Since this post touches on both music and current affairs, I'm cross-posting it both here and in my other blog.
While many – perhaps even most – rock and pop songs deal with topics like personal relationships, there are also quite a few that are about issues relating to politics and society. Several recent news topics reminded me of a few of these songs.
The recent death of Margaret Thatcher inevitably made me and many other people think of the Elvis Costello song “Tramp the Dirt Down”. In this song, Costello declared that he looked forward to Thatcher's death so that he could stand on her grave and as the title says, tramp the dirt down. A pretty vicious song, but considering Thatcher’s friendship with the murderous Chilean dictator Auguste Pinochet, her opposition to putting pressure on South Africa to end apartheid, and many of her policies in Britain, it’s easy to understand Costello’s attitude. I just wonder if he’ll follow through.
A major news topic from the United States is the debate over gun control. While I’ve covered this issue in more detail elsewhere (both seriously and ironically), there are several songs which to a certain degree express some of my own thinking on guns. One is Queen’s “Put Out the Fire”, from their 1981 album Hot Space. One of my favorite parts is the verse where Brian May, the writer of the song, turns an old pro-gun cliché on its head: “You know a gun never killed nobody/You can ask anyone/People get shot by people/People with guns”. Tracy Chapman talks about inner city youth with guns in her excellent song “Bang Bang Bang”. And of course there’s the Lynyrd Skynyrd song “Saturday Night Special”, about the gun of the same name that “Ain't no good for nothin' / But put a man six feet in a hole”. Somewhat more indirectly related to the debate is Sting’s song “I Hung My Head” (also covered by Johnny Cash), about a man who accidentally shoots someone – something that happens with appalling frequency in the US – and is hung for it. Incidentally, it has occurred to me that the main reason George Harrison survived his encounter with a homicidally insane "fan" and John Lennon did not is George lived in the UK, where it isn't nearly as easy to get a gun.
The environment is always an issue, and there are numerous songs about it as well. One that came to mind recently was Joni Mitchell’s classic “Big Yellow Taxi” (“They paved paradise and put up a parking lot”). It seemed particularly applicable to a controversy at a local school in Taiwan, over the opposition of environmental groups and many students and faculty, the administration pushed through a ridiculous plan to cut down a bunch of old-growth trees in order to build a swimming pool and, you guessed it, a parking lot, or rather a parking garage (not to serve the students – this is a junior high school – or even the faculty, but to make money for the school…because, after all, the main purpose of a public school is to bring in money, right?). I also heard an interesting song dealing with climate change called “Disappearing”. It’s by a musician from Vancouver named Simon Collins (who just happens to be the son of a certain famous British drummer and singer).
Then there was the election of a new Pope, one who despite displaying a refreshing approach still looks like he may be disappointing on some issues. If there’s one song I think of when I think of the Catholic Church, it’s “The Vatican Rag” by the inimitable Tom Lehrer. It may be almost 50 years old, but like so many of Lehrer’s songs, it’s timeless. It was even covered by the great Marty Feldman, best known for his role in Young Frankenstein.
No comments:
Post a Comment