I only know 4 of the 10 songs on his list, and they don't really bother me. I mean, it's fun to knock Sting, but other than that, who cares what Madonna was actually saying in "American Life"? And if Stevie Wonder wants to sing with Paul McCartney about racial harmony using a piano keyboard metaphor, that's too sweet to get upset about. As for "Okie From Muskogee," that song has aged fabulously well. I was around in the 1960s when we hippies loved hating Merle Haggard for the things he said in that song, but it's nuts to take it the way we did back then:
"Okie From Muskogee," 1969's apparent political statement, was actually written as an abjectly humorous character portrait. Haggard called the song a "documentation of the uneducated that lived in America at the time."... "I wrote it when I recently got out of the joint. I knew what it was like to lose my freedom, and I was getting really mad at these protesters. They didn't know anything more about the war in Vietnam than I did. I thought how my dad, who was from Oklahoma, would have felt. I felt I knew how those boys fighting in Vietnam felt."That text is from Wikipedia. "Abjectly humorous character portrait"? Somebody doesn't know the meaning of "abjectly." But I'm inclined to say that Andrew Sullivan is abjectly humorless... at least when it comes to marijuana....
"We don't smoke marijuana in Muskogee..."
Smug? Pretentious? Absurd!
You know what deserves to win the award Sullivan defines. It's damned obvious and it's not on the list. Imagine all the peeepull....
Really, this award is no fun if you take shots at lightweights like The Partridge Family and the New Kids on the Block — as Sullivan does. Get the guys who've been taken seriously, like Bob Dylan. ("He that gets hurt will be he who has stalled...") Pick a worthy target or... as they say... shut up.
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 230 of 230"Imagine is a great paean to Marxism. ... The song works poetically."
Not really, no.
Seriously:
Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
The first verse is all about religion. The second verse is all about internationalism, but since he can't come up with enough to say about it, he goes back to religion so he can pull off a lazy rhyme.
John Lennon had his lyrical triumphs. Imagine isn't one of them. It's a shopping list set to music.
Lennon did his best work as a Beatle. Lyrically he did way better on songs like "In My Life", "Girl", "A Day in the Life", "Sexy Sadie", "Come Together".
What, no classical music?
Damn near anything written by Leonard Bernstein after West Side Story.
Talking is not enough. I created a poll so you can actually vote on your least-favorite liberal song:
http://www.battleswarmblog.com/?p=4280
From classical music I'd say Philip Glass' "Solo Piano" from 1988 is one of the best modern pieces of instrumental music there is.
"I Write the Songs" - had to sing it in junior high choir, and hope I never hear it again.
"Do They Know It's Christmas?" - portrays people from Africa as completely ignorant of the rest of the world and ignores the fact that there are Christian Africans. Have been since the earliest days of Christianity.
Lennon did his best work as a Beatle. Lyrically he did way better on songs like "In My Life", "Girl", "A Day in the Life", "Sexy Sadie", "Come Together".
So, without McCartney, Starr, and Harrison as de facto editors, Lennon was the drizzling shits?
Can't disagree there.
Damikesc,
I think the same could be said about McCartney. I mean, it's not like his stuff after The Beatles was anything to write home about either. ("Live and Let Die" excepted, which is surprising. Not only is it a solo McCartney song, it's a Bond movie theme. It should have turned out double bad, but somehow it actually turned out pretty good.)
It looks like this tread has hit a chord..
My bad.
I actually really liked Sting's "Russians" song, but it doesn't travel well. I think that we forget what it was like, then, even those of us who were alive, then. If you listen he's making more of an appeal *to* the Soviets than scolding us for being worried about it. And people were worried about it. The iron curtain was a news blackout that actually worked and the cold war was really a war and mutually assured destruction was always in some corner of your consciousness.
It's like how the movie War Games simply doesn't click anymore, the real life context was actually part of the movie experience.
Unlike Red Dawn. No one ever *really* thought that foreign soldiers would occupy fly-over country.
"Was "Billy Don't Be A Hero" one of the choices?"
The song did come to mind and I was refraining from mentioning in an effort to keep it at bay.
I think I was 12. I LOVED that song.
I'm no longer 12 and clicking on a link would mean having to blow my brains out to make the voices go away.
"If you listen he's making more of an appeal *to* the Soviets than scolding us for being worried about it."
Not really.
"Mr. Reagan says we will protect you / I don't subscribe to this point of view / Believe me when I say to you / I hope the Russians love their children too / We share the same biology / Regardless of ideology / What might save us: me and you / Is if the Russians love their children too"
Sting is asking us, directly and unambiguously, to put our faith and trust not in our own insitutions and leaders but in the love of Russian parents for their children...
As if the USSR and the USA were equally free and democratic nations, and Russian parents could vote their leaders out of power.
As an aside,
I'd never actually heard "Billy Don't Be A Hero". Having actually heard it, it's possibly the most insipid and loathsome anti-war song ever written. Kind of like Johnny Got His Gun filtered through the mind of a semi-retarded eight-year old.
It's a friggin' celebration of cowardice!
Of course Sting was a commie douche-bag. What's new?
Aerosmith -- "Janie's Got A Gun."
Have you noticed that the worst of the "socially conscious" songs -- "We Are the World," "Imagine," "One Tin Soldier" -- are all sort of ... ponderous? Heavy-handed? Utilitarian? The musical equivalent of Stalinist architecture. Perhaps because they take themselves so damned seriously.
"Hey, man, this is important. You're not supposed to be enjoy it!
[ wv: story ]
Knowing a little about Andrew Sullivan I'm surprised he didn't nominate Norman Greenbaum's "Spirit in the Sky." It's catchy, but not his cup of tea.
Solomon Linda wrote Mbube (Wimoweh).
Ladysmith Black Mambazo and Taj Mahal are here with an up to date version.
"Perhaps because they take themselves so damned seriously."
That's part of it, but I think that it has more to do with the assumption that it's too important to fuck up by allowing the (stupid) audience any interpretive room.
Oh, and, also... a lot of ponderously serious "issue" songs (and movies, books, etc.) aren't about the artistic merit, but about showing off. "We Are the World" was never about famine relief. It was about rich artists demonstrating how good and wonderful they were.
I've never even tried to understand the lyrics to American Pie, but it's interesting to hear that the songwriter was a conservative Catholic.
This song is an absolute bar standby here in Ireland! Everyone knows all the verses and will sing them all too willingly. I've had many good nights out listening to (and joining in on the chorus) this song sung in bars.
Just FYI from the now wounded Celtic tiger.
Youngblood said, regarding the pop song "Billy Don't Be A Hero" (a song I hated in its day for its insipid MOR stylings):
"It's a friggin' celebration of cowardice!"
Well, no. It states the obvious truth that a loved one's pointless death in war is not made meaningful or bearable simply by referring to the dead-too-young as a "hero" or that one should be "proud of how he died."
If you want a celebration of cowardice, check out the great film starring Julie Andrews and James Garner, THE AMERICANIZATION OF EMILY, written by Paddy Chayevsky.
By the way, speaking of insipid MOR stylings and pretentious, smug songs, has anyone mentioned "Tie A Yellow Ribbon" by Tony Orlando and Dawn?
Talk about unbearable!
But Ms. Althouse lists the Beatles as one of her favorite groups. As I recall John Lennon had something to do with that group.
Imagine> is a good song with a lousy premise.
As for the perpetrator of "Imagine", John Lennon, I consider it one of several "bads" but in a constellation of "goods" and "greats" the guy did. He WAS a smart guy,quite perceptive and witty, a formidable song writer, who said dumb things and brilliant things.
Agreed. Lennon in the Beatles was fabulous. Lennon alone could be strident arrogant, pretensious and not especially tuneful either. He was going for statements rather than pop sheen (whereas McCartney always stayed in the realm of pop, and got slammed for it (Hence his response "Silly Love Songs"). If you listen to the Beatles you'll see this as well. early on many of the Beatles songs were in fact Lennon's and were perfectly poppy and tuneful. Later on he got into more adventurous/artistic entries that push boundaries. He fell out of the craftsman tunesmith role and became THE GREAT ARTIST. Once the Beatles were done, and Yoko was on the scene Lennon had to be the artiste andrevoutionary. But even amidst the junk there were some good songs, usually when he simply made pop songs. And in fact, his most accesible album was when he simpy did pop songs. Double Fantasy has boring songs, but they are all good as pop vehicles (it's too bad you have to also listen to Yoko's garbage). The song Beautiful Boy or Woman are gorgeous pop songs, adn they are simple and not striving for any significance. I'd take those any day over something like "Woman Is the Nigger of The World".
Pop stars striving to be artists is the death of almost all musicians. Once they become signifant they become bores and put out deep thoughts (by Jack Handy) as opposed to cathcy music
C3: Arcade Fire has a great sound, but the lyrics are definitely a hateful criticism of modern life, which is why I have a mixed reaction to their music.
Arcade Fire has a great sound, but the lyrics are definitely a hateful criticism of modern life, which is why I have a mixed reaction to their music.
I keep asking myself why the best modern songwriters(in terms of music) are so left-wing, nihilist. The roots are in Woody Guthrie I believe:
Woody Guthrie
Imagine ...
worst song ever ...
keep in mind that the grateful dead covered merle's okie.
in my life is the ONLY thing lennon wrote in my opinion...and he couldn't sing either; very nasally!
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