John Miller at the National Review has come out with another top-50 list of "conservative" rock songs. By all rights, it's not as sucky as his last list, but it still leaves plenty to be desired.
Miller defensively casts himself as a "New Critic," taking the lyrics out of the context of the band as a whole. It's the only way he can justify most of his choices, after all. If he were dead, Jello Biafra would be spinning in his grave at the inclusion of "Holiday in Cambodia" by the Dead Kennedys. Sure, the song is anti-Khmer Rouge (unlike the wellspring of support for Pol Pot in liberal circles, right?) and it definitely pokes its finger at wannabe hipster yuppie scum. Anyone who knows the Dead Kennedys, however, will know that Jello saw ass-kissing corporate ladder climbers as the ultimate conservatives.
Even from within the confines of the New Criticism, there's just no excuse for including "Give It Revolution" by the Suicidal Tendencies (yes, he did). Miller opportunistically quotes the following lines: "The greatest weapon of the fascist / Is the tolerance of the pacifist / We’ve got to stand up and fight it." Gosh, sounds just like Ronald Reagan. What he didn't quote was this:
The worst evil the world has saw
Were crimes defended by the "law"
Deny our rights and we'll break it
You got to break the chains that hold you down
Crush the tyrants to the ground
Any guess at who made that "law"? Any thoughts on who the "tyrants" might be? Suffice it to say, it's not the Carter administration. And John, the "fascists" aren't who you think, either. It really does stretch credulity to include an open call for revolution in the streets as a conservative song, what with the dim view conservatism takes of revolution in the streets. I need only to draw your attention to "Won't Get Fooled Again" by the Who, which made it to number one on the first list on the strength of it's counterrevolutionary message.
Article comments
1 - Hunter
"Little Red Corvette"!
"Little Red Corvette"!
Doubles over in laughter...
2 - Baronius
Pete, why do these two lists tick you off so much?
As I noted on your first board, there's no reason that the musicians' politics should be taken into account, because the article is about the songs themselves. Take Eagles for example. I wouldn't classify them as conservatives at all, but some of their songs (Henley's and Walsh's solo work too) have a strong theme of personal responsibility. Like "Johnny Can't Read" and "Get Over It".
Bob Dylan never sat down to write a conservative song, I'm sure, but he often took up religious themes even before his conversion to Christianity. His album Blood on the Tracks expresses fatigue with the "revolution" in a way that's more personal than overtly political. In retrospect, the album is right out of the Collier-Horowitz "second thoughts" crowd.
I've never seen the movie Bob Roberts, but from what I understand the villain's great crime is the usurpation of folk music for conservative ends. Is this why the NR lists bother you, because they violate the purity of an idealized era?
3 - Pete Blackwell
Is this why the NR lists bother you, because they violate the purity of an idealized era?
No, they bug me because they're stupid. The NR lists aren't the height of seriousness, and neither are my responses.
The main problem is that the definition of "conservative" is uselessly broad in most cases. That's the only way you can get a bunch of liberal, libertine, over-sexed drug addicts writing "conservative" songs.
Anti-Soviet sentiment is not exclusively conservative. Nor is a preference for personal responsibility or not wanting to pay taxes. All John Miller proves is that you can get just about any meaning you want from vague song lyrics.
4 - Baronius
"they bug me because they're stupid"
Heh. I stand corrected.
I can sympathize with the intent of the list, as someone who's tired of being preached to and cursed at. But the list does remind me of the unpopular kid who invites everyone to his birthday party in the hope that someone will show up.
I still think that someone can be liberal and write conservative lyrics, even if he didn't intend them to be conservative as such. I mean, I've said things that sounded liberal...ok, not me personally, but friends of mine.
5 - Gene
Regarding "Holiday in Cambodia"...
There was never a wellspring of popular support for Pol Pot in liberal circles?
Just ask Noam Chomsky.
6 - Dave Nalle
You JUST DON'T GET IT. Most passionate conservatives are stirred up by the same music that stirs up the passionate left and in many cases they think they are fighting for the exact same values that are expressed in those songs. It's just that the methods the two groups use to achieve those objectives are different.
Look at Holiday in Cambodia - it's a perfect example.
So you been to school
For a year or two
And you know youve seen it all
In daddys car
Thinkin youll go far
Back east your type dont crawl
This is a perfect summation of the rich, liberal college activist who many on the right find so irksome.
Play ethnicky jazz
To parade your snazz
On your five grand stereo
Braggin that you know
How the niggers feel cold
And the slums got so much soul
Again, the hypocrisy of the left expressed perfectly. Rich leftist college kids talking about the poor and minorities while actually not identifying with them at all.
Its a holiday in cambodia
Its tough, kid, but its life
Its a holiday in cambodia
Dont forget to pack a wife
The Cambodia reference is obvious, but who would go there? Likely leftist do-gooders hoping to help the 'people'. Certainly not sensible conservatives.
Youre a star-belly sneech
You suck like a leach
You want everyone to act like you
Kiss ass while you bitch
So you can get rich
But your boss gets richer off you
Middle management - the destiny of these leftist college students. Doomed to work in corporate hell while the conservatives start and run the companies and climb over them to the top of the corporate ladder because they value success more than just a paycheck.
Now you can go where people are one
Now you can go where they get things done
What you need, my son.
Cambodia as the reality that comes at the end of the implementation of leftist policies. No arguing with that.
When Jello Biafra or a generic leftist says that the condemnations in a song like this are directed at the conservative establishment, what they don't realize is that the establishment isn't conservative and that conservatives often see their position as the one which is rebelling against authority.
Dave
7 - Pete Blackwell
Gosh, Dave. How condescending can you get?
Please tell me more about what I JUST DON'T GET.
As I wrote: Anyone who knows the Dead Kennedys, however, will know that Jello saw ass-kissing corporate ladder climbers as the ultimate conservatives.
Yes, the song pokes fun at "liberals", but not from a conservative standpoint, and only the New Critical stance could see this as a specifically conservative song. Since you know the Dead Kennedys so well, you must be aware that this songâ€"not to mention the one about how noted liberal Jerry Brown in a New Age Nazi (c'mon punker, you can name that tune)â€"was written from a punk rock idealist point of view that is several steps to the left of what it criticizes. (By the way, Dave, italics are a nice way to emphasise something in text without writing in all caps like a total jerk). QED, "Holiday in Cambodia" is a conservative song only in the land of wishful thinking. Anti-"liberal" does not equal conservative.
And to say that Cambodia is the logical end point of leftist policies is either the most flippant thing I've ever seen you write or the stupidest. I'm trying to decide.