Rock + Metal Songs About U.S. History
Here are 14 rock and metal songs about U.S. history.
On July 4, 1776, 13 American colonies that broke away from imperial leadership in Great Britain issued the Declaration of Independence, formally introducing the foundation of the United States government.
The practically 250 years of history that has shaped and defined the U.S. is complicated, which is not one of a kind across recorded human history. The fight and struggle for person freedom is 1 of the purest human pursuits, and 1 that is underscored by oppression, tragedy and violence.
The songs under largely represent the extra adverse components of the country’s previous, each distant and current. That’s since the stories and events recollected are correct, as unkind, embarrassing or as shameful as they might be. We’re also dealing with heavy music, which generally confronts harsh realities, underpinned by aggressive music.
Study A lot more: 10 Metal Songs That Make a Great History Lesson
Our reality is that war and the fight for equality is a prevalent hyperlink amongst folks of all nations, even these with the most boisterous declarations of fundamental human rights for all.
We cannot transform history — the cold, tough truth is that the events described in these songs are genuine, uncomfortable and that is all portion of life. Learning how to handle feelings, reflect and hope that we can create new history to show how we as a collective society can progress and uncover that elusive perfect of planet peace is possibly the most significant lesson we can take away from all this.
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Sabaton, “Primo Victoria”
About: D-Day in Normandy
Appears on: Primo Victoria (2005)
Known greatest as D-Day and, extra formally, as Operation Overlord, it marks the most significant seaborne invasion in all of history as the Allied powers stormed the beaches of Normandy, France in a 1944 work to liberate the nation from Nazi handle. The achievement of the invasion is 1 of the most important turning points of the century’s history.
Sabaton, who author songs exclusively about war and in a history buff sort style, wrote about this occasion on “Primo Victoria,” the title track to their 2005 debut. It remains 1 of their most preferred songs right now.
Key lyric: “In the dawn they will pay / With their lives as the price / History’s written today / Now that we are at war / With the axis again / This time we know what will come / 6th of June 1944 / Allies are turning the war / Normandy state of anarchy / Overlord”
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Anthrax, “Indians”
About: Genocide of indigenous folks in the U.S.
Appears on: Among the Living (1987)
The systemic genocide of indigenous folks in the now North American territory pre-dates the U.S., going back to the 1600s. Even so, the U.S. maintained the practice, decimating populations and their culture by means of the early 1900s.
One of Anthrax’s most significant songs highlights the savagery at hand when providing an empathetic outlook on the tragedies that have transpired and that folks as a entire can’t be defined by geological borders.
Key lyric: “Territory, it’s just the body of the nation / The people that inhabit it make its configuration / Prejudice, something we all can do without / The flag of many colors is what this land’s all about”
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Testament, “The Evil Has Landed”
About: 9/11
Appears on: The Formation of Damnation (2008)
Sept. 11, 2001 was a day that shook the U.S. and several about the planet. A terrorist attack executed in inconceivable style triggered a permanent shift in worldwide relations and tensions. For U.S. residents in certain, it is a defining moment in life exactly where the mere believed of the two hijacked planes getting flown into the two World Trade Center towers brings back highly effective feelings.
On their 2008 album featuring the return of Alex Skolnick and Greg Christian, Testament recall the tragedy with vivid, literal detail when assuring that we will rebuild and come collectively by means of it all.
Key lyric: “The towers got hit / A steel bird with wings of destruction / As the buildings split / The skyline had been deconstructed”
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Rush, “Manhattan Project”
About: U.S. improvement of atomic weaponry
Appears on: Power Windows (1985)
As the planet sees it, possibly practically nothing defines the U.S. extra than war. Boasting the globe’s most highly effective and dominant military force of the contemporary age, the nation remains the only 1 on Earth to have ever dropped a nuclear bomb on a different nation. And the U.S. dropped two of them on Japan, 1 on Hiroshima (Aug. 6, 1945) and the other on Nagasaki (Aug. 9, 1945), every eventually provoked by Japan’s attack on U.S. military base Pearl Harbor.
“Manhattan Project” was the name of the specific project in which the U.S., who enlisted nuclear physicist Robert Oppenheimer (amongst several other folks) to create the world’s very first nuclear arms. Rush break down the project into 4 sections on this namesake song, positing that the planet the explosion is a different “big bang” moment that establishes a brand new trajectory, referencing the moment regarded as the birth of our universe.
Key lyric: “The big bang, took and shook the world / Shot down the rising sun / The hopeful depend on a world without end / Whatever the hopeless may say”
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Rage Against the Machine, “Killing In the Name”
About: Police beatings of Rodney King, resulting Los Angeles riots
Appears on: Rage Against the Machine (1992)
“Killing in the Name,” the firebrand track off Rage Against the Machine’s self-titled 1992 debut is a song not so a great deal about a historical moment, but influenced by 1 and speaks to an even wider challenge.
In 1991, soon after a higher-speed pursuit, police officers severely beat Rodney King, a Black man, striking him with batons more than 30 occasions, in addition to numerous kicks and getting tased soon after not appearing to be resisting arrest. None of the 4 officers attempted in court for use of excessive force had been sentenced, triggering practically a week of deadly rioting in Los Angeles as citizens had been outraged by the verdict.
These events straight inspired the Rage song, which requires the challenge additional by linking members of the Ku Klux Klan with law enforcement, who seek the position with the aim of abusing their energy and oppressing these who are not white.
Key lyric: “You justify those that died / By wearing the badge, they’re the chosen whites / Some of those that work forces / Are the same the burn crosses”
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Fit For an Autopsy, “Black Mammoth”
About: Dakota Access Pipeline
Appears on: The Great Collapse (2017)
The Dakota Access Pipeline is an oil pipeline that was the topic of widespread protests as it runs straight by means of the Standing Rock Indian Reservation Preserve in North Dakota and poses a threat to the security of regional water supplies. It even brought Lamb of God vocalist Randy Blythe to the front lines of the battle among protesters and “Big Oil”/the federal government.
Protecting and managing our organic sources is paramount to the survival of the species, particularly as water supplies elsewhere are drying up, which will prompt mass migrations to extra hospitable areas. And sending the pipeline by means of the preservation — a patch of land as a sorry consolation for genocide of indigenous folks — is, nicely, patently fucked up.
It’s a fitting matter for The Great Collapse, the Fit For an Autopsy album about how shitty we are to our personal planet.
Key lyric: “Tread on sacred terrain, envenomed and ravaged / The peace upon the plains, seized by the savage / Primitive practices, uproot and vanish / Modern barbarians, new rite of passage”
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Alkaline Trio, “Prevent This Tragedy”
About: West Memphis Three
Appears on: Crimson (2005)
In 1994, 3 teenagers (Damien Echols, Jessie Misskelley Jr. and Jason Baldwin) had been convicted for the 1993 murder of 3 boys from West Memphis, Tennessee. It was alleged a Satanic ritual was involved and there has extended been debate about credibility of the proof. After signing a plea in 2011 when nonetheless sustaining their innocence, the trio had been released from prison.
There’s nonetheless debate about a wrongful conviction as new DNA testing is sought and Alkaline Trio confront the case on “Prevent This Tragedy” (released just before the Three’s release) focusing on the death sentence Damien Echols was handed.
Key lyric: “Here we are again with handguns for hearts / They had a master plan, wanted to tear us apart / Nothing to hold, all hope deleted / Our demise has been completed now”
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My Chemical Romance, “Skylines and Turnstiles”
About: 9/11
Appears on: I Brought You My Bullets, You Brought Me Your Love (2002)
The events of 9/11 triggered distinctive responses and feelings in everybody. While several of these experiences overlap, Gerard Way was capable to pull inspiration from tragedy as nicely. Life is quick, as they say, and it is that notion that dawned on the singer who then felt compelled to start out a band as a outcome.
Way was in his early 20s when the hijacked planes struck New York City’s “twin towers,” claiming the lives of practically 3,000 folks. It’s a raw, intense and shocking issue to course of action when nonetheless understanding about the strategies of the planet at massive and Way channeled his emotion into “Skylines and Turnstiles,” a song he wrote straight away soon after the attack. It prompted him to contact up some pals and My Chemical Romance was born.
Key lyric: “After seeing what we saw / Can we still reclaim our innocence? / And if the world needs something better / Let’s give them one more reason now”
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The Doors, “Unknown Soldier”
About: Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Appears on: Waiting for the Sun (1968)
In a bit extra of an abstract way than other songs presented right here, The Doors’ “Unknown Soldier” exemplifies the outward symbolism that arose from The Tomb on the Unknown Soldier at the Arlington National Cemetery.
It very first served as the grave of 1 unknown World War I service member, erected in 1921, and later as the grave web site of a total of 3 unknown service members with additions in 1958 and 1984. Guarded 24/7, its symbolism has grown to provide reflection on military service as a entire as nicely as the memory of service members whose remains had been never ever located or identified.
This reduce from The Doors is not about the Tomb itself and requires on a cynical overtones, noting how life at house continues regardless of the loss of these who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
Key lyric: “Breakfast where the news is read / Television children fed / Unborn living, living dead / Bullet strikes the helmet’s head / And it’s all over / For the unknown soldier”
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Body Count, “Black Hoodie” + “No Lives Matter”
About: Shooting of Travyon Martin / Black Lives Matter movement in wake of police killing of George Floyd
Appear on: Bloodlust (2017)
Speaking truth to sociopolitical concerns and, in certain, racism at massive, is not new for Ice-T, which he acknowledges he’d been undertaking for 20 years currently in “Black Hoodie.” The song lays it all quite bare — that there was no require for Neighborhood Watch volunteer George Zimmerman to shoot unarmed 17-year-old Travyon Martin soon after he had currently named the police.
Since Martin was wearing a black hoodie, Martin appeared suspicious to Zimmerman, who later shot and killed the teen when claiming self-defense. He was acquitted of second-degree murder and manslaughter charges till Florida’s controversial stand-your-ground law.
On the identical record, Body Count mock the “All Lives Matter” response to the Black Lives Matter movement, calling out the lazy retort as ignorant and 1 that dilutes the correct challenge. This dialogue ripped open soon after George Floyd was killed by Minnesota police officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes, top to his death.
Chauvin and other folks had been convicted for their actions, a verdict that was celebrated by several as it was a uncommon moment exactly where justice was lastly served relating to a matter of intense police brutality.
Key lyrics: “Got on a black hoodie, it’s hood up on my head / I didn’t have a gun so why am I dead? / You didn’t have to shoot me and that’s a known fact / And now I’m laying face down with bullets in my back” (“Black Hoodie”)
“America’s always been / A place that judge my skin / And racism is real as fuck / Ain’t no way to play that off / And in the eys of the law / Black skin has always stood for poor / This is basic shit / They know who they fucking with” (“No Lives Matter”)
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Iron Maiden, “Run to the Hills”
About: Genocide of indigenous folks in the U.S.
Appears on: The Number of the Beast (1982)
Set to a speedy gallop that definitely invites the notion of getting chased/driven out of a territory, this rollicking Maiden track not only highlights the senseless slaughter of an complete folks, but also shows how terribly these nonetheless alive had been treated. The introduction of alcohol to the indigenous tribe members additional suppressed them and, amid the bloodshed, sexual abuse and extortion of young children also took location.
Key lyric: “Soldier blue in the barren waste / Hunting and killing’s a game / Raping the women and wasting the men / The only good Indians are tame / Selling them whiskey and taking their gold / Enslaving the young and destroying the old ”
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Drive-By Truckers, “The Sands of Iwo Jima”
About: The Battle of Iwo Jima
Appears on: The Dirty South (2004)
The 5-week Battle of Iwo Jima in 1945 resulted in casualties in fantastic numbers for each the U.S. and Japan. With superior air help, the U.S. gained handle of two airfields in the final year of the Pacific War. It is also the sight of the iconic photo of six U.S. marines raising a flag collectively more than the battle’s rubble.
This battle was depicted in the 1949 film Sands of Iwo Jima, starring iconic actor John Wayne.
On the Drive-By-Truckers song titled soon after the film, the lyrics are centered about the life of a soldier as soon as the war is more than and they’ve returned house. Those who served will generally attend reunion events, sharing stories and feelings by means of bonds no ordinary individual would be capable to comprehend, as the track notes.
Both the battle and the film are referenced in a highly effective, poetic way.
Key lyric: “And I thought about that movie, asked if it was that way / He just shoot his head and smiled at me in such a loving way / As he thought about some friends he’ll never see again / He said, ‘I never saw John Wayne on the sands of Iwo Jima’”
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Europe, “Cherokee”
About: The Trail of Tears
Appears on: The Final Countdown (1986)
In 1830, President Andrew Jackson signed into law the Indian Removal Act, which sought a forced exile of extra than 60,000 members of 5 tribes — Cherokee, Muscogee, Seminole, Chickasaw and Choctaw — from their native lands to the west of the Mississippi River. The cause? To extra simply mine gold. This is recognized as the Trail of Tears.
A non-title track hit off The Final Countdown, the 1986 album by Swedish arena rockers Europe, “Cherokee” demonstrates how far-reaching this piece of U.S. history is.
Key lyric: “They lived in peace, not long ago / A mighty Indian tribe / But the winds of change / Made them realize, that the promises were lies”
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Iced Earth, about half of ‘The Glorious Burden’
Before Iced Earth leader Jon Schaffer joined a mob on Jan. 6, 2021 in an try to halt the certification of Joe Biden as the elected President, he teamed up with former Judas Priest singer Tim “Ripper” Owens (who replaced Rob Halford for a short spell) on The Glorious Burden.
The record is conceptual in nature, every song tackling a distinctive piece of military history, with a handful fixated on U.S. events, like “Declaration Day” (American Revolution), “When the Eagle Cries” (Sept. 11, 2001), “The Reckoning” (revenge for Sept. 11 attacks), “Valley Forge” (Revolutionary War), and the “Gettysburg (1863)” trilogy (Battle of Gettysburg).
Nowadays, Schaffer, a professed lifetime Oath Keeper (the militia group whose leader Stewart Rhodes was sentenced to 18 years in prison for seditious conspiracy and other charges) is cooperating with the federal government as portion of a plea bargain when he awaits his personal sentencing.
