The musician used his set at Boston Calling Music Festival to call out authoritarianism, criticize the administration’s immigration policies, and cover songs from Springsteen and Woody Guthrie
By Larisha Paul
May 27, 2025
BOSTON, MASSACHUSETTS – MAY 25: Tom Morello performs during the 2025 Boston Calling Music Festival at Harvard Athletic Complex on May 25, 2025 in Boston, Massachusetts. (Photo by Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images)
Tom Morello performs during the 2025 Boston Calling Music Festival at Harvard Athletic Complex.
Astrida Valigorsky/Getty Images
When Rage Against the Machine‘s Tom Morello took the stage at Boston Calling Music Festival on Sunday evening, his solo set featured a pointed message. On the screen behind him, a graphic compiled nearly two dozen buttons that read and spelled out “Fuck Trump,” labeled the president a “tyrant,” and referred to him as the “Hater in Chief.” Addressing the crowd, Morello said: “Welcome, brothers and sisters, to the last big event before they throw us all in jail.”
Morello used the performance to join the legion of musicians backing Bruce Springsteen in the musician’s recent standoff with Donald Trump. “Bruce is going after Trump because Bruce, his whole life, he’s been about truth, justice, democracy, equality,” Morello said. “And Trump is mad at him because Bruce draws a bigger audience. Fuck that guy.” The guitarist performed a cover of Springsteen’s “The Ghost of Tom Joad” in solidarity.
Elsewhere in his set, Morello performed Woody Guthrie’s “This Land Is Your Land,” a song he learned in the third grade only to later discover that essential lyrics were removed from the version he knew. “It’s a beautiful song, but they censored out all the verses that explain what the song is really about,” Morello said. “This is a revolutionary anthem. Woody Guthrie knew that music could be … an uplifting, unifying, transcendent thing; a defensive shield, and a weapon for change. Authoritarians and billionaires think this country belongs to them. Woody Guthrie knew that this land is yours.”
His account of the song mirrors recent sentiments that Neil Young shared in his own stance against Trump. “Bruce and thousands of musicians think you are ruining America. You worry about that instead of the dyin’ kids in Gaza. That’s your problem. I am not scared of you. Neither are the rest of us,” Young said last week. “You are forgetting your real job. You work for us.”
Morello isn’t only representing musicians in this battle. He also showed support for his alma mater, Harvard University, at the festival, which is held at the Harvard Athletic Complex. The Ivy League school recently sued the Department of Homeland Security, the State Department, and the Department of Justice in response to the Trump administration’s attempt to block the university from enrolling international students. Earlier this month, the Department of Education froze all federal grant funding to Harvard over their refusal to bend to their demands.
The musician put a spotlight on the free course “We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy,” which is available online through the university. Morello explained that the course is “basic U.S. government, understanding the Constitution, and how to recognize a dictatorship takeover of your country.” An honors student, he graduated from Harvard in 1986 with a B.A. in political science.
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At another moment in his set, Morello flipped his guitar over to reveal a message printed on the back that read: “Fuck I.C.E.” Since taking office, the Trump administration has shown repeated noncompliance with court orders mandating due process for migrants in its immigration practices that have led to the detainment and deportation of U.S. citizens, too.
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“No retreat baby,” Morello wrote on X, referencing his set. “No surrender.”
In this article: Bruce Springsteen, Donald Trump, Rage Against the Machine, Tom Morello, Woody Guthrie
