Stop ruining good music for me, you bastards!

[catsidhe]

Rockin' the Right - The 50 greatest conservative rock songs. By John J. Miller (via erudito)

Ahunh. Right. I see. Let's have a look at those songs, and the reasons for why they are so Right Wing, or Conservative, as obviously in the author's mind there is no difference.

1. “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who. -- Revolutionaries are stupid, until and unless they convert to the Right.
   
2. “Taxman,” by The Beatles. -- Tax is Evil.
   
3. “Sympathy for the Devil,” by The Rolling Stones. -- Moral Relativism is Evil
   
4. “Sweet Home Alabama,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. -- Red States are Good.
   
5. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” by The Beach Boys. -- Marriage is Good.
   
6. “Gloria,” by U2. -- The chorus is in Latin!!, isn't that cool!!1!
   
7. “Revolution,” by The Beatles. -- Revolutionaries are stupid (see 1.)
   
8. “Bodies,” by The Sex Pistols. -- Abortion is Evil
   
9. “Don’t Tread on Me,” by Metallica. -- War is Peace Good.
   
10. “20th Century Man,” by The Kinks. -- Umm... Old things are Good?
    
11. “The Trees,” by Rush. -- Equality is Evil
    
12. “Neighborhood Bully,” by Bob Dylan. -- Israel Good, Iraq Evil
    
13. “My City Was Gone,” by The Pretenders. -- Rush Limbaugh Good Central Planning Bad
    
14. “Right Here, Right Now,” by Jesus Jones. -- Aah, it's about the Cold War, isn't it?
    
15. “I Fought the Law,” by The Crickets. -- Law Good
    
16. “Get Over It,” by The Eagles. -- Complaining Bad
    
17. “Stay Together for the Kids,” by Blink 182. -- Marriage Good. Divorce Evil
    
18. “Cult of Personality,” by Living Colour. -- State Power Evil (he explicitely conflates JFK with Stalin... right.)
    
19. “Kicks,” by Paul Revere and the Raiders. -- Drugs Evil
    
20. “Rock the Casbah,” by The Clash. -- Soldiers like it, Liberal Traitor Media hate it, must be Good
    
21. “Heroes,” by David Bowie. -- Remember the Alamo Cold War!
    
22. “Red Barchetta,” by Rush. -- Greenies Evil
    
23. “Brick,” by Ben Folds Five. -- Abortion Evil
    
24. “Der Kommissar,” by After the Fire. -- Communists Evil
    
25. “The Battle of Evermore,” by Led Zeppelin. -- Apparantly, if you squint hard and unfocus your eyes, there might be a reference to the Cold War in there, somewhere. In between references to Ringwraiths and Runes.
    
26. “Capitalism,” by Oingo Boingo. -- Capitalism Good, Complaint Evil
    
27. “Obvious Song,” by Joe Jackson. -- Property Development Good, Liberals Evil
    
28. “Janie’s Got a Gun,” by Aerosmith. -- Gun Control Evil
    
29. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Iron Maiden. -- They quote Samuel Coleridge Taylor!! How cool is that!!1!
    
30. “You Can’t Be Too Strong,” by Graham Parker. -- Abortion Evil, even if that's not what the song's about.
    
31. “Small Town,” by John Mellencamp. -- Personal Roots Good
    
32. “Keep Your Hands to Yourself,” by The Georgia Satellites. -- Marriage Good
    
33. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” by The Rolling Stones. -- Wanting to change things is Stupid
    
34. “Godzilla,” by Blue öyster Cult. -- Ummm, Nature is Good? People are Stupid? WTF?
    
35. “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” by Creedence Clearwater Revival. -- Communists and Liberals (get it?) are Evil
    
36. “Government Cheese,” by The Rainmakers. -- Helping Poor People is Stupid, or, Welfare is Evil
    
37. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” by The Band. -- Red States Good.
    
38. “I Can’t Drive 55,” by Sammy Hagar. -- 'Nanny State' Bad. (note the implicit contradiction with 15.)
    
39. “Property Line,” by The Marshall Tucker Band. -- Property Good.
    
40. “Wake Up Little Susie,” by The Everly Brothers. -- Apparantly, 1957 Good
    
41. “The Icicle Melts,” by The Cranberries. -- Abortion Evil
    
42. “Everybody’s a Victim,” by The Proclaimers. -- Complaint Evil
    
43. “Wonderful,” by Everclear. -- Divorce Evil
    
44. “Two Sisters,” by The Kinks. -- Marriage Good
    
45. “Taxman, Mr. Thief,” by Cheap Trick. -- Tax is Evil
    
46. “Wind of Change,” by The Scorpions. -- Remember the Cold War!
    
47. “One,” by Creed. -- Affirmative Action Evil
    
48. “Why Don’t You Get a Job,” by The Offspring. -- Welfare Evil
    
49. “Abortion,” by Kid Rock. -- Abortion Evil
    
50. “Stand By Your Man,” by Tammy Wynette. -- Marriage Good, Divorce Evil, Hilary Clinton Funny.

Well. Wasn't that informative. We seem to have a pattern here.

• The Cold War must be remembered. Mainly, I suspect, because We (that is, Conservative USians) Won!
  
• Abortion is Evil and Wrong. Always and forever. No matter what the circumstances. (Did somebody say incest? or Rape? Sorry, girls, not good enough.)
  
• Welfare is Wrong. Poor people deserve to be poor.
  
• Communists are Evil. Corollary: Liberals are Communists.
  
• Environmentalists are Liberals. Therefore anyone concerned about the environment is also, by definition, a Communist.
  
• Marriage is eternally Good, and Divorce by simple extension eternally Bad. Even if he beats you. (Oh, and except if you love someone who shares genital configurations with you.)
  
• Taxes are Evil. Government is Evil... except,
  
• Obeying Laws is Good. Except when the Laws are Bad. But there can be no exceptions from abiding by Laws. Except when... umm... when Democrats and Liberals and other Communists make those Laws. Except when we agree with them... umm, OK, how's this: We can break the laws we don't like with impugnity, but if you break the laws we do like, we'll fucking kill you. How's that sound?
  
• Everyone should have a gun, so they can kill people who wrong them. But if you murder, then you've broken the Law, see above.
  
• Rebellion is pointless, except when it's Stupid, except when it's Evil, except when it's rebellion against Democrats, Liberals, and other Communists. The only good Revolutionaries are the ones who realised the error of their ways and started voting Republican.

Basically, there seems to be a huge mélange here of Social Liberals (Do what you like, the Government shouldn't interfere), Social Conservatives (Society should change back to what it was like in my childhood, and the Government should force it to do so), Economic Liberals (The government should not interfere with money in any way), and Economic Neo-liberals (The Government should intervene in money flow to help rich people get more because they deserve it, and poor people get less, because they'd only waste it on food crack cocaine).

The only common factor is negative: they are united by a distrust, and/or hatred of (US-style) Liberals, (US-style) Democrats, Blue States, Conservationists, intellectualism, social conscience, and The Left in general, even if there is no clear idea of what 'The Left' is, besides being all the things good Christian red-blooded Americans should hate.

I'm so glad that's cleared up.

Comments

[tau-iota-mu-c.livejournal.com]

> “Don’t Tread on Me,” by Metallica. -- War is Peace Good.

Aww man, now I have an urge to listen to One (black album?).

But I don't appear to have the CD at ork. And there's nothing worth listening to on the 'tallica albums I *do* have at ork. I guess I better rectify that.

[catcom.livejournal.com]

"One" is on ...And Justice For All.

All hail my metal knowledge!

[usuakari.livejournal.com]

I read the article. It was... special. The author seems to have stolen a strategy time-honoured by people who want to use biblical justification for X or Y (which seems to be a common theme in conservative and/or Republican circles at the moment), which is to quote one or two lines out of context and claim it means whatever you say it does. I think my favourite in the list was Aerosmith's 'Janie's Got a Gun'.

The full lyrics and further info can be found here. So, a song about sexual predation and a kid on the run after a terminal response to a failure of family "values" is somehow innately pro=conservative?!? Especially because the author somehow concludes it opposes gun-control?!? I don't know what he was on, but I'm intrigued by it's power to separate clear black and white from deep grey, and in a way that serves the author's political agenda too.

Personally I think he should try some of the Village People's greatest hits. 'In the Navy' is clear in its support of a world-spanning military. 'The Milkshake' is all about healthy nutrition for kids, and makes me reminisce about the 1950's with Mom, apple pie, a glass of milk, and The American Way. 'YMCA' is clearly in favour a the Young Men's Christian Association, and that's got to be good! And 'You Can't Stop the Music' must be in support of American cultural values and export, and is also probably linked to some conservative's campaign for re-election somewhere...

What a fucking joke.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_zombiemonkey/]

I was going to say something along the lines of taking content out of context, but usuakari did it (once more) far more eloquently than I ever could.

While we're breaking down songs actual meanings however;

'Revolution' - a song I had to listen to about 600 times for a costume parade - is aggressively neutral, rejecting quite openly the politics of both left AND right. Rather like 'Stuck in the middle with you'. Pretty standard Lennon/McCartney politics - 'people are cool, ideology is crap'.

'Bodies' was written by John Lydon about a girl who used to really annoy him and the band at Pistols gigs. G WAS a girl from Birmingham, and was a bit of a skag from all accounts. He's said a number of times that he's not pro- or anti- abortion, he just wanted to say something horrible about someone he didn't like in one song. Just like 'Liar' and 'Problems' are basically about dear old uncle Malcolm.

'Right Here, Right Now' is about something that was highly fashionable in the 90's - hope. Thank God all that hippy silliness has been beaten out of us by the Howard/Bush/Blair mafia in the 21st Century.

The Clash. What? Does this guy even know who The Clash ARE? That just stunned me.

Would the Kinks get kicked off the list, if it was realised that 'Lola' is about shagging a cross-dresser? Or that the highly stylish 'Follower of Fashion' wears "frilly nylon panties"? Or that Ray Davies preferred to describe himself as sexually neutral. The whole 'Arthur, or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire' album is a huge criticism of the timid, conservative, stifling British society. The Kinks are hardly poster children for conservatism.

While I quite like 'Smash' (I think it's called, the one with the cover of 'Kill Boy Power Head' on it), later Offspring albums are reasonably bland. 'Why don't you get a job' is not anti-welfare. It's basically about aggravating, spongeing girl/boyfriends, and how if they want everything so bad, they should fuck off your back and work for it themselves. It's more a cry of exasperation than an ideology of 100% employment and a repudiation of the welfare system.

If this is the best conservatives can dish up in terms of pop-cultural appropriation, then I don't think we've got much to worry about.