Monthly Archives: June 2006

Conservative Music

In case you haven't heard, some people at the National Review Online got together and came up with a list of the Top 50 Conservative Rock Songs. And, many people out here on the net have had their way with this list already. But, what the hell, it looks like a fun way to kill a half-hour and it's not like anyone is forced to read what I write. I'll just pick a few:

    1. "Won't Get Fooled Again," by The Who.
    The conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries; this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naïve idealism once and for all. "There's nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss." The instantly recognizable synthesizer intro, Pete Townshend's ringing guitar, Keith Moon's pounding drums, and Roger Daltrey's wailing vocals make this one of the most explosive rock anthems ever recorded "” the best number by a big band, and a classic for conservatives.

I think we can let Pete Townsend speak for the song, but I just want to point out that it's pretty crazy to cast the "conservative movement" as being somehow free of idealism.

    2. "Taxman," by The Beatles

While it seems obvious that conservatives would love an anti-tax song on principle, we shouldn't forget that thanks to the tax rates in Britain at the time, the Beatles were only keeping 6% of what they earned. I think it's pretty fair to assume that anybody would be pissed at a 94% tax rate, no matter what their political orientation. If George Harrison had written Taxman complaining about a 25% rate, you'd have a stronger case that it's about taxes on principle and not simply anti-excessive-tax.

    3. "Sympathy for the Devil," by The Rolling Stones
    Don't be misled by the title; this song is The Screwtape Letters of rock. The devil is a tempter who leans hard on moral relativism "” he will try to make you think that "every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints." What's more, he is the sinister inspiration for the cruelties of Bolshevism: "I stuck around St. Petersburg / When I saw it was a time for a change / Killed the czar and his ministers / Anastasia screamed in vain."

Yes, the devil is a jerk. And yes there are a couple of conservative betes noires in the lyrics for conservatives to get excited about. But I wonder what they think about other lines, like "I shouted out / Who killed the Kennedys? / When after all / It was you and me" and "I watched with glee / While your kings and queens / Fought for ten decades / For the gods they made" ?

    4. "Sweet Home Alabama," by Lynyrd Skynyrd

You're welcome to it.

    5. "Wouldn't It Be Nice," by The Beach Boys.
    Pro-abstinence and pro-marriage: "Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true / Baby then there wouldn't be a single thing we couldn't do / We could be married / And then we'd be happy."

When I hear that song, I always assume that, after expressing their pro-abstinence, pro-marriage position, they shrug and go out behind the barn and screw anyway. These are teenagers, right ?

    6. "Gloria," by U2.
    Just because a rock song is about faith doesn't mean that it's conservative. But what about a rock song that's about faith and whose chorus is in Latin? That's beautifully reactionary: "Gloria / In te domine / Gloria / Exultate."

Yes, Gloria is a song any Christian (conservative or not) could love, as are many U2 songs. But I don't buy for a second that the Latin in this one makes a bit of difference in it's political stance.

    7. "Revolution," by The Beatles.
    "You say you want a revolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world . . . Don't you know you can count me out?" What's more, Communism isn't even cool: "If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain't going to make it with anyone anyhow." (Someone tell the Che Guevara crowd.)

I'll buy that one, too - assuming we're allowed to take songs out of context, because this is John Lennon we're talking about.

    9. "Don't Tread on Me," by Metallica

Not familiar with it. I stopped paying attention to Metallica as soon as they got slick enough to show up on mainstream radio.

    11. "The Trees," by Rush

Rush's early lyrics are often heavily libertarian. But let's be careful about putting meaning into things that the author didn't intend.

    13. "My City Was Gone," by The Pretenders.
    Virtually every conservative knows the bass line, which supplies the theme music for Limbaugh's radio show. But the lyrics also display a Jane Jacobs sensibility against central planning and a conservative's dissatisfaction with rapid change: "I went back to Ohio / But my pretty countryside / Had been paved down the middle / By a government that had no pride."

That song's not about "central planning"; it's about over-development and urban sprawl: two things conservatives aren't typically opposed to, because opposing those would be "opposing business interests" or "supporting restrictions on what people can do with their own damn land".

    15. "I Fought the Law," by The Crickets.
    The original law-and-order classic, made famous in 1965 by The Bobby Fuller Four and covered by just about everyone since then.

So let me get this straight: conservatives are rooting for the law in that song ? I always thought we were supposed to sympathize with the misguided narrator in that one. We'll find out shortly what happens when the law is one they don't agree with...

    18. "Cult of Personality," by Living Colour.
    A hard-rocking critique of state power, whacking Mussolini, Stalin, and even JFK: "I exploit you, still you love me / I tell you one and one makes three / I'm the cult of personality."

First of all, it's not about state power, it's about charismatic leaders and the dangers of worshipping them. And secondly, is there any doubt that there is a thriving conservative Cult of Personality around Bush ?

    22. "Red Barchetta," by Rush.
    In a time of "the Motor Law," presumably legislated by green extremists, the singer describes family reunion and the thrill of driving a fast car "” an act that is his "weekly crime."

What about that law-and-order stuff that put "I Fought The Law" on this list ? Not so important when it comes to laws you don't agree with, I guess (also see the "nanny state" in #38, "I Can't Drive 55"). And note that since Neil Peart doesn't tell us the origins of the "motor law" in his story, any assumptions about its purpose and validity are entirely in the mind of the listener. The editors here just assume it's an environmental thing, but what if the "motor law" was enacted to help catch terrorists ? Would our hero be aiding the enemy by racing his Barchetta through rural Canada ? Would conservatives like the song in that case ?

    25. "The Battle of Evermore," by Led Zeppelin.
    The lyrics are straight out of Robert Plant's Middle Earth period "” there are lines about "ring wraiths" and "magic runes" "” but for a song released in 1971, it's hard to miss the Cold War metaphor: "The tyrant's face is red."

There's an editor who's sure all that's "red" is commie, but he's stretching the boundaries of logic. Seriously, go look up the lyrics; this isn't about the Cold War. If anything, it's an echo of the Irish National Anthem or a tribute to The Lord Of The Rings.

    34. "Godzilla," by Blue Oyster Cult.
    A 1977 classic about a big green monster "” and more: "History shows again and again / How nature points up the folly of men."

Godzilla was either created by atomic bombs, or awakened by atomic bombs (depending on the movie). Then he repeatedly destroyed Japanese cities. It takes a certain kind of blindness not to see this as a metaphor for the dangers of atomic weapons. See also Hiroshima, Nagasaki.

    46. "Wind of Change," by The Scorpions.
    A German hard-rock group's optimistic power ballad about the end of the Cold War and national reunification: "The world is closing in / Did you ever think / That we could be so close, like brothers / The future's in the air / I can feel it everywhere / Blowing with the wind of change."

Can people other than conservatives feel good about the fall of the Berlin Wall ?

Enough of that. You get the idea. That's not to say the whole list is lame - there are definitely songs on there that are clearly "conservative" - just that the editors tried a bit too hard, on many songs, to find a conservative way of looking at them.

Things I've been listening to

It's been a long time since I've done this kind of post... many new things, so I'll be brief.

  • Neko Case - Fox Confessor Brings The Flood. This is good stuff. It has a slight bit of anachronistic old-time country vibe, but not enough to say that it is country. Nice voice.
  • Brandi Carlisle - Brandi Carlisle. Kinda folky, singer-songwritery. I like it, even though I get the feeling this is probably a huge hit with the teenage girl demographic. She has a good voice and the melodies are often very nice - i keep hearing echoes of early 70's power pop, not sure why.
  • Modern Jazz Quartet - Django. A delicious serving of mid 50's jazz - big on melody, big on tone, big on improv - with vibraphone!
  • King Crimson - Discipline. I've had the LP since the mid 80's, but I never got around to getting the CD. Since most of the songs are on whatever King Crimson "Best Of" CD I have, it never seemed important. But, my completist urge finally got the best of me and I decide to get the CD (and the CD has an alternate take of Matte Kudasai, bonus). Side note: I put together a DVD slide show of our Japan pictures and used Matte Kudasai (means "Please Wait" in Japanese) as part of the soundtrack. Every time we've shown the slideshow, someone has asked me "what is this song? who is this?" - they love it.
  • Robyn Hitchcock - A Star For Bram. This is just another of his outtakes and remixes collections. There are some interesting things, and a lot of so-so things. But, I'm a Hitchcock addict, so I gotsta have it.
  • Calexico - Feast Of Wire / Garden Ruin . This is a great band. They are all over the place stylistically: straightforward rock, jazz, Mexican, country, stuff that sounds like a spaghetti western soundtrack, etc., but it all comes out sounding like Calexico.
  • Love and Rockets - Love and Rockets. These guys were pretty big in my college dorm room; my roommate was a big fan. It's a pretty dark record, even for these guys; and there are some good songs, mixed in with a lot of nonsense. But it's all quite dated, now - that semi-goth industrial-ish Euro-pop thing didn't last much past the late 80s. In my defense, I was pretty drunk when I clicked "Buy This".
  • Gillian Welch - Black Star / Relevator Collection. iTunes has two live Gillian EP's, both of which I think are made from songs off the Relevator Collection DVD. I bought them both and interleaved the songs onto a single CD for my car. All good stuff - David Rawlings even gets to sing one.
  • Marah - If You Didn't Laugh... . Stones-ish roots rock. Pretty good.
  • Jurassic 5 - Power In Numbers. I don't like rap in general, but once in a while I find something that I can kindof get into. It helps that this isn't strictly thumping bass and cock-grabbing.