Video: The Nightwatchman “the Road I Must Travel”
Posted by Mike E on August 10, 2008
thanks to Rowland Keshena, the Bermuda Radical
Ok folks: what do you make of this song by Tom Morello? We all know Tom as a serious and revolutionary artist — a key force in rage against the machine, and someone who has found many ways (since the break up of Rage) to oppose this system and its many forms of madness.
And I held off posting this video at first because I just couldn’t connect with the imagery (my visceral reaction to the opening with U.S. flags etc) but more with the constant refrain
“The road that i must travel, its end I cannot see.”
My main thought has been that this sad and lost phrase getts to the heart of the whole challenge that the Kasama Project (and many other revolutionaries face) — helping people (including quite lofty and determined people like Tom) get a much sharper sense of “its end” so that they can actually fight more consciously.
Am I missing the point of the song?
karla said
my hit on the song is that it’s about the uncertainty of the times ahead. the iconic imagery of malcolm x, che, etc., as well as the clashes w/police appear to juxtapose various “revolutionary” ideologies w/the showdowns that inevitably result when masses rise up.
aside from wondering about what “the end” is going to look like, i suspect the song is also about the PRACTICE leading up to (shaping) what the road to the end is going to look like. but am i just projecting?
Quorri said
I would hesitate to say this awesome guy has no vision for how society could be or that he has no vision for how to make it that way, I think he hints at both these things in the song. I think the “end I can not see” part is like Karla said, it’s all just so uncertain. We can walk down this revolutionary road together, but we can’t know how things will end….
And, you know, that’s beautiful. It’s beautiful commitment and bravery to travel down this road despite so much uncertainty. This is the kind of song that makes me feel less scared, because other people are unsure, too :D
Nil said
The imagery at the beginning of the video looks to me like a May 1 pro-immigrant (amnesty) march, maybe in Chicago?
American flags (and mexican flags) were in abundance at those marches I’ve been at and seen pictures of over the past several years. (Why they choose to highlight american flags (including one upside down one) and not mexican flags, would be curious to ask the videographer or morello. Of activists often use ‘patriotic’ imagery for the same reason the folks at those marches did: We like america too, really, we’re trying to save it from the evil neo-cons! Etc.)
I suspect what Morello is trying to say is that even though he doesn’t know exactly what the road is, he’s committed to travelling it nonetheless. Like other commenters, I’m not sure expressing uncertainty about what the times ahead will bring us (OR about the strategies neccesary to move where we want to move, either–a not unrelated question!) is necessarily indication of a lack of political sophistication, that revolutionary communists can ‘fix’ by bringing people The Word or something.
Nil said
I note on second viewing that the first large rightside up american flag is shown at the same time the lyric is “Once I had a reason, don’t know what it could be.”
Libertarian Lurker said
I always thought Morello was at least sympathetic to Maoism even though their songs were more often odes to the EZLN rather than Chairman Bob (although, if I remember right, Morello went to Harvard, which means he most certainly found his way into the Revolution Books in Cambridge, which is also where I first discovered the RCP) — back in the day, he used to have “Sendero Luminoso” written on his guitar.
N3wday said
One of the old RATM videos was dedicated to the Shining Path in Peru (Bombtrack I think?), so even if not agreeing with the ideology in question, they were certainly supportive of other peoples movements for liberation.
Libertarian Lurker said
A quick youtube search reveals that you’re right, N3wday. I never knew they had a video for this one! Actually, the only video I remember being on MTV regularly when MTV still showed music was “Bulls on Parade.”
Libertarian Lurker said
Oops, that didn’t work. Let’s try again.
Libertarian Lurker said
Yikes! Well, my intentions were good. Anyone want to help the technologically illiterate history major figure out how to post the youtube clip of “Bombtrack” in these blog comments?
nando said
you can’t post videos in the commentary. Only the moderators can post videos (in the main posts).
but if you send your suggestion to the moderators they will put them up.
And people should send innovative, new and interesting radical tracks (and other vids) to the site.
Constance E. Cumbey said
I deeply suspect that a day will come when the composer deeply regrets this work. Jesus is not to be mocked. Those, however, misrepresenting him, are an entirely different matter. I wonder if the composer knows of the overt Luciferian ideology behind the “global citizen” or “planetary citizen” vernacular? I know whereof I speak. Donald Keys who organized Planetary Citizens in the late 1970s was an administrator of Lucis Trust alongside Alice and Foster Bailey. Until what was behind his movement was exposed, they were riding high in the early to mid 1980s when they planned to be a planetary force behind an introduction of “Maitreya the Christ.” Their easily traceable ideology and open admissions proved that Lucifer himself was their deity.