Artist: Linkin Park
Album: A Thousand Suns
Linkin Park is an American rock band from California.
Wretches and Kings is off Linkin Park's fourth studio album A Thousand Suns, which was released in September of 2010. The song contains part of a speech made by Mario Savio in 1964, who was a political activist in the USA, and was a leading member of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. I think this song is very politically and socially concious. I think it's about how a lot of times people in positions of authority and power will push around people who don't have that kind of power, and view them as lesser beings. I think it's about rising up against an oppressor or oppressors. This song is very much a protest song to me. I love this song. The song Wretches and Kings mixes elements of rock, electronica, hip/hop and rap. Linkin Park has always been a mixture of rock, hip/hop and rap but Wretches and Kings and indeed a lot of songs on A Thousand Suns are not really in any definable genre. Linkin Park seems to have created a genre of their own.
"Wretches And Kings"
"There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop." (Mario Savio)
To save face / how low can you go
Talk a lot of game but yet you don’t know
Static on the way / make us all say whoa
The people up top push the people down low
Get down
And obey every word
Steady getting mine if you haven’t yet heard
Wanna take what I got / don’t be absurd
Don’t fight the power / nobody gets hurt
If you haven’t heard yet then I’m letting you know
There ain’t shit we don’t run when the guns unload
And no one make a move unless my people say so
Got everything outta control
Now everybody go
Steel unload / final blow
We the animals take control
Hear us now / clear and true
Wretches and kings we come for you
So keep pace / how slow can you go
Talk a lot of shit and yet you don’t know
Fire on the way / make you all say whoa
The people up top and the people down low
Get down
And I’m running it like that
The front of the attack is exactly where I’m at
Somewhere in between the kick and the hi hat
The pen and the contract
The pitch and the contact
So get with the combat / I’m letting ‘em know
There ain’t shit you can say to make me back down no
So / push the button let the whole thing blow
Spinning everything outta control
Now everybody go
Steel unload / final blow
We the animals take control
Hear us now / clear and true
Wretches and kings we come for you
Steel unload / fire blow
Filthy animals / beat them low
Skin and bone / black and blue
No more this sun shall beat onto you
From the front to the back and the side to side
If you fear what I feel put ‘em up real high
"There’s a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part; you can’t even passively take part, and you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers, upon all the apparatus, and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it, to the people who own it, that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all."
Linkin Park - Wretches And Kings - Youtube (Audio Only)
