"Original Fire" is the first single

Single (music)

In music, a single or record single is a type of release, typically a recording of fewer tracks than an LP or a CD. This can be released for sale to the public in a variety of different formats. In most cases, the single is a song that is released separately from an album, but it can still appear...

 from the album Revelations by American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 hard rock

Hard rock

Hard rock is a loosely defined genre of rock music which has its earliest roots in mid-1960s garage rock, blues rock and psychedelic rock...

 band Audioslave

Audioslave

Audioslave was an American rock supergroup that formed in Los Angeles, California in 2001. It consisted of former Soundgarden lead singer/rhythm guitarist Chris Cornell and the former instrumentalists of Rage Against the Machine: Tom Morello , Tim Commerford and Brad Wilk...

. The song debuted on radio stations on July 17, 2006 and the single itself was released on August 28, 2006.

The song is currently freely available for streaming at Audioslave's official website and official MySpace profile.

Guitarist Tom Morello

Tom Morello

Thomas Baptiste "Tom" Morello is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, his acoustic solo act The Nightwatchman, and his newest group, Street Sweeper Social Club...

 described the song as hard-rocking, but with a '70s funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

 and soul

Soul music

Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...

 influence. "It's a jam," he said. "It's one of those songs where the genesis was a riff that I had for a very, very long time and imagined it happening in a certain way. When we started jamming in the room, the song morphed into something completely different, completely unexpected and a lot better than I ever imagined it being."

Epic Records

Epic Records

Epic Records is an American record label, owned by Sony Music Entertainment. Though it was originally conceived as a jazz imprint, it has since expanded to represent various genres. L.A...

 held a contest in which the participants had to identify all of the icons shown in the video (there was a list of names and silhouette

Silhouette

A silhouette is the image of a person, an object or scene consisting of the outline and a basically featureless interior, with the silhouetted object usually being black. Although the art form has been popular since the mid-18th century, the term “silhouette” was seldom used until the early decades...

s given and you had to match them) and they had the chance to win copy of the album Revelations, as well as a guitar signed by the band.http://www.epicrecords.com/audioslave/revolver/

Over a year and a half after release, the song rose back into the UK Rock Chart, at number 11, and a week later climbed to the top 10 at number 6. It was also a substantial rock hit in the U.S., peaking at number 3 on the Modern Rock Tracks

Modern Rock Tracks

Alternative Songs is a music chart in the United States that has appeared in Billboard magazine since September 10, 1988. It lists the 40 most-played songs on modern rock radio stations, most of which are alternative rock songs...

 chart and number 4 on the Mainstream Rock Tracks

Mainstream Rock Tracks

Hot Mainstream Rock Tracks is a ranking in Billboard magazine of the most-played songs on mainstream rock radio stations, a category that includes stations that play primarily rock music. Modern rock tracks are counted in the Alternative Songs chart.This chart began with the March 21, 1981, issue...

 chart, although it did not chart for several months. In Canada

Canada

Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...

, it was their last successful single to date, peaking at #1 on the Radio & Records

Radio & Records

Radio & Records was a trade publication providing news and airplay information for the radio and music industries. It originally started out as an independent trade from 1973 to 2006 until VNU Media took over in 2006, up until its final issue in 2009.-History:The company was founded in 1973 and...

' Canadian rock chart.

CD version

1. "Original Fire" (Album Version)
2. "Set It Off" (Live at the Quart Festival)
3. "Gasoline" (Live at the Quart Festival)

Guitar solo

"Original Fire" has a strange guitar solo that Tom Morello

Tom Morello

Thomas Baptiste "Tom" Morello is a Grammy Award-winning American guitarist best known for his tenure with the bands Rage Against the Machine, Audioslave, his acoustic solo act The Nightwatchman, and his newest group, Street Sweeper Social Club...

 describes as monkey

Monkey

A monkey is a primate, either an Old World monkey or a New World monkey. There are about 260 known living species of monkey. Many are arboreal, although there are species that live primarily on the ground, such as baboons. Monkeys are generally considered to be intelligent. Unlike apes, monkeys...

 laughter. He does this solo by setting his DOD Equalizer, deploying his wah-wah pedal

Wah-wah pedal

A wah-wah pedal is a type of guitar effects pedal that alters the tone of the signal to create a distinctive effect, mimicking the human voice...

, depressing his whammy bar to make the strings slack and slapping the strings against the pickups, though, as in the video, it is also possible to have the same effect by using the tuning peg, instead of the whammy bar.

Music video

A music video

Music video

A music video or song video is a short film integrating a song and imagery, produced for promotional or artistic purposes. Modern music videos are primarily made and used as a marketing device intended to promote the sale of music recordings...

 for "Original Fire" was also shot, and premiered on Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music

Yahoo! Music, owned by Yahoo!, is the provider of a variety of music services, including Internet radio, music videos, news, artist information, and original programming...

.http://music.yahoo.com/ar-296097-videos The video was directed by Paul R. Brown

P. R. Brown

Paul R. Brown is a graphic designer, photographer, and music video director.In 1996 he founded Bau-da Design Lab, which currently operates out of Los Angeles and New York. P.R. Brown is well-known for his album designs for musicians such as Mötley Crüe, Korn, Godsmack, and early in his career he...

 (who was the director of videos for bands like Stone Sour

Stone Sour

Stone Sour is an American rock band from Des Moines, Iowa. Since 2006, the group has been composed of Corey Taylor , Jim Root , Josh Rand, , Shawn Economaki and Roy Mayorga . Original drummer Joel Ekman left the group in 2006...

, Otep

Otep

Otep is an American heavy metal band formed in 2000 in Los Angeles, California by Otep Shamaya.-History:Otep originally was a four-piece nu metal band that began in Los Angeles, California in early 2000...

 and Mötley Crüe

Mötley Crüe

Mötley Crüe is an American heavy metal band formed in Los Angeles, California in 1981. The group was founded by bass guitarist Nikki Sixx and drummer Tommy Lee, who were later joined by lead guitarist Mick Mars and lead singer Vince Neil...

) and reflected on the lyrics of the song, "The original fire has died and gone, but the riot inside moves on." It featured the band playing with images of figures that are inspirational to the band, such as Johnny Cash

Johnny Cash

John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...

, Martin Luther King Jr., Che Guevara

Che Guevara

Ernesto "Che" Guevara , commonly known as el Che or simply Che, was an Argentine Marxist revolutionary, physician, author, intellectual, guerrilla leader, diplomat and military theorist...

, Chuck D

Chuck D

Carlton Douglas Ridenhour , better known by his stage name, Chuck D, is an American rapper, author, and producer. He helped create politically and socially conscious rap music in the mid-1980s as the leader of the rap group Public Enemy.- Early life :Ridenhour was born in Queens, New York...

, The Clash

The Clash

The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...

, Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan

Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...

, Wendy O. Williams

Wendy O. Williams

Wendy Orlean Williams , better known as Wendy O. Williams, was the lead singer for the American punk band the Plasmatics, as well as a solo artist...

, Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh

Peter Tosh, born Winston Hubert McIntosh , was a Jamaican reggae musician who was a core member of the band The Wailers , and who afterward had a successful solo career as well as being a promoter of Rastafari.Peter Tosh was born in Grange Hill, Jamaica, an illegitimate child to a mother too young...

, Jello Biafra

Jello Biafra

Jello Biafra is an American musician, spoken word artist and leading figure of the Green Party of the United States. Biafra first gained attention as the lead singer and songwriter for San Francisco punk rock band Dead Kennedys...

, Bill Hicks

Bill Hicks

William Melvin "Bill" Hicks was an American stand-up comedian, social critic, satirist, and musician. His material largely consisted of general discussions about society, religion, politics, philosophy, and personal issues. Hicks' material was often controversial and steeped in dark comedy...

, Lenny Bruce

Lenny Bruce

Leonard Alfred Schneider , better known by the stage name Lenny Bruce, was a Jewish-American comedian, social critic and satirist...

, Jim Morrison

Jim Morrison

James Douglas "Jim" Morrison was an American musician, singer, and poet, best known as the lead singer and lyricist of the rock band The Doors...

, the Million Man March

Million Man March

The Million Man March was a gathering of social activists, en masse, held on and around the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on October 16, 1995...

, Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol

Andrew Warhola , known as Andy Warhol, was an American painter, printmaker, and filmmaker who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art...

, Ozzy Osbourne

Ozzy Osbourne

John Michael "Ozzy" Osbourne is an English vocalist, whose musical career has spanned over 40 years. Osbourne rose to prominence as lead singer of the pioneering English heavy metal band Black Sabbath, whose radically different, intentionally dark, harder sound helped spawn the heavy metal...

, Janis Joplin

Janis Joplin

Janis Lyn Joplin was an American singer, songwriter, painter, dancer and music arranger. She rose to prominence in the late 1960s as the lead singer of Big Brother and the Holding Company and later as a solo artist with her backing groups, The Kozmic Blues Band and The Full Tilt Boogie Band...

, Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone

Joey Ramone was an American vocalist and songwriter, best known as the lead vocalist in the punk rock band the Ramones. Joey Ramone's image, voice and tenure as frontman of the Ramones made him a countercultural icon.-Early life:Joey Ramone was born Jeffry Hyman to parents Noel and Charlotte Hyman...

, Randy Rhoads

Randy Rhoads

Randall William "Randy" Rhoads was an American heavy metal guitarist who played with Ozzy Osbourne and Quiet Riot. A devoted student of classical guitar, Rhoads often combined his classical music influences with his own heavy metal style. While on tour with Ozzy Osbourne, he would seek out...

, Malcolm X

Malcolm X

Malcolm X , born Malcolm Little and also known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz , was an African American Muslim minister and human rights activist. To his admirers he was a courageous advocate for the rights of African Americans, a man who indicted white America in the harshest terms for its...

, Glenn Danzig

Glenn Danzig

Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig Glenn Danzig (born Glenn Allen Anzalone; June 23, 1955 is an American singer-songwriter, musician, author, entrepreneur, and a progenitor of the horror punk subgenre of music. He is a founder of bands the Misfits, Samhain, and Danzig...

, Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

 and Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Rolihlahla Mandela served as President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999, and was the first South African president to be elected in a fully representative democratic election. Before his presidency, Mandela was an anti-apartheid activist, and the leader of Umkhonto we Sizwe, the armed wing...

. "The video, in some ways, is about the thread of music and cultural figures with integrity that were important parts of our history - how all those streams flow together to where we are today," Morello explained.