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Charlie Chaplin’s The Great
Dictator contains in it one of the most poignant speeches ever written. One
which, sadly, still isn’t taken to heart by enough people. Greed is still
poisoning men’s souls. Our knowledge still makes us cynical. Our cleverness
still makes us hard and unkind. We are still treated like machines and cattle. There
are still dictators in power. Greed rules our world, and hatred is alive and well. Chaplin’s speech has done
little to change that.
But the speech was never forgotten. It
is remembered enough to be sampled in a few Industrial songs, in fact. I’ve
heard it done several times. Although I can only remember three of the songs by
band name and title. I’m probably going to come across more, and regret not
adding them to this blog entry. But oh well, let’s go ahead and have a listen
to some of these anyway, shall we? Feel free to leave me a comment if you know
of any others. Maybe I can update this list later.
Stoppenberg
– Unite!
“You are not machines! You are men!” The song has a robotic feel to it, perhaps emphasizing that part of the speech. We have let the greedy turn us into machines. Into robots. If you ask me that’s what Kraftwerk’s “The Robots” is really about too; about the workers being made into slaves by the wealthy. I really felt this song, listening to it on my MP3 player in the break room when I was working at the call centers. If only the people woke up and united against their oppressors, we could make this life free and beautiful, a wonderful adventure. Instead, we are machines. Cattle. They make sure we never unite. Instead we are stuck doing minimum wage jobs that strip us of our humanity, sacrificing hours and days of our finite lives to the wealthy all for this completely made-up concept called “money” which exists to separate the haves from the have-nots.
It’s
no wonder McCarthy went after Charlie Chaplin.
Komor Kommando – The Power Within
This song uses one of my other favorite samples; the Howie Long Scream. You’ve heard it before. It’s that scream that goes “YOOOOUUUURRRRRAAAARRRRRGGHHH!!!!!” It’s hilarious. See also “Liar” by Felix Marc, where the scream comes right out of nowhere. Anyway, the use of The Great Dictator samples in this track gets you energized and pumped up. ”You the people have the power! Let us fight for a new world! Let us all unite!” Instead of playing up the machine aspect of the speech, this song plays up the empowering aspect. It’s a great track for the dance floor. Just look at the cyber-goth in the video go. She looks like she feels empowered.
Hanzel und Gretyl – Der Furor
Ah, Hanzel und Gretyl. The only band that would ever sample one of Adenoid Hynkel’s speeches. So, this is from the same film of course, but it’s the speech that the “Great Dictator” himself makes. It’s completely satirical, with Hynkel shouting “Wienerschnitzel und sauerkraut!” in faux-German. Chaplin was making Hitler look stupid, and that’s what this song does too. I love how the song stops for a few seconds as Hynkel has a coughing fit, only to resume again when he shouts “Hey!” This song is just funny. But be careful playing it too loud, lest someone overhear it and not get the joke.
Laibach – Tanz Mit Laibach
Okay so this isn’t really a true example because they don’t sample The Great Dictator, but they do reference it in the lyrics. “Wir tanzen (we dance) Ado Hynkel, Benzino Napaloni”. These are the names of the parodies of Hitler and Mussolini in the film. The song is symbolic. My interpretation is it’s about how governments stir their citizens into extremism with propaganda. Like Hanzel und Gretyl, there’s always been a satirical edge to Laibach’s music, and I think that’s why they reference The Great Dictator, the most famous, dare I say, the defining satire of totalitarianism (okay trivia nerds, I know, The Three Stooges technically beat him to it by a few months; someone should sample Moe Howard’s Hitler impression in one of their Industrial songs).
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