Tom Waits and Massive Attack staff as much as tip the most important musical slap to Donald Trump | Culture | EUROtoday

In 2011, Tom Waits was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Neil Young served as finest man and launched him. Waits got here on stage together with his legendary gawk and mentioned in his cavernous voice: “Songs are just very interesting things to do with air. And they say within the music industry that I don’t have hits and that I’m a difficult person to work with. The most surprising thing is that they say this as if it were a bad thing.” The laughter within the auditorium was thunderous. Those phrases reveal two traits of the Californian artist: uncomfortable and courageous. The similar could be mentioned of their present allies, the British Massive Attack.

Tom Waits and the 2 members of Massive Attack, Robert Del Naja and Daddy G, son associates for some years. Apart from the kilometers that separate them (he lives in California they usually spend most of their time within the United Kingdom), this fraternity shouldn’t be shocking: they share an intrepid inventive imaginative and prescient that’s primarily based on freedom outdoors (and in opposition to) the markets; And politically they’ve been energetic, forming a dam in opposition to authoritarianism directed by governments and in opposition to social injustices. They wanted to collaborate musically. And it has introduced itself at an ideal second, a lot to its dismay: the warlike and racist drift of Donald Trump. Waits and Massive Attack simply launched Boots On The Ground (which could be translated as Boots on the Ground), revealed by the PIAS file firm, the most important musical slap within the face to the repressive insurance policies of the president of the United States. Part of the lyrics goes: “Who the hell are these federal morons? / Hiding in the senate like a bloated tick on your ass. / Shitty air-conditioned loafers. / Sitting in a room full of army posters.”

The track, as Waits himself explains in a press release, has been composed for just a few years, however appears to have been written per week in the past: “One day, a few years ago, I accepted an invitation from Massive Attack to collaborate. At that time I sent them Boots on the Ground. Its delayed release never worried me. Today, as in all the yesterdays of Humanity, guarantees that this song will never go out of style. The madness of man is a feast for flies.” Waits is the creator of the lyrics, his accomplice, Kathleen Brennan, participates within the composition, and his son, Casey, is on the backing vocals and drums. The track was recorded with out resorting to the distant: they had been seen collectively in a studio. Massive Attack has commented: “This song arrives in an atmosphere of chaos. Across the West, authoritarianism and the militarization of police forces are merging with neo-fascist politics.”

Boots on the Ground, which lasts four minutes and 20 seconds, extends to seven in the video supporting the launch. The small film collects a succession of images by photographer thefinalye captured in a period of time ranging from the murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 to the recent ICE raids (the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement Service created by Trump) and the murders of civilians. They are black and white and color images of various moments of police repression in the United States: officers armed with rifles and threatening protesters; smoke bombs; fire; ICE leader Gregory Bovino, wearing a bulletproof vest, directing the operations; citizens arrested, mistreated; people burning images of Trump; smashed cars; Latino children crying and their parents with fear in their eyes; the American flag on fire; homeless people lying on any corner of a city. At the end of the video, the consequences of political and police punishment are reported in austere white letters on a black background: “As of March 2026, eight folks have died by the hands of United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brokers or of their custody. Their names are…”; “As of February 2026, 68,289 folks had been detained by ICE. Of that quantity, 73% (50,259) haven’t any legal file. Many of these with legal information had been for minor crimes, resembling site visitors violations”…

Musically, Massive Attack adapts to the style of Waits, who sings with his characteristic howling animal voice over the tube percussions and clock engines that abound in his discography. The duo provides a dark and ghostly atmosphere led by a sumptuous piano. The atmosphere they build is disturbing. Boots on the Ground It belongs to the category of Waits’ twisted blues, which are so enjoyed in a very peculiar career that began in the seventies as a singer at the piano in a smoky nightclub portraying the reverse of the night in the cities and that continued in the eighties, the nineties and the two thousand, changing style for an experimentation of increasingly harsh vocals and unusual percussions.

Both Massive Attack (both from Bristol, 61-year-old Del Naja and 66-year-old Daddy G) and Tom Waits (California, 76 years old) have not released an album for a decade and a half. The latest from the singer, Bad as Medates back to 2011, and the duo was even lazier, since their Heligoland It was published in 2010. Of course, the British have been performing regularly in recent times: this year they will headline the first day (June 4) of Primavera Sound in Barcelona. Waits, however, limits himself to brief performances spaced out over time, but has given up touring, something he has not practiced much throughout his distinctive career. His last tour It was developed in 2008 and was celebrated especially in Spain since it was the first time (in San Sebastián and Barcelona), and the last, that the Californian musician performed in our country. Waits currently prefers to develop as a performer, almost always under the orders of his friend, director Jim Jarmusch. Their latest collaboration, Father Mother Sister Brother, It premiered in December 2025.

Boots on the Ground, which will also be released in vinyl format along with a poem (The Fly) recited by Waits, has another message, this time for the music industry, although also with a political component: the song cannot be heard on Spotify (it can be heard on other platforms), whose manager, Daniel Ek, actively invests in companies that supply weapons to, among others, the government of Israel. The British duo have been active in this regard, organizing concerts and heading organizations such as No Music for Genocide. The group’s concerts have become political expressions of the first order where musicians denounce, through artistic and aesthetic concepts, the genocide in Gaza, the power of the state over citizens through technology, exacerbated consumerism or the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Just four days ago, on April 13, a rather unusual image occurred: watching police officers take away a famous musician by the hands and legs. Robert Del Naja was arrested, along with several others, in central London at a pro-Palestinian demonstration. “I oppose genocide, I support Palestine Action,” said the musician, who already denounced the United States invasion of Iraq in 2003.

This furious response from Tom Waits against the Trump government joins those of Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and Patti Smith, veterans who have decided to mobilize against the coercive policies of some rulers. Young musicians, however, are more cautious.