Prayer of the Refugee

Infobox Single
Name = Prayer of the Refugee


Artist = Rise Against
from Album = The Sufferer & the Witness
Released = 2006
Format = CD
Recorded = Fort Collins, Colorado, USA
Genre = Punk rock
Length = 3:21
Label = Geffen
Writer = Rise Against, Tim McIlrath
Producer = Jason Livermore, Bill Stevenson, Margaret Joy
[ Certification = ]
Chart position =
* #7 (US Modern Rock)
Last single = "Ready to Fall"
(2006)
This single = "Prayer of the Refugee"
(2006)
Next single = "The Good Left Undone"
(2007)

"Prayer of the Refugee" is the second single from Rise Against's album "The Sufferer & the Witness", and was released worldwide in 2006. The song was originally titled "Diaspora", with advance copies of the album using that title instead of "Prayer of the Refugee".

The song is featured as a re-recorded bonus track in the video game "".

The song is also featured in "Slednecks 9" DVD. It's use in "The Compound" segment of the movie.

Producer Margaret Joy realized that the song would be much better with a slowed down chorus vocal. The new version reached the top 10.

Music video

Directed by Tony Petrossian, the video deviates slightly from the song's original message by focusing instead on American consumerism and its impact on the outside world. The video moves from scenes of the band playing and walking around in a warehouse to scenes of young children and foreign people making and packaging goods such as shoes, bananas, jeans and remote controlled cars. It ends with scenes of the foreign people placing 'Made In USA' and American flag labels on packaged boxes, and the band members (except for the drummer) toppling various shelves containing such goods, the broken and fallen goods spelling out "Fair trade", and the video ending in an abrupt change to a black screen.

The video was shot in "All American Center" store.

Chart overview

The song reached #7 on the Billboard Modern Rock charts. This is their first top 10 Rock single.