Lyrics for People Of The Sun as interpreted by piesupreme

People Of The Sun Lyrics
yeah people come up
yeah better turn the bass up on this one
check it

Since 1516 minds attacked and overseen, now
Crawl amidst the ruins of this
Empty dream
with their borders and boots on top of us, pullin'
Knobs on the floor of their toxic metropolis
So how you gonna get what you need ta get ? tha
Gut eaters, blood drenched get offensive like tet, the fifth suns sets get back reclaim, tha
Spirit of cuahtemoc alive an untamed
now face the funk now blastin' out your speaker, on the one maya, mexica
That vulture game ta try and steal your name but
but now you got a gun
This is for the people of the sun
It's comin' back around again
This is for tha people of tha sun
Neva forget that tha wip snapped ya back, ya
Spine cracked for tobacco, oh I'm the Marlboro
Man
Our past blastin' on through tha verses
Brigades of taxi cabs rollin' broadway like
Hearses
Troops strippin' zoots, shots of red mist,
Sailors blood on tha deck
Come sista resist
From the era of terror check this photo lens,
Tha city of angels does tha ethnic cleanse
Heads bobbin' to that funk out ya
Speaker, on tha one maya, mexica
That vulture game ta try an steal ya name but now
You found a gun... you're history
This is for the people of the sun
It's coming back around again
This is for tha people of tha sun

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thedealer
04-10-2002

Rated 0 
This song is about the Zapatista movement in Chapias, how the government tried to take thier land but the indians rebelled against them. the band does a good job putting this song together!

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rm
07-19-2002

Rated 0 
this is a sweet song. they talk about it on the battle of mexico dvd.

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killsforpie
08-27-2002

Rated 0 
this is a really nice first song

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Playitifitsgood
09-09-2002

Rated 0 
i loved this song before i knew the lyrics because of its anger and its passion, i loved it more when i read the lyrics. for the first time i heard an angry young mans song that didnt just go, death!!! EVERYTHING SUCKS!!!! fuck everyone cause im a silly mother fucker who cant verbalise anything more than to abuse without cause various institutions within society
While people of the suns lyrics are raw and scathing, they also show that the writer has intelligence greater then his anger and he puts forward a song that shows the fury of a people and also explains and justifies there anger. read the lyrics by yourself if you like poetry,
amazing

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Pushit117
05-14-2004

Rated 0 
i've always thought this song is about the aztecs...i could be wrong though. not the whole song, but especially the lines about the "people of the sun" and "maya, mexica"...sounds like a reference to the aztecs to me.

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Pushit117
05-14-2004

Rated 0 
i've always thought this song is about the aztecs...i could be wrong though. not the whole song, but especially the lines about the "people of the sun" and "maya, mexica"...sounds like a reference to the aztecs to me.

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Pushit117
05-14-2004

Rated 0 
i've always thought this song is about the aztecs...i could be wrong though. not the whole song, but especially the lines about the "people of the sun" and "maya, mexica"...sounds like a reference to the aztecs to me.

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Pushit117
05-14-2004

Rated 0 
i've always thought this song is about the aztecs...i could be wrong though. not the whole song, but especially the lines about the "people of the sun" and "maya, mexica"...sounds like a reference to the aztecs to me.

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Ghostly
05-27-2004

Rated 0 
This song is not only just about the zapitista movement, it's about the whole history of the mexican country and its people, and the injustice it's endured over the years by various countries. Though it could be about the aztecs, aztecs were primarily in south america, not central america. The natives there were the mayans more so. 1516, obviously refers to the spanish as well as the french who occupied mexico later on. "Back cracked for tobacco" refers to spanish enslavery and forcing the natives to pick tobacco plants, as it was a blooming buisness back in the late 1500's and 1600's, and even more so when the first american colonists set up a colony in the 1600's. "Troops strippin' zoots, shots of red mist,
Sailors blood on tha deck
Come sista resist
From the era of terror check this photo lens,
Tha city of angels does tha ethnic cleanse" all refers to the los angeles riots in the 40's. "Zoot suits" were primarily mexican american kids (some were fillipino as well) who openly defied the impliment of cloth limits by the U.S. to reserve more cloth for the war effort. These zoot suits were very large and baggy, so it took a lot of cloth to make. One night, sailors who's ship had docked in the los angeles port went around the town and accosted some mexican girls. Because of this, a local group of zoot suits fought them and beat the sailors. The next night, hundreds of sailors flooded the streets of L.A looking for any mexican american or even hispanic kid and stripped them of their clothes, which is where the "troops strippin' zoots" lyric comes from. It was not just white sailors however, it was also african american sailors who took part in this, despite the racism geared towards them, many african americans had racism towards hispanics and asians. Even though the sailors were the ones beating all the hispanic and fillipino kids, the zoot suits were the ones being put in jail. It was a very corrupt time.

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RATM13LJH
06-01-2004

Rated 0 
YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! I LOVE this song!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The drums guitar bass volcals! Zack De La Rocha sure as hell can write a mean song. Now..........what this is about to me is general raceism against dark skined people like blacks, mexicans and indians. To me this is mostly about Mexicans and their raceal struggel. This is about the history of mecxican sturggels both in the US and in Mexico. The people of the sun refers to mexicans.

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stats
11-30-2004

Rated 0 
This song is about the native Americans getting revenge for oppression at the hands of the euros 200+ years ago. Christian and other religious reasons served as a front for butchering and enslaving the indigenous population for economic gains. Now the tides have turned and true American values- liberalism, freedom, and rebelliousness against unworthy authority, are being unleashed upon the world. They have been in places like Vietnam and now Iraq. The war is against chauvinistic facism, religious garbage, and other impediments to the progress of mankind. And its coming from the people of the sun, the native Americans who influenced the founders of the united states, but you wont read that in history books. And its coming back again, the USA is laying an asswhooping on the world, the Europeans and religious fundamentalists and moralists hate it, and the people of the sun are getting a little bit of revenge in the name of liberation from the banality that attempted to destroy them a few centuries ago.

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ShesMyAlcatraz
12-12-2004

Rated 0 
all i have to say is, follow his instructions at the top of the song

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El Don
01-15-2005

Rated 0 
To Ghostly:

The Aztecs were strictly Central America and are very much a huge part of Mexican culture. The Mayans, while primarily in southern Mexico, also existed in other Central American countries (Northern Honduras for example). More importantly though, the Mayan civilization died out way before Columbus, and their culture is not significant in this song. And the Aztecs, are known as the People of the Sun.

Overall, without getting into all of the history and symbolism used, this is a Mexican (Hispanic, but specifically Mexican) unity song. It explains the punishment and injustices suffered by the indigenous Mexicans, as well as modern day Mexicans and Mexican-Americans. It's a rallying cry for Mexicans (and in a more liberal sense, Hispanics/ Latinos in general).

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srvhendrix
02-10-2005

Rated 0 
thedealer is 100% right, i had to write a 25 page report on the Zapatistan rebellion, and I actually used this song in the report, my teacher gave me extra points for it. Rock on! p.s. I love RAGE

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El Cato
04-11-2005

Rated 0 
I reckon apart from the few little mistakes, Ghostly sums this song up entirely, finalised by El Don's corrections and assumption about the song being a rallying cry.
No longer does rock music have to limit itself to the (predominantly white) middle classes, this is multicultural music, but particularly for the under-represented Hispanic people of America.
"their borders and boots on top of us" is in reference to the quote from one of the videos (either this one or Bulls On Parade) about US borders being meaningless due to the fact that "Americans" are in fact Europeans and the Americas "are indian country from end to end".
I am European, but I support the cause of the Zapatistas of Chiapas in their struggle against poverty and oppression against the seemingly insurmountable opposition of the support of the Mexican government by the US government.
As Zack says in the documentary footage from 'The Battle of Mexico City', Rage and their music stand up for anyone who is fighting oppression, anyone who has the courage and the anger to stand up and say "ENOUGH!"; Zack has a personal interest in the struggle for recognition of the Hispanic community's hardship, but he believes in equality.
If only everyone else did too.

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benmuzz
05-04-2005

Rated 0 
Talking of the Mexico City DVD, when Zack says "Marcos is..." and then lists the oppressed peoples, he is talking about a man called Subcomandante Marcos. I don't know much about him other than he wrote some essays, but he seems to have had a great influence on Zack.

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inmyeyes
06-23-2005

Rated 0 
yes, subcomandante marcos is "the leader" of the zapatistas.

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Meekatharra Bushman
05-24-2006

Rated 0 
I think the 'the vulture came to steal your name part" is America tryin to take over and destroy Mexico...but now Mexico "got a gun...and this is for the PEOPLE OF THE SUN" Fuck shit up Rage....i wish you were still together

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cheeza4u
08-06-2006

Rated 0 
we actually had to learn this song in class
and our teacher is a huge fan of this band, so he bought this dvd of music vid&extras from rage against the machine..and in it you coulod tell that Ghostly is pretty much right. we also had to study about the mexican revolution and etc. subcomandante was talking about media, i forgot . but yeap
theyre for the poorer/unadvantaged people of mexico
and it also has to do with NAFTA and them taking land away from people in mexico for buisness buildings and crap.
and nafta (u.s free trade) is ripping of mexico. so thats one of the thing subcomandante marcos is pissed off. if you've seen the vid where he talks, he's really very very inteligent

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stxp64
09-03-2006

Rated 0 
in the first verse, does the line say "minds attacked and overseen" or "mayans attacked and overseen""
ive seen it both ways on many different lyric sites

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matdamc
09-22-2006

Rated 0 
no one has mentioned the line:
"Spirit of cuahtemoc alive an untamed"

cuahtemoc being the the last Aztec ruler and the last "Aztec Emperor". The name means "descending eagle", by extension it can be interpreted as "setting sun". defeated by the spanish and tortured until he gave up the so-called hidden treasure,upon it not existing the aztec leader was eventualy executed.

for me the line has to be
"mayans attacked and overseen"

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laokoon
12-23-2006

Rated 0 
funny though, that the aztecs were imperialists themselves and oppressed the tribes in their surroundings - which enabled the europeans to form alliances with those tribes against the aztecs.. otherwise they would not have been able to defeat them.. (of course even that local support would not have been enough without european germs causing sicknesses which soon spread and killed big part of the indigenous population...)

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lucasnufc
08-25-2007

Rated 0 
When i first heard this i thought it was about the nazis. Because Hitler insisted that all Germans should worship the religion of the sun, or something like that. And the 'it's coming back around again' part. Well, recently the Western world has been compared to Nazism so this could be Zack's way of telling us that 'The People of the Sun' i.e the nazi ideals and way of life, could be coming back around again. Any Thoughts?

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hexanitrostilbene
04-14-2008

Rated 0 
On a purely poetic level this song is an extremely good example of rhythmic techniques. The enjambment and end-stopping alone sell the song.

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turbovitalik
04-29-2008

Rated +1 
I agree with many your opinions and wanna add something. I think this song is about Mexico history, Mexican people, especially native people - American Indians. But i think this song is not only about a past, it is about past, present and future. "since 1516 minds attacked and overseen
Now crawl amidst the ruins of this empty dream" - in 1516 began Spanish conquest. Some centuries Europeans dominated on indians lands. But they couldn't destroy Mexican natives, Mexican history, Mexican Culture.
Next... The tittle of song is "People of the Sun". The aztecs, who lived in Mexico territory, called themselves so. 100% that this song talk about Zapatista's. Zack means that Zapatista's are new aztecs, that nowadays are fighting for their land like aztecs fought many centuries ago. "Tha spirit of Cuahtemoc alive an untamed" - yeah, Cuahtemoc (last aztecs leader) now live again. His spirit waked up in Zapata's strugle. It's a new strugle, a new era of Mexican history. "Tha fifth sun sets get back reclaim" - I found aztec's mythology. Their history consists of some "sun sets". The fifth sun set - is the new era, begining of a new life. I think Zack try
to equate rising of Zapatista's in Chiapas with fifth sun set in aztec's mythology. "Mexica,
That vulture came ta try and steal ya name". I think that vultures are American politics, who tried to steal the lands of indians, according project "NAFTA". But Zapata's have kicked bastard's asses. Like in Vietnam american troops got a good kick in ass in Tet. "Tha gut eaters, blood drenched get offensive like Tet". Tet - is the great Vietnam's holiday - Moon's New Year. When was a war in Vietnam, at this day was a great offensive of Communistic Vietnam. This day became a turning-point in a whole war. After this the public opinion began to appear against the war in Vietnam.
So, IMHO, this song is about Zapata's.
Sorry for my bad English, I'm from Russia. I have sitten near my computer for long time writing this post and searching the information.With dictionary :) Let's talk about this song. I don't understand some moment's: "Brigades of taxi cabs rollin' broadway like
Hearses", "...on the one maya". What does Zack mean? Let's think... :)

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