Story Behind “The Great Dictator”
Some Words Never Get Old
I’ve always loved Chaplin’s final speech from The Great Dictator. You know the one - where the Jewish barber gets mistaken for the dictator and ends up addressing the nation. “I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor.”
The thing is, Chaplin wrote those words in 1940, right as World War II was exploding across Europe. He spent months drafting it, rewriting it, getting it perfect. And eighty years later? Every single word still hits.
That’s what got me in 2020. We’re living through rising authoritarianism, social division, the same patterns repeating. Chaplin’s warning about “machine men with machine minds and machine hearts” - that landed differently in our age of algorithms. His call for humanity over machinery? Still urgent. Maybe more urgent.
So I did what felt necessary: gave it a soundtrack.
Making It Immortal
Here’s what I wanted - not just another sample, not a fragment buried in a beat. The full speech. Five minutes where Chaplin’s words could breathe and land the way they’re supposed to.
Over 40 artists have sampled this speech. Coldplay and U2 play it at concerts. Paolo Nutini built “Iron Sky” around it. Logic used it. Mos Def used it. Everyone recognizes these words demand to be heard again and again.
But I wanted something different. Background music that supports the message without competing with it. Electronic textures that create space for Chaplin’s voice to carry its full weight. A production that says: these words matter enough to give them your full attention for five minutes.
That’s what this track became - my attempt to make Chaplin’s wake-up call immortal by giving it contemporary urgency.
“The Great Dictator” Recording and Production
Electronic Space for Timeless Words
My approach was simple: let the speech lead, let the production serve.
I built ambient electronic landscapes that rise and fall with Chaplin’s delivery. When he’s describing how “greed has poisoned men’s souls,” the sound reflects that darkness. When he pivots to hope - “you, the people, have the power” - the production opens up.
The 5:04 runtime isn’t arbitrary. That’s how long you need to hear the full arc. From despair through defiance to hope. No shortcuts, no TikTok edits. Some messages require time.
Available Where It Matters
I put it on Bandcamp and SoundCloud. No Spotify algorithm deciding who hears it. No playlist gatekeepers. Direct connection - you find it because you’re looking for it, not because some AI thinks you might like it based on your listening habits.
That felt right for a track about human values versus machine thinking.
Notes About “The Great Dictator” by Murat Esmer
Release Date: 2020
Duration: 5:04
Genre: Electronic / Ambient / Spoken Word
Source Material: Charlie Chaplin’s final speech from The Great Dictator (1940)
Original Film Release: October 15, 1940
Producer: Murat Esmer
Available On: Bandcamp, SoundCloud
Production Year: 2020
Cultural Legacy: Original speech sampled in 50+ songs worldwide
The Great Dictator Speech Full Text
I’m sorry, but I don’t want to be an emperor. That’s not my business. I don’t want to rule or conquer anyone. I should like to help everyone - if possible - Jew, Gentile - black man - white. We all want to help one another. Human beings are like that. We want to live by each other’s happiness - not by each other’s misery. We don’t want to hate and despise one another. In this world there is room for everyone. And the good earth is rich and can provide for everyone. The way of life can be free and beautiful, but we have lost the way.
Greed has poisoned men’s souls, has barricaded the world with hate, has goose-stepped us into misery and bloodshed. We have developed speed, but we have shut ourselves in. Machinery that gives abundance has left us in want. Our knowledge has made us cynical. Our cleverness, hard and unkind. We think too much and feel too little. More than machinery we need humanity. More than cleverness we need kindness and gentleness. Without these qualities, life will be violent and all will be lost….
The aeroplane and the radio have brought us closer together. The very nature of these inventions cries out for the goodness in men - cries out for universal brotherhood - for the unity of us all. Even now my voice is reaching millions throughout the world - millions of despairing men, women, and little children - victims of a system that makes men torture and imprison innocent people.
To those who can hear me, I say - do not despair. The misery that is now upon us is but the passing of greed - the bitterness of men who fear the way of human progress. The hate of men will pass, and dictators die, and the power they took from the people will return to the people. And so long as men die, liberty will never perish. …..
Soldiers! don’t give yourselves to brutes - men who despise you - enslave you - who regiment your lives - tell you what to do - what to think and what to feel! Who drill you - diet you - treat you like cattle, use you as cannon fodder. Don’t give yourselves to these unnatural men - machine men with machine minds and machine hearts! You are not machines! You are not cattle! You are men! You have the love of humanity in your hearts! You don’t hate! Only the unloved hate - the unloved and the unnatural! Soldiers! Don’t fight for slavery! Fight for liberty!
In the 17th Chapter of St Luke it is written: “the Kingdom of God is within man” - not one man nor a group of men, but in all men! In you! You, the people have the power - the power to create machines. The power to create happiness! You, the people, have the power to make this life free and beautiful, to make this life a wonderful adventure.
Then - in the name of democracy - let us use that power - let us all unite. Let us fight for a new world - a decent world that will give men a chance to work - that will give youth a future and old age a security. By the promise of these things, brutes have risen to power. But they lie! They do not fulfil that promise. They never will!
Dictators free themselves but they enslave the people! Now let us fight to fulfil that promise! Let us fight to free the world - to do away with national barriers - to do away with greed, with hate and intolerance. Let us fight for a world of reason, a world where science and progress will lead to all men’s happiness. Soldiers! in the name of democracy, let us all unite!
Final speech from The Great Dictator
