This protest needs better music
Feb. 6th, 2004 10:54 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
likethebeerThis is the piece I was talking about in the previous post. Got published in Salon in Feb of last year, right alongside a newlywed whose husband was going to the war, and a woman who was worried about her being able to go to China if the war started so that she could pick up her adopted child. Um, so I felt a little silly when I saw that, but hey! I'm published! It has some edits, b/c there are some things here about a couple that need some privacy.
This protest needs better music!
I am part of Generation X. Twenty-three years old the first time I heard the term "slacker," I can also tell you where I was when I learned that Kurt Cobain was dead. As you may expect, I hate the baby boomers. My entire life I have heard the tales of the Beatles' first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan" show, Camelot, peace marches, free love, the second wave of feminism, bra burning, communes. I have heard and read the word "apathetic" in relation to people of my age group more times than Al Sharpton has run for president. I don't personally hate baby boomers, of course. I count several good friends and an ex-boyfriend among them. Yet, as a group, as a demographic, the baby boomers have continuously pissed me off. The relationship recalls two battling siblings: the older one is prettier, smarter and perhaps just a wee bit on the dramatic side, compulsively shoving the younger, quieter one out of the limelight. And yet, I have found myself in league with those of the baby-boom generation for the last eight weeks or so. All thanks to President George W. Bush.
After cowering under my proverbial bed since, oh, Sept. 11, and doing a mental holding-my hands-over-my-ears and yelling, "nyah-nyah-na-na-na" since sometime between the Axis of Evil and the first major breakdown of the Fourth Amendment, I finally got fed up enough to become righteously angry and begin the slow process of inserting myself into this new antiwar effort....
I have begun to go to marches and meetings, which are dizzying. I feel this unifying subterranean power when others voice what I have thought about this hypothetical Gulf War do-over. In the midst of this complaints seem irrelevant, but one thing has seriously started to bug the shit out of me: the music.
Seriously, guys, hasn't there been any good protest music -- or at least music with a political and appropriate cultural message -- made in the last, oh, 35 fucking years? "All we are saaaying ... is give peace a chance" was delightful when the guy singing it was John Lennon and he was willing to sit in a bed for a week to preach bed and hair peace, but hearing a bunch of tone-deaf people whining away at that song makes me want to scream until my voice gives out. Every time I see someone with a complete head of gray hair stand up at a protest or meeting with an acoustic guitar, I brace myself for the coming onslaught and so far, I haven't been wrong. I literally heard "Good Morning, Sunshine" and "Let the Sunshine In," from the soundtrack to "Hair," at the beginning of a march a few weeks ago. This is music that, when I last listened to it regularly, was on vinyl and I was still getting stoned three days a week in the dorms.
For the last several weeks I've been trying to think about songs that may have come out since, you know, "Bush Administration I: The Prequel" that might work right about now.
The first band that comes to mind is U2. It's a natural, of course, since the band was forged on the streets of a war-torn city. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" works beautifully as a protest song. "I won't heed the battle call/ and put my back up/ put my back up against the wall ... How long, how long must we sing this song ... " But eventually I'm afraid it might come down to people singing, "Sunday bloody Sunday" (however much I would like to hear "How long/ how long must we sing this song"). Bystanders would be on the sidewalk wondering why we're singing about 16 killed in 1973 in Ireland. Well, probably not, actually -- I'm sure many people have heard the song, but the chorus doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot out of context.
R.E.M. has offered some good songs -- "Finest Worksong" has the lines, "The time to rise has been engaged/ garble garble garble and rearrange ... What we want and what we need/ Has been confused, been confused." I know the chorus to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" works on its own, and as a whole the song has some great lines, when you can decipher them, such as "Government for hire in a combat site ... Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline." But on the whole the lyrics have always been a problem. Will people even understand the words "birthday party cheesecake jelly bean boom," and can they have any application during a march?
Nirvana should be a shoo-in, simply for its Gen X identity. But I imagine groups of people on one side of the street singing "A denial," from "Smells Like Teen Spirit," as the other side erroneously chants, "pop your eye out." And while it makes sense in a surreal way, in that in going to war we are in denial about the whole "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" thing, I don't think anyone would really get it.
The one song that might actually work is "Hero" from the "Spider-Man" movie soundtrack. I saw the movie soon after it opened but had no connection to the song until driving in my car one day several months later. I thought someone had to have written it expressly about 9/11 from the point of view of someone on the top floors of the World Trade Center. "Someone told me/ Love will all save us/ But ... look what love gave us/ A world full of killing / and blood spilling/ that world never came/ And they say/ That a hero could save us/ I'm not going to stand here and wait/ I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles/ Watch as we all fly away." The "love" being fanatical religious love, the "heroes" that the person waits for are the emergency workers, the "eagles" representing the U.S. "And they're watching us," from the chorus, refers to watching the events unfold on the TV screens and streets, "as we all fly away" refers to those who jumped out of the towers or the towers falling.
Of course I understand the irony that almost all of these suggestions are early Gen X. During the march I attended -- where the "Hair" soundtrack was blasting -- I saw people of all ages, including the friend's daughter who currently is a senior in college. To her, Nirvana, R.E.M. and U2 are old school. So what I'm saying is, can anyone contribute some good music besides my few lame examples? Until then, I think I'll take my walkman (that only plays tapes, not CDs or MP3s) to the marches and play "Eponymous" or "War" to keep from yelling at gray-haired strangers.
This protest needs better music!
I am part of Generation X. Twenty-three years old the first time I heard the term "slacker," I can also tell you where I was when I learned that Kurt Cobain was dead. As you may expect, I hate the baby boomers. My entire life I have heard the tales of the Beatles' first appearance on "The Ed Sullivan" show, Camelot, peace marches, free love, the second wave of feminism, bra burning, communes. I have heard and read the word "apathetic" in relation to people of my age group more times than Al Sharpton has run for president. I don't personally hate baby boomers, of course. I count several good friends and an ex-boyfriend among them. Yet, as a group, as a demographic, the baby boomers have continuously pissed me off. The relationship recalls two battling siblings: the older one is prettier, smarter and perhaps just a wee bit on the dramatic side, compulsively shoving the younger, quieter one out of the limelight. And yet, I have found myself in league with those of the baby-boom generation for the last eight weeks or so. All thanks to President George W. Bush.
After cowering under my proverbial bed since, oh, Sept. 11, and doing a mental holding-my hands-over-my-ears and yelling, "nyah-nyah-na-na-na" since sometime between the Axis of Evil and the first major breakdown of the Fourth Amendment, I finally got fed up enough to become righteously angry and begin the slow process of inserting myself into this new antiwar effort....
I have begun to go to marches and meetings, which are dizzying. I feel this unifying subterranean power when others voice what I have thought about this hypothetical Gulf War do-over. In the midst of this complaints seem irrelevant, but one thing has seriously started to bug the shit out of me: the music.
Seriously, guys, hasn't there been any good protest music -- or at least music with a political and appropriate cultural message -- made in the last, oh, 35 fucking years? "All we are saaaying ... is give peace a chance" was delightful when the guy singing it was John Lennon and he was willing to sit in a bed for a week to preach bed and hair peace, but hearing a bunch of tone-deaf people whining away at that song makes me want to scream until my voice gives out. Every time I see someone with a complete head of gray hair stand up at a protest or meeting with an acoustic guitar, I brace myself for the coming onslaught and so far, I haven't been wrong. I literally heard "Good Morning, Sunshine" and "Let the Sunshine In," from the soundtrack to "Hair," at the beginning of a march a few weeks ago. This is music that, when I last listened to it regularly, was on vinyl and I was still getting stoned three days a week in the dorms.
For the last several weeks I've been trying to think about songs that may have come out since, you know, "Bush Administration I: The Prequel" that might work right about now.
The first band that comes to mind is U2. It's a natural, of course, since the band was forged on the streets of a war-torn city. "Sunday Bloody Sunday" works beautifully as a protest song. "I won't heed the battle call/ and put my back up/ put my back up against the wall ... How long, how long must we sing this song ... " But eventually I'm afraid it might come down to people singing, "Sunday bloody Sunday" (however much I would like to hear "How long/ how long must we sing this song"). Bystanders would be on the sidewalk wondering why we're singing about 16 killed in 1973 in Ireland. Well, probably not, actually -- I'm sure many people have heard the song, but the chorus doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot out of context.
R.E.M. has offered some good songs -- "Finest Worksong" has the lines, "The time to rise has been engaged/ garble garble garble and rearrange ... What we want and what we need/ Has been confused, been confused." I know the chorus to "It's the End of the World as We Know It" works on its own, and as a whole the song has some great lines, when you can decipher them, such as "Government for hire in a combat site ... Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline." But on the whole the lyrics have always been a problem. Will people even understand the words "birthday party cheesecake jelly bean boom," and can they have any application during a march?
Nirvana should be a shoo-in, simply for its Gen X identity. But I imagine groups of people on one side of the street singing "A denial," from "Smells Like Teen Spirit," as the other side erroneously chants, "pop your eye out." And while it makes sense in a surreal way, in that in going to war we are in denial about the whole "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" thing, I don't think anyone would really get it.
The one song that might actually work is "Hero" from the "Spider-Man" movie soundtrack. I saw the movie soon after it opened but had no connection to the song until driving in my car one day several months later. I thought someone had to have written it expressly about 9/11 from the point of view of someone on the top floors of the World Trade Center. "Someone told me/ Love will all save us/ But ... look what love gave us/ A world full of killing / and blood spilling/ that world never came/ And they say/ That a hero could save us/ I'm not going to stand here and wait/ I'll hold onto the wings of the eagles/ Watch as we all fly away." The "love" being fanatical religious love, the "heroes" that the person waits for are the emergency workers, the "eagles" representing the U.S. "And they're watching us," from the chorus, refers to watching the events unfold on the TV screens and streets, "as we all fly away" refers to those who jumped out of the towers or the towers falling.
Of course I understand the irony that almost all of these suggestions are early Gen X. During the march I attended -- where the "Hair" soundtrack was blasting -- I saw people of all ages, including the friend's daughter who currently is a senior in college. To her, Nirvana, R.E.M. and U2 are old school. So what I'm saying is, can anyone contribute some good music besides my few lame examples? Until then, I think I'll take my walkman (that only plays tapes, not CDs or MP3s) to the marches and play "Eponymous" or "War" to keep from yelling at gray-haired strangers.
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Date: 2004-02-06 10:21 pm (UTC)Re:
Date: 2004-02-06 10:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-02-07 05:45 am (UTC)