"Know Your Enemy" is a song by the American rap metal band Rage Against the Machine. It features Tool vocalist Maynard James Keenan on vocals during the bridge section. The Allmusic describes the song as "immediately memorable" and "surprisingly straightforward", while music critic Joel McIver cited it as "a standout track" of the album.

The song is in common time. The song's intro, in a moderate tempo of 84 BPM, makes use of Tom Morello's toggle switch to switch between a pickup that is turned off, and one that is on, creating a tremolo effect. Morello's effect is to imitate 70's classic rock synthesizer sounds. This is accompanied by Tim Commerford's slap bass, making this the only other track on the album to use the technique besides "Take the Power Back". After this, it starts up in a faster, punk-ish riff at a tempo of 114 which has been compared to Edgar Winter Group's "Frankenstein", providing yet another link to classic rock. This then leads into the verse, another fast paced riff centered upon the bass. Both the main and secondary riffs were written by Timmy C on an acoustic bass. The song is in the key of F# minor. The chorus then returns to the original riff again, and then returns to the verse. Then, the song goes into a slower, 4/4 beat with palm muted guitar, background percussion by Stephen Perkins and the trance-like vocals of Maynard James Keenan performing his famous words ("I've got no patience now/so sick of complacence now/sick of you/time has come to pay", 34 words including repeated lines). It was planned that Perkins' Jane's Addiction bandmate Perry Farrell would be doing the section but was absent leading to Maynard as his replacement on short notice. All is brought to an end by Tom Morello's guitar solo using the DigiTech Whammy pedal and toggle switch until the tempo slows down dramatically with a false ending. The guitar chord dissolves on a sludgy note resemblant of the intro to Black Sabbath's "Iron Man". It goes back to the verse riff with Zack speaking the line "All of which are American dreams" eight times, finishing well after the band stops playing.

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