someone is being fooled [politics,rock music]

This is a topic about a week old, blogosphere-wise. But it will certainly linger for years. This because an unstoppable force is going up against an immovable object, and it's involved.

In one corner -in the red trunks - (ladies and gents) is
- the Washington, DC mindset
- Peak Oil blah blah blah
- racism, arrogance, you name it

in the other corner -in the blue trunks- is
- comedians
- ordinary homeowners with guns
- Rock 'n Roll

The first is unstoppable, and it's name is 'fascism'. But the second is immovable, it's name is 'the majority of the people in the USA'.

In my opinion, the NRO wears red trunks (and loves the way they look). They certainly have sensed the power of Rock 'n Roll. So they try to defeat it cleverly, by claiming ownership.

Speculating wildly, I suggest the NRO team has been reeling some lately, and the author of the linked article watched a concert off of a DVD to cheer himself up. Not just any concert, but the one after 9-11 with the firefighters in the audience (yes, it would be depraved to cheer yourself up by remembering a tragedy but that is my opinion of NRO).

talking Rock 'n Roll
Flash back to 10/20/2001, to MSG. "The Concert for NYC" was about giving to help those suddenly in need. The Who were one of the featured bands, and the group was in top form (almost universally considered one of the alltime greats, maybe the band hadn't been that good in years).

Their 4-song set culminated in Won't Get Fooled Again'. I'm suggesting the NRO man recently noticed this. Whatever, the point is that the closing song that night (a common Who closer) is the song the NRO guy chose as his greatest 'Conservative Rock Song of all time'.

I wondered if the performance itself proved that the group meant 'we won't get fooled by liberal softiness again'. That is the NRO opinion. So I pulled out my copy and watched it.

The video of that concert shows many firefighters in the audience. During their performance shown behind them was a slide show including images of the WTC and the Statue of Liberty.

Just before the final song Townshend cups his hands and says 'We are honored to be here'. When Daltry starts singing the first lines ("We'll be fighting in the streets...)" he does not look happy (but maybe it's just jet lag). When he gets to the first ideology reference he sings those lines easily
"And the party on the left Is now the party on the right"
significantly Daltry does not sing the famous final lines
"Meet the new boss - Same as the old boss"
It seems clear the band made the decision out of tact, not sing that line. Most time I am sure they do. From this performance one can get the impression that its a conservative song.

If I am right that this was the kernel performance, then leave it to the NRO to turn tact into class war.

I imagine this NRO guy seeing this concert and not noticing the missing lines. I imagine him thinking 'wow -Rock and roll really does belong to us and not to those nasty smelly liberals'.

Townshend power chords can bend many a mind.

So he submits the idea to his editor... and is told to make it a long list. Which he fills up, often highly superficially. But these guys don't care because -they think- they've got We Wont Get Fooled Again.

Continuing to speculate wildly, I imagine someone mentioned to this guy that the last two lines might mean it isn't a conservative song after all, especially since Pete Townshend says it isn't. But Miller has done all that work, so he throws in some rhetoric, and the piece is published.

*
The long battle between fascists and the American people can be described by more than one metaphor. Imagine an erupting volcano on a glacier. It's sort of like that. Think of the entrails of the hot magma, and the hissing sound you would hear as it reaches the long-dormant water. That is what the linked article is - it's hissing.

This post is more political than usual, but popular music is part of the culture so I figure it belonged. Having an indirect effect and all.

I just get offended by self-serving analysis.

for more political viewpoint try

• Roy Edroso saying why he wont bother (comment thread has some good posts)


• RudePundit not being nice

rewritten 2007-02-21

a movie composer's breakthrough score mentioned

One of the best movie scores I have heard recently is from Sur mes lèvres (2001). The English title is Read My Lips.

It's classical music. The closing credits have a nice long chunk.

We hear bells as if from far away. Then a string section rises sadly into a melodic interplay with a horn section. After that dialog completes, it's back to the distant bells.

Not too many Americans have seen this interesting thriller because it's French. It does seem likely it will soon be remade by Hollywood (because of the way lip-reading is tied into the plot). However the soundrack might not be the same.

The composer's name is Alexandre Desplat, he'd been sort of France's Danny Elfman. When Sur mes lèvres came out he had already done scores for 77 movies&TV shows.

Other people I guess were impressed because it was just after that Desplat started getting hired by Hollywood. In the last few years his scores have included Girl with a Pearl Earring, The Upside of Anger, Syriana and Firewall (now in a theater near you).

[modified]

photo shows why younger generations like rap

In a few years, this kid will not be listening to lyrical, romantic music. It will be something like Eminem.

Since Generation X, kids in the West are getting exposed to sexual material too early. As teens they don't feel sex as a mystery, and thus they are not as soothed by melodies & lyrics as their parents had been.



Already, the kid's shirt shows signs of spiritual unease. It's red with a bug-eyed animal and the word SMASH on it (it might even be the kids favorite, the one he chose for the big day on center court).

Add the way text is inflicted on them in school and you get a rapping generation.

My point is that the rapping takes the role of psychiatry, teenagers talking about childhood events they weren't ready for, so much so that they mask the universal, non-relative voice that good music holds.

I say this extra part because I believe the various elements of music are non-relative, that they link up aspects of nature.

related:

• recent Dennis the Menace cartoon (for families!)


• rap video in which a young man wants to float.
  Sorry, dude, but your childhood is gone.


• Piercing is related to this issue. examples: 1  2 I more-or-less agree with a quote from 'Teenagers detachment from Self':
  'If a teenager can feel a steel bolt through her tongue move whenever she speaks, at least she knows she inhabits her own body, even if she doubts her own soul.'

modified: 2007-09-21

McLean was singing about the Rapture

Don McLean first performed American Pie in 1971. This link includes the lyrics, which probably have been more discussed than any other song in pop history.¹

Referring to the repeated line 'the day the music died', the sites say the song is about the death of rock 'n roll.². What's interesting is that these websites give scant attention to three lines that are sung over and over again:

“And them good old boys were drinkin' whiskey and rye,
Singing, 'This'll be the day that I die.
This'll be the day that I die.'”

In these lines, it's the good old boys that are preparing for death.

I believe McLean had sensed that the new music (rock 'n roll) added to some people's feeling that the end of the world was coming. I believe he was singing about the American Rapture movement (whether he knew it or not).

This would help explain the song's title. The 'pie' could be an allusion to heaven, and derived from the phrase 'pie in the sky'.

Heaven, of course, is where people hoping for 'end times' imagine they will go. This as part of their hope that everyone in the world dies simultaneously, causing everything to end.

The song does highlight one thing that will die -rock music- like a movie might focus only one character as they approach the end of the world. Apparently what makes it resonant for McLean is this character (rock 'n roll) isn't just a spectator to the 'end of times', it's an actor as well.

But once the 'end times' aspect to it is seen, it could even be argued McLean's lyrics describe an apocalypse that is suddenly, horribly revealed not to be a Rapture! that the song itself is a commentary on such wishes - that is makes the argument people should not wish for the end of the world.

For instance, here Mclean jokes the  Catholic Trinity bails out on the (Midwest) rapture at the last minute:

"The Father, Son and the Holy Ghost.
 They caught the last train for the coast
 The day the music died"

and that is why Satan was chuckling

"'I saw Satan laughing with delight The day the music died"

Of course, the meanings are inexact.

My point is that in 1971 McLean might have been observing a cultural trend that is now stronger.

What is 'the Rapture?

A belief with its roots in US Protestant fundamentalism. Bill Moyers has just written about it. See also this George Monbiot piece from last year. Here is a current site by believers.

1. Whiter Shade of Pale 2nd?
2. a New Age piece written this year is an exception