spent a number of years touring and recording with Bruce Springsteen (The Nightwatchman was inspired by his work with Springsteen on The Ghost of Tom Joad). Morello was elected into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame with his bandmates in RATM in 2023. He was ranked as the eighteenth greatest guitarist of all-time in Rolling Stone's 2018 list. His rather extensive discography can be found here. Morello is active in numerous political causes and has been a voice for the poor and the politically oppressed since he was in high school. As if all that wasn't more than enough for a career, he's also written a series of comic books.
Fun Fact: Morello had a band, Bored of Education, while he attended Harvard that won an Ivy League Battle of the Bands in 1986. His band featured Carolyn Bertozzi on keyboards, who went on to win a Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2022.
"Union Town" was the first song on The Nightwatchman's 2011 EP, the rather appropriately named Union Town. The song was not released as a single (and oh, how great it would have been had it been released as a single) and the EP did not chart.
Amazingly enough, "Union Town" is an ode to the power of labor unions. Featuring a righteous theme, inspired vocals from Morello, and some bitchin' backing from the Freedom Fighter Orchestra, the song announces loudly our defiance in the face of our corporate oppressors. Morello throws in some killer guitar solos and further manages--a la Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger before him--to have written a political song that's catchy as all hell. And also has his Mom and one of his sons on backing vocals! If you're a liberal, left-wing, union member, union supporter, or a Democrat this song's for you. And if not? Well then, fuck all the way off.
Lyric Sheet: "This is a union town, union town/All down the line/And if you come to strip our rights away/We'll give you hell every time..."
Enjoy:
Fuck Donald Trump
Peace,
emaycee
