“Sleep Now in the Fire” by Rage Against the Machine

"Sleep Now in the Fire" was the second single from The Battle of Los Angeles, Rage Against the Machine's third studio album, released on Epic in 1999. Brendan O'Brien produced and mixed it with the band as co-producers and Nick DiDia recording, and it's the kind of rap metal that hits like a wrecking ball: Brad Wilk's drums slam, Tim Commerford's bass rumbles underneath, and Zack de la Rocha, who wrote the words, spits out his lines with a preacher's fury while all four members share the composing credit.

Guitarist Tom Morello had a trick up his sleeve. The tail of the song carries a stray burst of Korean pop radio that one of his pedals happened to pull out of the air, and they left it in.

The video made even more noise. Michael Moore directed it, with Welles Hackett shooting, and parked the band in front of the New York Stock Exchange, cutting between the performance and a send-up of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? retitled with an expletive-laden twist on getting filthy rich. At the end it plays Republican politician Gary Bauer denouncing the band as anti-family, a jab that dated from a 2000 campaign event where Alan Keyes had dived into a mosh pit while "Guerrilla Radio" was blasting.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.