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This is my Fight Song

Take Back My Life Song...

I wrote the following essay for the course, U.S. & Missouri Governments and Constitution on April 28, 2019. The assignment required students to choose a protest song that resonated with them and explain why.

Uprising by Muse

        I was incarcerated for 16 years in the Florida Department of Corrections. During that time, I was housed at 17 different prisons and correctional institutions; I was at some places for as little as a week, while others 4 and 5 years. Music provided a means for marking time and keeping track of the years as they passed. For example, I will hear a certain song and immediately remember what prison I was at when the song was released. Otherwise, I would be hard pressed to tell someone which prison I was at in a given year. Prison is a place of constant suffering, humiliation, depravation, degradation and oppression. I’ve been bound, beaten, raped, starved, stripped naked and tossed into cells with unbearable temperatures ranging from 30° to 110°F depending on the season. Music and books helped me maintain my sanity by providing my mind with a means of escape. Seldom do you hear of riots in American prisons. That is because prison officials have developed and perfected a system that discourages rioting. Believe me, every prisoner thinks about it or wishes they possessed telekinetic abilities to make a guard’s heart stop or head explode. There is one song that always inspired me when I would hear it on my little AM/FM radio; it is titled Uprising by the band, Muse. This song rallied my spirits and filled me with hope; it gave me the courage and strength to keep pushing forward; and it made me so angry I wanted to walk up to a guard and spit in their face. Of course, had I done that I would still be rotting away in the bowels of Florida State Prison.

        Muse is a British rock band that came on the scene in 1994. The lead singer, Matthew Bellamy has been labeled a 21st century guitar hero and modern-day Mozart by some due to his song writing, vocal range and abilities on the piano and guitar. Uprising is from the band’s fifth studio album titled The Resistance. It mixes orchestral elements with rock and electronic music. Like some of their previous albums, the theme is about political oppression. In an interview with MTV News, Matt Bellamy said he was inspired to write Uprising after witnessing protests to the G20 summit that took place in London in 2009. In the days leading up to the summit, he watched from his residence as police deliberately tried to agitate peaceful protesters into committing acts of violence, so they could find reasons to detain them. There was much unrest in London at the time due to political scandals and abuses by banks and other institutions in the financial sector that had led the country into an economic crisis. Bellamy stated, “everyone felt like they were being ripped off by the powers that be [he] wanted to write a song that summed up that feeling like you’ve been done over by people you’re supposed to trust.”

        Uprising is a song that urges people to stop believing the lies and propaganda being fed to them by governments and powers that be. All the fake news and misinformation is carefully crafted and deliberately fed to the ignorant masses; its intention is to serve as a distraction and keep people from recognizing the true causes of their oppression. One of the song’s lyrics says:

Another promise, another scene, Another package lie to keep us trapped in greed With all the green belts wrapped around our minds And endless red tape to keep the truth confined

        Prison officials use the same diversionary tactics; they implement rules that serve no purpose, they mix individuals they know will not get along, and they constantly make threats that pit inmate against inmate. It works wonderfully. If the inmate population is divided and fighting each other, they are unable to unite and riot against their true oppressors. Most fail to realize that illegal drugs enter the prison system because officials allow it. It’s almost impossible to get Tylenol for a headache, but inmates can pretty much write their own scripts for psychotropic medications. Prison officials don’t feel threatened by someone who is virtually catatonic and rocking back and forth with drool running out the side of their mouth. Another lyric states:

The paranoia is in bloom, the P-R Transmissions will resume They'll try to push drugs That keep us all dumbed down and hope that We will never see the truth around

        Uprising is a song that urges people to stand up for themselves when those in government become self-serving rather than serving the people who have trusted them to govern. When our individual liberties are threatened, revolt is sometimes necessary because governments that go unchecked can become tyrannical. The lose of freedom needs to outweigh one’s fear of death because without freedom, there isn’t much else left to live for. The third and fourth verses of the song go:

Interchanging mind control Come let the revolution take its toll if you could Flick a switch and open your third eye, you'd see that We should never be afraid to die

Rise up and take the power back, it's time that The fat cats had a heart attack, you know that Their time is coming to an end We have to unify and watch our flag ascend

         I mentioned earlier that music provided a great source of comfort to me in prison since it allowed my mind to escape from the cage that confined my physical being. We didn’t have Internet access or CD players. Television and radio were our only sources for music. For many years, I did not know the name of this song nor the band who sang it. The word ‘uprising’ is nowhere in the song’s lyrics. Furthermore, radio deejays are often lousy about giving those details when they play a song. I often became frantic when Uprising played on the radio because I would ask guys who sang it, and no one ever knew. Uprising is considered alternative rock, and most guys in Florida prisons are either country or rap music fans. One guy told me he thought it was the band Muse, but he couldn’t say for sure. One of the first things I did after my release was search YouTube and listen to songs by Muse until I found Uprising. I still listen to it often. I refuse to look back on my years in prison with shame or regret. Prison toughened me up and put iron in my soul; it made me hate bullies and people who strive to oppress the weak; most of all, it taught me to stand up for myself and fight against the evil in this world. Uprising is my fight song; I love the chorus:

They will not force us They will stop degrading us They will not control us We will be victorious 

  Works Cited

Bellamy, Matthew James. "Uprising." The Resistance. Prod. Muse. Warner/Chappell Music, Inc, 2009.

News, MTV. Muse Uprising was Inspired by the G20 Protests. September 25 2009. 25 March 2019. <http://www.mtv.co.uk/muse/news/muse-uprising-was-inspired-by-g20-protests>.

Wilipedia. 2009 G20 London Summit Protests. 27 January 2019. Wikipedia Foundation Inc. 25 March 2019. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_G20_London_summit_protests>.

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Difficulties break some men but make others. No axe is sharp enough to cut the soul of a sinner who keeps on trying, one armed with the hope that he will rise even in the end.

Nelson Mandela