Friday, October 04, 2013

Countdown for the Shutdown (#20 to #16)

Ugh.  Dolberry was called out on Twitter last night for never finishing countdowns I start.  As a face-saving measure now I gotta stick this pointless exercise out.  What was Dolberry thinking?  Shoulda listened to NC Republican Senator Richard Burr when he said this countdown was the second dumbest thing he'd ever heard of.  OK ... where was I?

#20 I'll Stick Around - Foo Fighters
1995 wasn't the best year ever.  There was long list of plagues cursing our pale blue dot of a home that year: there was the Great Hanshin earthquake near Kobe Japan ... you had anti-government Tim McVeigh blowing up the Federal building in Oklahoma City ... the OJ Simpson trial was all-consuming ... Windows 95 was released ... Calvin and Hobbes ended.  In the midst of all this Dolberry got pneumonia and a side salad of depression (not surprising, in retrospect).  So, given all this discord, maybe you can forgive Dave Grohl this agitated screed directed at Courtney Love.  Maybe he doesn't need forgiveness ... Love never seemed very likeable.

Sample lyrics: How can it be / I'm the only one who sees / Your rehearsed insanity / I still refused / All the methods you abused / It's alright if you're confused / Let me be.  

The song closes w/ Grohl repeatedly yelling "I don't owe you anything!".  Good stuff.

#19 God Is Not A Secret - Newsboys
This was the first CD I ever got from a band in the genre of "Christian rock".  Got it for my birthday from the Siler City crew and was considerably skeptical (hopefully not rudely so).  My previous experience with "Christian music" consisted of Amy Grant (ok), Petra (oof) and Carman (bleagghhgh).  I knew the Newsboys were in that genre ... and given that incredibly bland name ... Dolberry was expecting the worst. The problem w/ "Christian rock" back in the day was that it was so tame ... so bland ... so unlike the confrontational God that the music was dedicated to.  This probably resulted from many of the groundbreaking artists (like Steve Taylor) constantly having to fend off accusations from conservative pastors that they were merely mouthpieces of Satan w/ their six-six-six strings.  There were likely exceptions, but the majority of the genre was pablum. The beautiful KMD suggested we play the gifted CD on the 40 min ride home from Siler City to Apex. Dolberry slumped in his seat.  CD starts w/ 10 seconds of promising wah-wah guitary stuff followed by a solid set of power chords then this ...

Sample lyrics: You don't understand / This is not what you think it is / You don't get it, man / You want to boil it down to show biz / Your in-depth research shows / Drop the God, emphasize the beat / I've heard that positive pop you dig / I'd rather be buried in wet concrete.

Holy John Lennon ... an "Christian rock" protest song.  I guess what Peter Furler and Steve Taylor (who co-wrote the song) were agitated about were the sales pitches that record labels/agents/producers would sometimes make to successful "Christian bands" suggesting that secular radio riches were on the horizon if they'd just mute the message.  Sadly, while this song was really cool, this sentiment was often used to bash other "Christian bands" as sellouts when they'd become popular in the secular scene (even when the message was unmuted).  Back in the day on the Relient K message boards you'd have people saying stuff like ... "Your last album referenced Jesus nine times and this one only does 3 times.  I hope you enjoy eternal damnation."  Anyway ... when it's all said and done ... whether you've kept God a secret or not won't likely won't be judged on what songs you sang.

#18 Come Out and Play - The Offspring
This song is nearly 20 years old and despite having rung out "You Got Keep 'Em Separated" at the right point in the song everytime it has ever come on the radio, Dolberry had no idea what this song was about until APD looked up the lyrics a month or so ago.

Sample lyrics:
Like the latest fashion / Like a spreading disease / The kids are strappin' on their way to the classroom / Getting weapons with the greatest of ease / The gangs stake out their own campus locale / And if they catch you slippin' then it's all over pal / If one guy's colors and the other's don't mix / They're gonna bash it up bash it up bash it up bash it up.

Hey, man you talkin' back to me? / Take him out / You gotta keep 'em separated / Hey, man you disrespecting me? / Take him out / You gotta keep 'em separated

By the time you hear the siren / It's already too late / One goes to the morgue and the other to jail / One guy's wasted and the other's a waste / It goes down the same as the thousands before / No one's getting smarter / No one's learning to score / Your never ending spree of death and violence and hate / Is gonna tie your own rope tie your own rope tie your own

While the Offspring's lead singer and lyricist Dexter Holland (who has an interesting resume for a punk rock singer having earned a Master's degree in molecular biology at USC) was clearly talking about gangs in schools ... the song is a better-than-fair analogy for the state of our Congress ... especially in light of the comments that Indiana Republican Marlin Stutzman made this week on the shutdown. "We’re not going to be disrespected.  We have to get something out of this.  And I don’t know what that even is.”

I guess ... you got keep 'em separated.

#17 Rain on the Scarecrow - John Cougar Mellencamp
As I've chronicled here before, Dolberry spent the better part of two summers in the mid-80s cruising across southern Indiana in my (well ... El Cueto's) not-that-sporty Datsun 210 putting Oreos on grocery store shelves.  Most of the time between stores was spent with the windows rolled down (El Cuerva valued free AC) ... driving from smalltown to smalltown ... gazing at Indiana farmland ... and singing along to JCM tapes in the cassette deck.  And while I prefered "The Lonesome Jubilee" to "Scarecrow", there was considerable appeal in the clarion call of Scarecrow's opener.

Sample lyrics:  Rain on the scarecrow blood on the plow / This land fed a nation this land made me proud  / And son I'm just sorry there's no legacy for you now  / Rain on the scarecrow blood on the plow.  

I suppose the fight to maintain small family farms in the face of behemoth corporate farms was a battle that was fought and lost.  They put on some pretty cool rock shows, but according to Farm Aid's web site ... 83% of the beef slaughtered in the U.S. is now controlled by just four companies (Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef).  And I tried to look up what percentage of the U.S. corn crop is genetically modified but the USDA site is shutdown.  Oh right ...  This countdown is depressing me.  It was supposed to be about anger.  I'm not sure Dolberry can stand another 16 songs.  Can we at least get ONE where what the protest song was clamoring for finally came to fruition?

#16 Another Brick in the Wall - Pink Floyd
That's what I'm talking about!!!  We DIDN'T need all that education they were trying to cram down our throats in the early 80's.  Just like Mr. Floyd said.  Now we live in a world where it's perfectly acceptable to be one of the 9% of Americans who believe the U.S. has a fleet of black helicopters that will eventually be used in a UN takeover of the country.  Who's going to tell you you're wrong?  You don't want to believe that CO2 re-radiates IR energy?  Who's going to make you!?!  Don't believe the studies that show that violent video games increase short-term hostility?  Yeah, the researchers were probably biased.  All facts (at least the ones that you don't like) are ambiguous and therefore not really worth learning.  Plus most facts can be mutated in a pinch anyway ... as long as your motives are pure ... and of course your motives are pure. 

Sample lyrics: We don't need no education / We don't need no thought control / No dark sarcasm in the classroom / Teachers leave them kids alone!

Hey ... Father Sans ... leave that Dolberry alone!

No comments: