John J. Miller from National Review Online compiled a list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs. He did so with a contortionist's effort to twist words to his purposes, ignoring the avowed and blatant liberal ideologies of the songwriters while expressing a curious affinity for Rush and the Kinks. Mostly, though, he just picked a lot of mediocre and crappy songs. His second list is no better.
It takes a real genius to include songs by The Sex Pistol and The Clash on this list. Not to mention those conservative poster-boy bands like The Beatles. It's an exercise akin to walking in as an uninvited guest to dinner at someone's house and telling them their interior decoration is all wrong for their sense of style.
I'm particularly irked by Miller's insistence that any song expressing patriotism or "conservative values" belongs primarily to the Rush Limbaugh set and not to someone who both loves his country and has the balls to criticize it occasionally. Since when is unconditional love such a high value? Isn't this how women get abused by their husbands and fathers? Well, luckily we have Aerosmith's (apparently completely earnest) paean to a daughter's trigger-happy gun-lust revenge on her daddy in "Janie's Got a Gun." I'm sure that's something Richard Tyler is proud of.
Suggesting CCR's "Who'll Stop the Rain" is anything but a lefty anti-Vietnam anthem is just plain wishful thinking.
I'll let Pete Townshend defend his "Won't Get Fooled Again" as Miller's pick for the #1 conservative rock song.
I always find it funny to hear Sean Hannity or Rush Limbaugh or Laura Ingraham play music by Don Henley or Bruce Springsteen or Neil Young as bumpers before and after commercials. It's fun to think you belong to a club that would shun you.
The bottom line is that rock music has always been made primarily to foment change and kick at the doors of the establishment. When so-called conservative notions leak into the mix, it's only because we are not a country (or world) of black and white, red and blue, bad and good automotons, but human beings with complicated opinions and feelings. Loving your country and wishing it were even better are not mutually exclusive stances.
To borrow from today's youth vernacular and the religious right's most recent bugaboo, let me say this about Miller's attempt to ingratiate his ideology on rock music: That's soooo gay.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
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Wow, I can't believe he took time away from defending our country from gay weddings and all four flag burnings that took place this year to write about music! Who's guarding the border?
But since he did, I guess we can take a few minutes from committing treason (oops, I mean working for the media) to respond.
You have to wonder about his logic. "Conservative" to him seems to mean anti-government but pro-law-and-order, anti-big-developer and trashed land, but pro-Alabama. And of course, only conservatives supported winning the Cold War or the War on Terror. Just as long as taxes didn't pay for them.
And then there's No. 23, "Brick," by Ben Folds Five, which he points out "describes the emotional scars of 'reproductive freedom.'" I guess he doesn't account for the fact that things can be both unfortunate and legal. But then, as he points out, the government has no place regulating the speed limit (see No. 38, "I Can't Drive 55"). Apparently all it's good for is regulating that reproductive stuff.
And what the hell is conservative about a small town (No. 31, "Small Town," John Mellencamp)?
But then, that was a hard task he tried to pull off. And I'll be content to take Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young and, heck, even the Dixie Chicks and cede him Kid Rock, Creed and Everclear any day.
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