'They're Done Patrolling Your Mind.'
Disturbed's "Are You Ready" for #FreedomMusicFriday
One of the recurrent themes of freedom music is empowerment.
This is not the kind of false “empowerment” peddled by the Marxian merchants of grievance: you are oppressed and if you give your allegiance to us, we will save you.
Rather, this is self-empowerment: make yourself stronger, better, and more determined, and then no one can oppress you.
You hear it a lot in hard rock and metal: Messages about hard work and persistence. Getting up and doing it even if you don’t want to. Making you the best you you can be. I have written about this before.
The band Disturbed has a number of songs along these lines, but perhaps none more on point than “Are You Ready.” Every word calls you to be resilient in some way or other. (And yes, they are definitely referring to resisting oppression, so this qualifies as homegrown.)
First, they acknowledge that “For too long your power has been taken away.” They even acknowledge the emotional impact that oppression has:
Does your heart feel heavy now?
But it is time to move past that and get strong.
Take those mental shackles off
And throw them away
You've got to get them out of your mind
Don't you let their vision leave you blindNo they can't control you
Once you've broken away
They're done patrolling your mind
When they're searching for you, they will find
A force they aren't ready for
I love the phrase “patrolling your mind.” That really is what they do…if we let them. And what Disturbed is saying is that once you take control of your own thoughts, your own reactions, your own destiny, you become a lot harder to control. You become someone who cannot so easily be “preyed upon.” That is a message we all need to hear.
Check out all the lyrics and watch the video below. Obviously they have enhanced the message of the lyrics with the video’s visuals, so there is no mistaking their point. This is anti-dystopian freedom-music.
Indeed, there are aspects of that video that are kind of like recurring dreams I’ve told you about…except mine end up in the forest, not at a pop-up Disturbed show in a warehouse. But either way is cool with me!
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THIS: "Don't you let their vision leave you blind"
If they can beat you into submission
Or take your power by passive attrition
That's fine
But if not
They'll not be bothered
For if you cannot be bothered
To see their version and then avert
Your eyes
TO SEE
A NEW VISION
Beyond Di vision
Dive into your sovereign TRUTH
Vision
Of heavenly sovereign paradigms that now certainly arise
Every synchronicity forges a divine new interconnection
In a web of freedom and prospering for all
But if you watch their mesmerizing slow leak of truth poisoned from the well of hell
They'll come for you
Yes they'll come for you
By inviting you to chase them down the black hole
Where bite sized poison laced truth they dole
Out out out with you from there
Take back what they stole
Rise and shine
The power of love is thine
Imitations rampant pale
I am not for sale
Yet following truth, so many become lost, and sometimes I am also like Christoff, lost in the woods And those who would see us never find our way to take down the damn
They knew what it would cost
To keep us addicted to our own self-righteousness, pettiness and rage
That's how they help you make your cage
Safe from the TRUTH of your sovereign awakening
That would send them quakening
You cast your lot with those who put truth like bait in the cages that wait
Until you are ready to STATE
I AM SOVEREIGN. I AM OF GOD. I AM HUMAN, FULLY HUMAN
I AM HERE to thrive, not just survive
To create prosperity for all who arrive
in a place of all way win grass roots soulutions
A place where all is love and we are unspeakable alive
I immediately had a second song start earworm dovetailing with this one, and in what I do that's always important, but I don't know if the song is meant for you, meant for me, meant for both, and/or meant for someone else who will see it here subsequently. So I'll just flow with it and cross my fingers.
https://youtu.be/w8KQmps-Sog