No Shelter
| "No Shelter" | ||||
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| Single by Rage Against the Machine | ||||
| from the album Godzilla: The Album | ||||
| Released | 12 February 1998 | |||
| Format | CD, 7", 12" | |||
| Length | 4:03 | |||
| Writer(s) | Tim Commerford, Zack de la Rocha, Tom Morello, Brad Wilk | |||
| Rage Against the Machine singles chronology | ||||
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"No Shelter" is a song by Rage Against the Machine, released in 1998 on the Godzilla soundtrack. It can also be found as a bonus track on the Australian, Japanese and European release of The Battle of Los Angeles in 1999. The song is about how the mass media distracts the public from more important issues in the world and manipulates people's minds.
The song discusses consumerism and criticizes the feigned rebelliousness of teenaged consumerism, mentioning Nike and Coca-Cola particularly. Its central theme, however, is media control over public sentiment. In particular it attacks the historical inaccuracy of Steven Spielberg’s film Amistad.
Despite appearing on the Godzilla soundtrack, the song contains the following line:
Godzilla, pure motherfucking filler, get your eyes off the real killer.
The intro guitar riff bears similarity to The Rolling Stones' "Fingerprint File".
"No Shelter" made its live debut on January 28, 1999, at the Continental Arena in East Rutherford, NJ. That show was a benefit show for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Released "during the lull between Evil Empire and The Battle of Los Angeles" the band's critics held that the song's placement "in one of the biggest summer movies of 1998...reeked of selling out and hopping in bed with the enemy." In response, guitarist Tom Morello told an interviewer for Kerrang! "A lot of times a soundtrack is an opportunity to collaborate with musicians you admire. It's an opportunity to work outside of your band, or exercise -- you know, to flex your musical abilities when Rage has downtime. Out of Godzilla, we happened to get a great song in No Shelter."
Appearing at the band opened with the song. In a piece recalling his attendance at the performance journalist David Samuels noted "The cultural contradictions involved in [RATM's] playing agitprop to a $150-a-ticket crowd are evident from the band's first song, "No Shelter," a Marcusian anthem and also the bands contribution to the soundtrack for the movie Godzilla. It is at once an angry grad-student rant, denouncing the cultural myth that "buyin' is rebellin'," and also proof of the near-infinite capacity of that culture to absorb any criticism as long as it features kick-ass guitars."
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