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"Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos" is a 1989 song by the American hip hop group Public Enemy from their second album, ''It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back''. The song tells the story of a draft dodger who makes a prison escape. It is built on a high-pitched piano sample from the 1969 Isaac Hayes song "Hyperbolicsyllabicsesquedalymistic" from the album "Hot Buttered Soul". The vocals are done mostly by lead Public Enemy rapper Chuck D, with sidekick Flavor Flav appearing in between verses, seemingly speaking to Chuck over the phone. Flavor went to another room and did actually call the studio to achieve this effect. ==Lyrical Storyline== The lyrics deal with a fictional story of an escape from a US prison. Chuck has been drafted ("I got a letter from the government, the other day / I opened and read it, it said they were suckers / they wanted me for their army or whatever"); however, he refuses to become part of the army ("Picture me giving a damn / I said 'never!'" and "They could not understand that I'm a black man and I could never be a veteran!"). The main idea behind this is that the (unnamed) war is wrong, with a hint of pure indignation towards the treatment of black people by other parts of American society ("here's a land that never gave a damn about a brother like me"). This serves to both criticize racism and the prison system ("Four of us packed in a cell like slaves"). Chuck is then taken to prison, from which he attempts to escape. "Black Steel" is a reference to a gun, which he needs to escape. By the end of the second verse, Chuck has taken a gun from a C.O. (corrections officer) who was "fallin' asleep" ("But ever when I catch a C.O. / Sleeping on the job/My plan is on go-ahead."). "Black Steel" is also a reference to the willpower and strength Chuck believes he needs to muster in order to fight a system that he perceives as oppressive. With gun in hand, Chuck and the other prisoners escape "to the ghetto - no sell out." Chuck then comments on how there are 6 C.O.s who he "ought to put their head out." He does not, at first ("But I'll give 'em a chance 'cause I'm civilized"), but after a female tries to thwart the escape she is shot, ("Got a woman C.O. to call me a 'copter / She tried to get away, and I popped her"), presumably dead ("I had 6 C.O.s, now it's 5 to go"). The final verse ends with Chuck and the rest of the prisoners on their final escape. They are confronted with shots and there is a state of chaos. Chuck makes a comment about prison and racism ("This is what I mean—an anti-nigger machine"), which later became the basis for another Public Enemy song, "Anti-Nigger Machine" (featured on the 1990 album Fear of a Black Planet). Finally, the S1Ws come to the rescue. The song ends with the line "53 brothers on the run, and we are gone" indicating a successful prison escape. (However, in the video for the song, this line accompanies the image of Chuck D being hanged by the triumphant warden of the prison, suggesting that the prison riot was crushed and the final verse is nothing more than the wishful thinking of a "dead man walking.") Chuck describes his situation as a cliffhanger at the end of each verse. The first verse sees him looking for a gun ("On the strength the situation's unreal / I got a raw deal / So I'm looking for the steel"). The second verse sees him making his move for the gun ("On the strength I'm a tell you the deal / I've got nothing to lose / 'Cause I'm going for the steel"). The third verse ends with him looking for the exit ("Time to break as time grows intense / I've got my steel in my right hand / Now I'm looking for the fence"). Finally Chuck is rescued ("Now the chase is on telling you to come on / 53 brothers on the run, and we are gone.") 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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