This song made it to the UK no.1 spot for Christmas 2009 this week due to a hugely successful facebook campaign. The campaign was a protest against bland, soulless karaoke acts constantly being pushed at the public by shows like X-factor etc. The X-factor finalist was beaten to the top spot by those of us who have had enough, and happily voted for Rage Against the Machine instead. The choice of song was perfect, and the victory sweet :) (You can guess which side we were on).

Rage Against the Machine are a powerful live act (Yup, been there, got the T-shirt), and Tom Morello is a jolly fine guitarist. Here we look at the song's main riffs....

First, it's in Drop D, so just tune your low E string down by 2 notes. This is an easy tuning to find - just pick the open middle D string and tune your Low E string down until it sounds the same.

Use the following quick links to learn each successive riff. The main riffs are short and repetitive. This means you can learn the song quite quickly:

Riff 1 - Intro with some nice, simple Chord Bashing. Followed by a short break for the bass, then kick in with the next riff.

Riff 2 - Easy enough riff - just go slowly at first, build up speed afterwards. Also, notice that there are brief gaps between the Low D string notes. The strings are being muted here by the strumming hand at the other end of the guitar - i.e. pick the string then instantly mute it by placing your strumming hand (or thumb) against the strings to stop them vibrating. You can also use standard muting with your fretboard hand if you wish.

Riff 3 - Straightforward linking riff. Use the muting again to make those chords more punchy.

Riff 4 - Main Verse riff, one of the trickier parts to the song, but just do it slowly first and it'll come. Highly repetitive.

Riff 5 - This is an adaptation of the previous riff, used to link to the next riff.

Riff 6 - 'And now you do what they told ya'....(we're telling ya to do powerchords and octave chords here just in case there's any confusion).

Riff 7 - More of the previous octave chord bashing, but this time adding in rhythmic muted strikes. You can use thumb muting here (and throughout much of the song in fact).

If you are having problems over-strumming and hitting the open strings, then you should try and thumb mute (i.e. curl your thumb over the top edge of the fretboard and touch the Low D string just enough to mute it in case it is strummed. Then it will be drowned out by the other strings if it is accidentally strummed).

Riff 8 - The chorus riff kicks in after a quick thrash on the high D chord.

From here on out the riffs are basically the same just swap between them as required. A few discrepancies are here:

Short Chromatic Run

Interlude - Follows the solo (we'll show that in a separate ActionTab). Just cycle through octave chords using the same chord shape. Strum fast - all down / up strokes.

Ending - This outro is much of the same stuff. There is another guitar added on top (which we'll show in another ActionTab) for effect.

Have Fun!