Welcome back to the countdown. Recall that we are counting down Dolberry's top 25 songs for the government shutdown. These are protest songs whose righteous anger over the brokenness of the world inspires their listeners to attain great heights to right the wrongs identified within (or write blogs posts that ... maybe upwards of 8 people will ever read). The scoring rubric was addressed earlier.
#25 Even a Dog Can Shake Hands - Warren Zevon.
The issue here is one near and dear to Dolberry ... the inflated role of useless middlemen in the life of a successful and humorous rock star. Zevon's sardonic wit is on full display as he highlights the insincerity of agents and miscellaneous talent-less hacks that leech on to a talent and attempt to milk it for every drop their worth. This is why Dolberry doesn't have a book deal!
Sample lyrics: All the worms and the gnomes are having lunch at Le Dome / They're all living off the fat of the land / Everybody's trying to be a friend of mine / Even a dog can shake hands.
Unfortunately, I'm not sure the song (written in the mid-80's) even translates to the modern day. Does any one even shake hands any more? First, it's unsanitary. Second, no one really expects anyone to adhere to any particular agreement anymore. That's why we have a legal system, right? Third, I think people now generally appreciate that dogs are smarter and more useful than people anyway. It's sort of like singing ... even a nuclear physicist can solve the approximate bind energy of a helium nucleus that has a mass defect of 0.0000000000000000000000000000052 kilograms ... except ... you know ... rhyme-ier.
#24 My Country - Midnight Oil
To my recollection ever single Oils song was an angry one: "Beds are Burning", "Blue Sky Mine", "Forgotten Years", "The Dead Heart". Lead singer Peter Garrett was awfully agitated for someone that lived in down under in Oz. What's to get angry about there ... what with the kangaroos and the perpetual shrimp on the barbies? Maybe it was the vegemite or baby-eating-dingos? Dolberry doesn't know. Dolberry gathered most of his knowledge about Austraila from movies and pop music. Actually, I recall the Oils being mad about Australia's treatment of its indigenous people. Sheesh, I have no idea what the Aussies did to theirs but it couldn't have been near as bad as what we did to ours, and we didn't have a whole rock band focusing on it ... and we could have spared a few.
Sample lyrics: I hear you say the truth must take a beating / The flag a camouflage for your deceiving / I know, yes I know / It's written on your soul / I know, we all make mistakes / This is not a case of blurred vision / It's a case of black holes, pocket holes, soul holes / And did I hear you say... my country right or wrong?
The expression "my country, right or wrong" has an fascinating history ... apparently mutating from a rallying cry in the Revolutionary War days to a sarcastic rejoinder in the Vietnam War days. I think the expression hit it's high-water mark in the late 1800s when a senator from Missouri orated from the floor ... "My country right or wrong. If right, to be kept right; and if wrong to be set right." This senator, Carl Schurz, later expounded upon his point in an anti-imperialism speech in Chicago in 1899 ... “I confidently trust that the American people will prove themselves … too wise not to detect the false pride or the dangerous ambitions or the selfish schemes which so often hide themselves under that deceptive cry of mock patriotism: ‘Our country, right or wrong!’ They will not fail to recognize that our dignity, our free institutions and the peace and welfare of this and coming generations of Americans will be secure only as we cling to the watchword of true patriotism: ‘Our country—when right to be kept right; when wrong to be put right.’.
So chanelling the late Senator Schurz and the angry Oils, let Dolberry just say that when ever I see an American flag-filled Fox News backdrop behind their lie-spewing, moron-baiting, Murdoch-puppeteered vacant talking heads ... knowing what that flag really represents ... I want to projectile vomit.
#23 The Spirit of Radio - Rush
Here's another protest song that doesn't really stand the test of time. Sadly, the object of the song's scorn ignored the warning sirens issued by the Hall-of-Fame power trio from the Great White North.
Sample lyrics: All this machinery making modern music can still be open-hearted. / Not so coldly charted / It's really just a question of your honesty, yeah, your honesty / One likes to believe in the freedom of music / But glittering prizes and endless compromises shatter the illusion of integrity.
So ... this will be too complicated to explain to anyone under 40 but the gist of it is that ... back in the dark night that passed as day of 1980 ... you basically had to listen to radio, or buy albums, if you wanted to listen to music. And since radios were at least minimally mobile, they were the place where most people got to hear music. There were no customizable playlists or Pandora or Spotify or any of that. You were beholden to whatever the programming director at the radio station wanted to play. Even if that included that awful Pina Colada song ... which it often did in 1980. And the whole system was corrupt. Record labels would pay PD's to play certain songs over and over and over again. And songwriters started aiming for the lowest common denominators of easily-digestible hooks and trite lyrics. I'm looking at you Captain and Tennille ... (and take off that ridiculous hat!). Rush suggested a better path. Radio didn't listen and got blown away by whatever music listening mechanism showed up next (first MTV, then mixtapes, then illegal downloading, than iTunes, then YouTube, then Lala, and now Pandora/Spotify). And now nobody listens to radio except sad souls who need their daily IV drip of hate from oxycodone-addled blowhards that pander to the basest instincts of humanity (frightened tribalism over sacrificial love). Ironically, if we'd have listened to Rush, we might not have Rush.
#22 Money For Nothing - Dire Straits
This one's confusing. Some two decades before Stephen Colbert's spoof on conservative cable dingbats, we had Dire Straits narrating a wickedly piercing takedown of musicians from the point-of-view of a regular Joe workingman. The story is that Mark Knopfler was in a department store in the mid 80's somewhere in the States (the idea of a rock star hanging out in a Sears is a little hard to grasp) and overheard one of the workers in the electronics department point mutter disgustedly at a TV playing a music video ... "That ain't working. Money for nothing."
Sample lyrics: Now look at them yo-yo's that's the way you do it / You play the guitar on the MTV / That ain't workin' that's the way you do it / Money for nothin' and chicks for free / Now that ain't workin' that's the way you do it / Lemme tell ya them guys ain't dumb / Maybe get a blister on your little finger /Maybe get a blister on your thumb.
The confusing part is ... much like when Dolberry watches Colbert ... I'm not sure which opinion I'm supposed to be in agreement with here. When you consider a Miley Cyrus or a Wham! ... it's hard not to agree w/ the department store guy. When you see talents like Mark Knopfler or Sting, it's hard not to marvel at their gifts. Best not to think too much about it ... we're supposed to be angry here ... simply enjoy the rapturous guitar solo that launches this one and the chanty "I want my MTV" Sting falsetto that closes it.
#21 The Nerve - Mutemath
We all knew Dolberry couldn't go 25 songs without plugging one of his personal favorite dark horse bands who's quality far outpaces their recognition. Dolberry himself is surprised he made it to #21 in this countdown without proselytizing. So while you don't get Switchfoot, Big Country, House of Heroes, or Relient K on this countdown, you do get these guys from the Big Easy. (Speaking of N'awlins ... looks like a hurricane may be coming their way ... let me be the first to joke (it's 5:29p on 10/03 ... i'm probably at least in the first 1000 or so to suggest this) that the SHUTDOWN government's response will likely outpace the Katrina response. Obama better do a better job this time around!!!!)
Sample lyrics: Can you believe this world's just a double dealin' joker, gonna stick to his guns? / Can you believe this world's just a television blaring, a million devils at once? / Can you believe this world's just a charmer in disguise with a lavender soul? / Can you believe this world's just exactly as we built it, runnin' out of control? Set it on fire! (x7)
The best lines in the song are the first two ... Can you believe this world has the nerve to insist it won't trade for a better one? Can you believe this world is yelling out in the dark it wants to be left alone? While not identifying themselves as a "Christian band" (whatever that is), Mutemath does mix many Christian allusions into their lyrics. The good news is ... and I believe this as much as I believe that Dusty Baker should be fired (i.e., 150%) ... that Light came into the world and darkness will never overcome it. And that's great ... but you don't have to look too far around (or even into your own soul) to see that it's still pretty damn dim. The question then becomes ... how do we risk reaching our arms out in this dusky world and jointly rescue one another? I don't know but I'm fairly certain it doesn't involve callous indifference to their plight ... misguided marketing efforts to get people to buy our product ... or arguing that football is biblical (what the what Southern Baptists?!?), or devoting energy in attempts to legislatively impose a belief system that is really only meaningful when it is adopted willingly and humbly and then used to sacrificially serve in transforming the world.
20 more to go.
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