Shining a spotlight on the social, political, and economical injustices fracturing our society, Rise Against have spent the better part of three decades utilising punk rock as a force for good. With nine studio albums to their name, each stacked full of unabashedly outspoken songs searing with aggression and driven by melody, they’ve become one of the most vital bands of their generation. Guided by frontman Tim McIlrath’s increasingly desperate lyrical pleas for a kinder world, the 45-year-old’s words have long served as an urgent manifesto for countless music fans exasperated with the state of the world around them.
Zooming in on everything from humanitarianism and political corruption to environmentalism and animal rights, their inability to stand back and ignore the atrocities unravelling around them has seen Rise Against blossom into so much more than a scruffy punk rock band. From the dirty floors of Chicago clubs to stages far bigger than the four-piece ever dreamed, their message has spread far and wide, forging a global community like no other. With a firm focus on unity and a commitment to speak the truths many are afraid to speak, Planet Earth will never be a perfect place, but each new Rise Against track comes with the reminder that if we work together – something better could indeed be possible.
Striving for connection in a world that feels more divided than ever, Tim McIlrath talks Rock Sound through ten of the lyrics he is most proud to have written. “Is this the life that you lead? The life that’s led for you? // Will you take the road that’s been laid out before you? // Will we cross paths somewhere else tonight?” ‘Paper Wings’ – ‘Siren Song Of The Counterculture’ (2004) “This is a line from our third record, and it came to me as we were starting to lean into the idea of being musicians. When the band started, we weren’t thinking of it as a career, it was just something that we were doing for fun.
We hoped that it would take off, but I never in a million years thought that it would get to the level that it has. I hit this crossroad where I had to decide if I was going to go to college, get a job, and do the things that were expected of me, or if I was going to embrace the unorthodox lifestyle of living in a van with three other guys. I decided to write music and try to skirt the system, and that line is about being confident in the choices that you are making, but also understanding how risky and precarious they are.
Even in the light of that risk and precariousness, you still follow through.” “I won’t crawl on my knees for you // I won’t believe the lies that hide the truth // I won’t sweat one more drop for you // ‘Cause we are the rust upon your gears // We are the insect in your ears // We crawl all over you” ‘Re-Education (Through Labor)’ – ‘Appeal To Reason’ (2008) “This is about the idea of being non-conformist in a society that often rewards conformity. Punk rock has always been a little bit of a thorn in the side of the establishment, and a thorn in the side of the norm in general.
This song is talking about embracing that idea. You don’t want a part of what society deems is right, if it’s something that you think is wrong. It’s about being the rust upon the gears, and a call for others to pay attention to the direction the world is going in.
” “The promise of safe return I delivered // But the ocean is wider than I first guessed // When roads disappeared, I followed the rivers // But somehow got in over my head” ‘Wait For Me’ – ‘Endgame’ (2011) “I’ve always been proud of this song. We wrote it on the third floor of a venue called the Metro here in Chicago, which is an iconic place. We all grew up going to see shows there, and it was the pinnacle of the punk rock scene.
If you played Metro, then you had made it. In the venue though, they have this pseudo-secret, haunted theatre with a chandelier hanging above it. It wasn’t the main room; it was a little auditorium in the attic which maybe holds 120 people.
For several legal reasons, they can’t really do shows in there anymore, but Guns N’ Roses played up there in the 80s and bands like the Smashing Pumpkins have used it. We always heard rumours about it growing up, but I thought they weren’t true. We finally asked the Metro, and it turns out they were true.
We went up there, and we wrote ‘Wait For Me’ in that room. Whenever I hear that song, I think about playing those parts repeatedly and subjecting the poor Metro employees to us blundering around the song. There are a couple of different themes in Rise Against’s music, and longing has always been one of them.
There are a lot of lyrics about longing, and about trying to get back somewhere. When I started travelling as a musician, that was enhanced. You’re on the road a lot, you’re in a foreign land, and you’re thinking about how to get back to where you’re from.
I like to play with longing as a metaphor, and that’s where that lyric came from.” “Fight your reflection // Smash what you see // And let’s restart // ‘Cause mirrors can’t see our heart” ‘Broken Mirrors’ – ‘Endgame’ (2011) “This is essentially a riff on the phrase, ‘You can’t judge a book by its cover’. That song was written in a time before social media fully took over, but it feels even more important now.
Social media has some positive parts, but there are also parts which create all kinds of body image issues. We’re seeing artificial depictions of lifestyles that are beyond all our reach, and of body types and people that are so few and far between. We compare ourselves to those things.
‘Broken Mirrors’ is about shattering the mirror, but maybe it’s also about shattering that screen in front of you and all of the expectations that it puts on us.” “These colours used to wash right out // But now they are a part of me” ‘The Black Market’ – ‘The Black Market’ (2014) “On ‘The Black Market’, I had a lot of ideas that I wanted to get across. We had worked hard to get to where we were, and the band was doing well, but I was conscious of the toll that it takes on you when you pour your heart out into a record.
Because of that, this record became a lot more self-reflective, focusing on the side effects and byproducts of spending over a decade doing this. Whether you’re writing about social change or personal change, often it can go to deep and dark places. I was dwelling on the deep, dark thoughts about the ills of society, and that was the cave I was going into every day to create.
It was frustrating sometimes, because often I’d stand at the mouth of that cave and say, ‘I don’t really want to go in there today’. It’s a lot, and I’ve tried to reconcile that as a writer ever since, but this was the first time that I felt inspired to commit that feeling to a song.” “Walking tall once set us apart // Now we’re down on all fours” ‘People Live Here’ – ‘The Black Market’ (2014) “Some songs I labour on for more than a year, but that one just poured out of me.
Each line was disjointed but connected at the same time, and it was a long exasperation on the way you feel after reading the headlines in the morning. You’re hit with shocking story after shocking story, and over time you almost become desensitised. It’s a song that questions what is happening and asks how we even begin to make sense of it all.
We’re supposed to evolve as people, but are we making progress, or are we going backwards in history?” “To a predetermined fate are we condemned // Or maybe we’re a book without an end // We’re not stories, we’re not actors // We’re awake and in control // And this is not a dream” ‘The Violence’ – ‘Wolves’ (2017) “This is about our own agency, and our self-determination. I believe that we exist inside structures in this world that corral us into places, racism is one of those structures, as are sexism and industrialization. There are all these different things that can corral us, and we can’t ignore those things because they are extremely real, but we also have agency.
We can fight back against those things, and a lot of life is spent ping ponging between those two truths. It’s about acknowledging our own privileges, acknowledging the disenfranchised parts of society around us, and being aware of the structure that we are in. That song is a reminder not to underestimate your own agency.
” “When the weight we carry breaks us, we’re tempted to stay down // But every road to recovery starts at the breakdown” ‘Miracle’ – ‘Wolves’ (2017) “This is an inspirational song, and it’s asking you to not wait around for the miracle, but to be your own miracle. It’s about understanding how much power you have, and that line specifically is talking about how our recovery starts when we finally admit to ourselves that what’s happening is bad. A lot of us are scared to get to that point, and we can live in denial that we’re at that point, but there’s good that can come out of it admitting that you need help.
” “We are not the names that we’ve been given // We speak a language you don’t know” ‘Nowhere Generation’ – ‘Nowhere Generation’ (2021) “There’s endless discussion about Generation Z, Millennials, and Generation Y. There are all these different terms that people use to describe who you are in relation to what year you were born in. That apparently dictates what you’re supposed to be like, but you’re your own person.
You can define your own life and your own journey. Oftentimes, the people who pontificate about what younger people are going through don’t know exactly what they’re talking about. Young people know what’s happening to them, and the rest of it is just theory.
This line is asserting that we’re more than just a tag that’s been given to us, and we’re more than the umbrella that we’ve been put under.” “When we are barely holding on, we hold each other // When every road is blocked, we find another way // Every branch we break will grow back even stronger // And the mark we make will never be erased” ‘Holding Patterns’ – ‘Nowhere Generation II’ (2022) “This line is about the power of community, and the power of each other. When we get together at a live show and play for people around the world, it creates a thing that’s hard to bottle.
Shows are so magical in that sense, and they’re more than just ticket sales, vendors, merch, and tour buses. All that stuff is part of touring, but when the show starts, that’s when the magic happens. Suddenly, the walls disappear, and you’re just sharing this music with people.
They’re sharing their reactions with you, and you’re understanding what these songs mean. You’re in a community that’s created within that moment. That’s the reason why I’m here, and it’s the reason why I always come back to this.
I feel so lucky to be someone on that stage, because I used to be somebody in the front row enjoying every second of it. Honestly, I’m still somebody in that front row. I still go to shows, and I still have my own favourite bands.
That song is a homage to how we all take that musical community for granted at times, and how special that feeling of togetherness truly is.”.
