Rage Against The Machine‘s enduring 1992 protest anthem “Killing In The Name” remains a bold musical statement, even by today’s standards. Despite the odds being stacked against it at the time of its release, it became the band’s first track to accumulate one billion streams, netting that honor earlier this year. With its dissenting barrage of expletives, it’s largely gone on to serve as a smoldering condemnation of forced compliance, though that wasn’t entirely the original intent.
As the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame-inducted band’s guitarist Tom Morello has loosely explained it, “That song is about white supremacy and how cops employ violence against communities of color to bolster the racist capitalist ruling class…”
It’s a minor miracle that the track landed with the impact it did, as musical censorship was still in full swing in the early 90s, thanks to the Parents Music Resource Center’s moving to enact limitations on artistic expression and lyrical content that didn’t align with their traditional values.
The band themselves would later face that threat to freedom of speech head on, infamously appearing naked onstage with tape over their mouths in 1993 in protest. However, as for that song serving as the opening volley for their legendary career, it was the decision of their A&R at the time, Michael Goldstone. A close ally of the band early on, he pitched shipping that track as their first single to radio, completely unedited.
Speaking earlier this month with George Stroumboulopoulos on ‘The Strombo Show‘, Morello said the following of the unlikely decision to lead with that incendiary track [transcribed by theprp.com]:
“We buried that song on our demo tape. It was song six on the Rage demo. And then the first time it came to the forefront was that Michael Goldstone, the A&R guy, who was, for a while, kind of like the fifth Beatle of the band. He was very, very smart, and cared, and had the right stuff to say.
He suggested that be the first single, with one caveat — that we do not edit any of the lyrics. Sixteen fuck-yous and one motherfucker. We’re not going to edit it, and we’re going to send that to the radio. And I remember being in the Epic office, going, ‘You want THAT to be the [the first single?]'”
I wish I could tell you it was the band’s idea. It was not. There was an understanding that, what was confrontational was what was gonna work. And at one point, like, someone in that world suggested the part of the song where it stops, like, ‘Maybe, it went smoother through?’ And I had learned from Lock Up], to never again [listen to record execs suggestions]. Like ‘That’s great. When you put your band together, you make it go smoothly through that part. It’s just going to be what it is.’ And it’s crazy… I just got the billion stream thing show up at the house, and it’s so bananas.”
As it turns out though, while an early advocate for the pioneering rap metal firebrands, Gladstone was also the individual who pushed for excising the section mentioned by Morello above. Back in 2020, Morello told Rolling Stone of that:
“The dunna-dunt [before de la Rocha raps, ‘and now you do what they told ya’] that was an important part! I remember our A&R guy, Michael Goldstone, who’s a genius. He’s got Pearl Jam. He was really the fifth Beatle early on. He was a great help, but he wanted us to take that part out of the song.
I think he heard hit single, as long as he doesn’t have that crazy part where it just stops a lot! That was a bit of a lift from Zeppelin’s ‘Good times, Bad Times,’ that part. We’ve felt pretty confident that needs to stay in the song, and I think history has borne that out.”
