Cultural/Musical Time Capsule 2006

The overwhelming response on country radio in 2003 after Dixie Chick Natalie Maines publicly denounced President Bush in concert was, "Shut up and sing." There was some bizarre expectation that musicians were not supposed to be political, or if they were political, it was not supposed to be critical. In 2006, The Dixie Chicks came back with their song "Not Ready to Make Nice"; here's a snippet:

I made by bed, and I sleep like a baby,
With no regrets and I don't mind saying,
It's a sad sad story
That a mother will teach her daughter
that she ought to hate a perfect stranger.
And how in the world
Can the words that I said
Send somebody so over the edge
That they'd write me a letter
Saying that I better shut up and sing
Or my life will be over

Rock music since the Dixie Chicks incident in 2003 has been even more vocal about its distaste for our government's policies. This year, more than ever, musicians have spoken out about our involvement in the Middle East, the government's response to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina, and the Bush administration's problematic God-in-a-box approach to the world. Here are some highlights from 2006--in no particular order.

1. Road to Peace, Tom Waits. Uncharacteristically overtly political for Waits. A criticism, in particular, of the U.S. support of Israel in its military conflict with Palestine.

Once Kissinger said "we have no friends, America only has interests"
Now our president wants to be seen as a hero and he's hungry for re-election
But Bush is reluctant to risk his future in the fear of his political failures
So he plays chess at his desk and poses for the press 10,000 miles from the road to peace

2. The River in Reverse, Elvis Costello and Allen Toussaint. Along with "Broken Promise Land," this song is a response to the situation in New Orleans post-Katrina. (Toussaint himself is from New Orleans.)

So count your blessings when they ask permission
To govern with money and superstition
They tell you it's all for your own protection
'Til you fear your own reflection
But the times are passing from illumination
Like bodies falling from a constellation
An uncivil war divides the nation
So erase the tape on that final ape running down creation
Running down creation

3. Power Doesn't Run on Nothing, The Thermals. The Thermals 2006 album The Blood, the Body, and The Machine is a concept album (often compared to Green Day's American Idiot) that imagines America in some kind of fanatic, apocalyptic, religious battle. Lead singer Hutch Harris said he tried to write many of the songs in the point of view of Dick Cheney.

They'll give us what we're asking for
Because our God is with us
And our God is the richest

4. Impeach the President, Neil Young. Young's Living with War album is not the most subtle critique of our current administration. See below for an example of his candor:

Let's impeach the president
For hijacking our religion and using it to get elected
Dividing our country into colors
And still leaving black people neglected

5. The President's Dead, Okkervil River. Not as incendiary as the title suggests. As the passage below illustrates, if the president died, it wouldn't really be a happy day. The rest of the song is more about self-reflection than political commentary.

He's lying face down with his black-dressed agents
Guns drawn running around and the early Obits
Say he was a good man, you can't argue with that
Not today you can't, not now you can't.

6. Wartime Prayers, Paul Simon. A bit of sentimentality in your protest.

Prayers offered in times of peace are silent conversations,
Appeals for love or love's release
In private invocations
But all that is changed now,
Gone like a memory from the day before the fires.
People hungry for the voice of God
Hear lunatics and liars
Wartime prayers, wartime prayers
In every language spoken,
For every family scattered and broken.

7. I Will See You in Far Off Places, Morrissey. On Morrissey's You are the Quarry album, he had a song called "America is not the World," which was obviously a criticism of our recent (at the time) attack on Iraq. In his new album, there are traces of this same sentiment, but they're mostly tongue-in-cheek, like this line:

If your god bestows protection upon you
And if the USA doesn't bomb you
I believe I will see you somewhere safe
Looking to the camera, messing around
and pulling faces.

8. Take a Bow, The Muse. From another anti-Bush concept album. This one is a bit too angry for me to take seriously (especially when the song angrily declares that Bush will burn in hell for what he's done--whoa there! see Okkervil River for a reality check).

Corrupt
You're corrupt
Bring corruption to all that you touch
Hold
You behold
And beholden for all that you've done
And spin
Cast a spell
Cast a spell on the country you run
And risk
You will risk
You will risk all their lives and their souls

9. Head (Of State), The Coup. A very funny and clever hip-hop take on the modern history of the relationship between Iraq and the U.S. A later song on the album is titled "Babyletshaveababybeforebushdosomethingcrazy."

Bush and Hussein together in bed
Giving H-E-A-D head
Y'all motherfuckers heard what we said
Billions made and millions dead

10. Harrowdown Hill, Thom Yorke. After I heard a rumor about the meaning behind this song, I did some Googling and sure enough, this is Yorke responding to the controversial death of Dr. David Kelly, who died in 2003 after raising questions about Iraq's possession of WMDs. Yorke's song seems to suggest that the government silenced Kelly for uncovering the truth.

Don't walk the plank like I did
You will be dispensed with
When you've become inconvenient
In the Harrowdown Hill
Where you went to school
That's where I am
That's where I'm lying down