By Andrea Harris:
Rock music is not and can never be conservative. Don’t even try to argue with me, I’ll just whup you upside the head. Oh please, this is just pathetic — a pitiful illustration of no-longer-young people realizing that they are no longer cool, and desperately attempting to redefine the term “cool†to suit their current way of life. Look: just go ahead and listen to your old Motley Crüe tapes, and feel free to hang your framed Mudhoney poster on the wall of your living room. No one will take away your Republican Party card away just because you were young once, and you don’t have to pretend to be your grandfather to be considered a conservative.
The full post is well worth reading. Especially for people who think that “conservative” means “anything I like, because I’m a conservative so it must be conservative, too.”
Thank you, Andrea. Rock music. Conservative. Riiiiight.
What about Dylan’s “Neighborhood Bully”? One the sentences of the Robert Christgau review begins “Worse than his equation of Jews with Zionists with the Likud . . .” That even qualifies as Neo-con!
Rock music should be neither conservative or liberal.
After reading that article (and it rings true), I wonder if it is possible for older people to be ‘Hip’ either.
Oh wait, there’s Mick Jagger, Neil Young, and that Tyler guy from Aerosmith… my bad. ;)
You will find exceptions to every rule, but what is rock music? It is, essentially, the sounds of the rebellion of youth.
Look at the list of songs. These guys are in utter denial. The Sex Pistols? “The Battle of Evermore”? A freaking song out of Zeppelin’s Lord of the Rings phase is conservative? “Janie’s Got a Gun”? That’s a song about incest. How is that conservative? Well, John J. Miller says it’s all about Janie being able to get a gun and protect herself against a sexual predator.
She killed her father, John. Try reading the lyrics.
“I Can’t Drive 55” is described as “a rocker’s objection to the nanny state.” No, it’s a rocker’s objection to not being able to drive fast.
And when — when — in what alternate universe can “Stand By Your Man” ever be called rock? Cover, shmover. It ain’t rock’n’roll.
This list is more bogus than Andrea called it.
I think you’re missing the point of the NRO articles, which were to identify rock songs that expressed conservative sentiments and ideas. The author was not making the case that rock music as a genre is conservative and he made very clear that most of the musicians would in no way be considered conservatives. Indeed, he used the term “libertines” to refer to many of the musicians whose songs were on the list. I take issue with some of his choices (the most egregious being “The Battle of Evermore” as having an anti-communist subtext) and clearly, many of the lyrics expressed ideas that were more libertarian than conservative)but I think it was an interesting exercise. And, as even the NY Times admitted, many of the choices were surprisingly persuasive. Who knew, for example, that there were so many songs that could be considered to take a pro-life position, or at least to show the negatives of abortion? Then there were the obvious ones like “Taxman”, the songs that were anti-communist, and all the ones that reject nanny-state government?
Mick Jagger hasn’t been “hip” in at least 20 years. If you saw his performance during the Super Bowl halftime this year, it was cringe-inducing. Now Keith is another story entirely. He’ll be hip when he’s 90.
(* Mick Jagger hasn’t been “hip†in at least 20 years. *)
That was my poor attempt at being snarky, Deb. :)
Yea, Keith Richards otoh, yea, I guess he may be considered ‘hip’ (and not meaning a candidate for ‘hip’ replacement).
I guess I’d add Johnny Cash to that list too.
I wonder if they’ll make a movie of Keith Richards Life though… hmmm… well maybe not…
Ohhh… lets not forget to add William Shatner to the list, too. ;)
Most lyrics from 70’s and 80’s
rock songs were unintelligible anyways.
The NRO article missed some stronger examples. What about Zappa’s attacks against hippies?
Hey Punk, where you goin’ with that button on your shirt?
I’m goin’ to the love-in to sit & play my bongos in the dirt.
Or the following:
FREE IS WHEN YOU DON’T HAVE TO PAY FOR NOTHING OR DO NOTHING
WE WANT TO BE FREE FREE AS THE WIND
I think anyone can cherry-pick lyrics and say that makes a song conservative. Tool’s “Aenima” speaks with disgust of the southern California hedonism. But then you hear the lyrics “Learn to swim/See you down in Arizona Bay” and you think that perhaps the total destruction of California is not exactly a conservative motif.
That’s what NRO did, cherry-pick songs with lyrics or themes that conservatives agree with. But in reality, the songs were not meant to be conservative, or conservative-themed, and it’s a real stretch to call them conservative.
“My City Was Gone?” Hey, they paved Paradise and put up a parking lot, right? And I don’t care what he says about covers, in what universe — in what effing universe — can “Stand By Your Man” be considered rock’n’roll?
(In point of fact, Pete Townshend has responded to “Won’t Get Fooled Again” being labeled conservative. It isn’t, he says.
But the one that disgusts me most of all? The choice of “Janie’s Got a Gun” described this way:
The song is about a victm of incest who shoots her own father. Yeah, that’s some “conservative idea or sentiment.”
The list is utterly bogus. Rock’n’roll was born out of rebellion against conservativism, and pretending that these songs are conservative just makes Miller look, well, stupid.
This whole thing reminds me of radio hosts describing themselves as “conservative” psychologists or “conservative” medical show hosts or “conservative” herbal pharmacists.
It’s all a marketing ploy; with the exception of dramatically bad songs used as themes on talk shows, music tends to have what we look for in it.
And in any case, no one’s written any decent music [off Broadway, at least] since Simon and Garfunkle broke up…
Now that’s just sad. They broke up in the seventies, and you haven’t listened to any new music in over thirty years?
I feel bad for you.
I didn’t say I hadn’t listened to any new music. I said now one’s written any decent music except on Broadway. There’s a difference…
Yeah, and damn those Beatles for breaking up, too!
All kidding aside, I do feel sad for people who refuse to allow music to move forward in time. It may be different from what you’re used to, but to say that no popular music in the past 30-plus years is any good is a statement that I would never make.
I might say that I don’t like anything that’s come out in the past thirty years, but just because I don’t like it, doesn’t mean it isn’t any good.
Of course, I don’t believe that nothing good has come out in the past thirty years. Quite the opposite; I think some great music has been released in each of the last three decades. And some dogs.
But to make a sweeping statement such as the one you’ve made — yeah, it still makes me feel sad.
I have a bunch of friends whose musical tastes never moved forward out of college. Ew. Stuck in the eighties for life. Now that’s hell on earth. Me? I’ll listen to the new music, and keep moving forward.
One result of that: It turns out that I have a lot of musical taste in common with my nieces and nephews. They think it’s too cool for words that I know their favorite musical groups, and that I’m interested in the ones they listen to that I don’t know yet. And my niece about fainted when I told her I’d seen Chevelle twice. “I haven’t even seen them once yet! You’re so LUCKY!”
There are a lot of good musicians out there who’ve been making music since Simon and Garfunkel broke up. It’s all a matter of expanding your choices.