“You keep lyin’ when you oughta be truthin’” — ‘These Boots Are Made For Walking’, Nancy Sinatra
There’s something you must know if you ever make a habit of reading my music columns. It’s not something I like to admit and there’s definitely an element of shame involved as an avid, knowledgeable lover of music but the truth must come out.
I don’t listen to lyrics.
I hear lyrics but I don’t really listen to them. This might seem puzzling to you but here’s a simple explanation about how this can be. I concentrate on percussion and rhythm with the intensity of a cover band drummer nerd. The singing voice becomes just another instrument to me and the words are simply modulated tunings of the voice. Even if I sing along to songs I know well, the lyrics might as well be from another language in my comprehension.
In some respects, this liberates me from all of you adept listeners who can spot bad or cheesy lyrics buried in rich, lovely music e.g. ‘Waterfalls’ by Paul McCartney or ‘Feel Like Making Love’ by Roberta Flack.
Yet this lyric oblivion is definitely a hindrance provoking perpetual embarrassment in moments when I mis-hear what the words to a song are. I’ve also accepted the grim realization that this positions me on the listener spectrum against appreciating the oft-described lyrical majesty of Nick Drake as I instead stomp my foot to Primus.
However, with this isolated perspective from all you musical lyric followers, I want to explore a problem I’ve noticed among many casual to deeply involved listeners.
Songs dealing with political issues are often scrutinized but songs dealing with bad love traits are not.
The premise is quite simple: Musicians know what being heartbroken or infatuated means but they don’t know shit about how the world works. And that’s a fine point as a standalone opinion. But somehow US society has turned that premise into something of a cultural manifesto.
You want proof? Look back on this decade. Especially the W. Bush years. Try to think of all the moments involving musicians and protest. Perhaps Kanye West comes to mind (“Bush doesn’t like black people”) or Bono spearheading a G8 concert to relieve world debt. But what about the songs? What can you think of?
I prepared a whole inventory list of conscientious music from 2000-2008 but it doesn’t alter the fact that those songs and albums were anomalies in the music scene. Oddly enough, this period happened to coincide with a technological era of freedom wherein artists could release music without the usual barricade of resistance from their record label.
Although those proclamations of artistic freedom were a bit illusory this decade, thinking a label suppresses an artist’s controversial stance seems a bit antiquated these days. Was it record labels that suppressed expression during the Bush years or was it the inevitable cultural backlash of taking the wrong step into ‘making a statement’ through song? Sing about some issue and you might turn into a South Park character subject to the standard derisive zeitgeist within weeks.
A recent example is M.I.A. who made the simple mistake of allowing a New York Times journalist order truffle fries for her at some bourgeois restaurant she was told to come to for an interview. One penetrating print feature later and M.I.A. got flushed down the cultural toilet for her evident hypocrisy. I guess it’s profound to point out a pop artist cannot reconcile her fashion and lifestyle preferences while making radical left statements.
This often predictable cultural contempt in the US parallels a stunted conversational etiquette we follow wherein politics is a taboo subject unless you know someone personally or think they care to even hear your opinion.
Regardless of your beliefs, perhaps you can at least admit we’re a depoliticized society. For instance, if you ever find yourself talking with an inquisitive foreigner who perhaps wonders why your country doesn’t provide free healthcare or asks about the lack of mass transit in your community and you respond to each respectively with, “We have health insurance here” or “We drive cars instead,” you’re going to sound like a simpleton even though you gave the foreigner an objective, socially acceptable answer.
Yet if musicians or artists take political stances, we’re quite quick to demand they go back to being entertainers, not thinkers. Was it always this way? Sure, even Bob Dylan notoriously turned on himself early in his career when misinterpreted as a spokesman for the left. “I agree with everything that’s happening, but I’m not part of no movement,” Dylan said in 1964. “Me, I don’t write for people anymore. You know — be a spokesman….From now on, I want to write from inside me.”
With that last sentence, Dylan captures the integrity of most artists who selectively choose not to write music that could be considered political or a pretentious representative of the people. That sentiment along with the cultural baggage associated with speaking out made the 2000s a remarkably forgettable decade for generating interest into causes.
Comparatively, every decade of musicians before existed with the understanding that although their message music might get lambasted they would still release whatever they damn well pleased.
The 1960s simply needs no evidence; the 1970s brought a stunning selection of socially aware music from soul in the early years (‘What’s Going On’, ‘Living For The City’) to punk in the latter (‘God Save the Queen’, The Clash); the 1980s is typically known for the earnest, self-righteous political music we love to hate (think Bob Geldof or ‘Beds Are Burning’) but hardcore punk and Public Enemy were there to usher Reagan out the door; even the cynical 1990s brought us gangster rap’s outraged portrayal of poverty and injustice (Ice Cube), the advanced feminist empowerment (Lilith Fair — limping through cancellations in its present incarnation, Riot Grrrl) and, well, Rage Against The Machine.
And perhaps R.A.T.M. is incidentally related to what started this broader contempt and subsequent dearth of political music. The band, as any pseudo-intellectual will point out, signed to an evil capitalist institution — Sony Music via Epic Records — yet hypocritically espoused radical left views that could even be considered anti-capitalist. Although guitarist Tom Morello could explain that the group simply used the record label for broad exposure in the same fashion an anarchist might use the US Postal Service to send anarchist literature, we would still cynically sniff out the money trail.
Even though you could grow up in one of the most conservative regions of the US and hear over the FM airwaves lyrics like, “These people ain’t seen a brown skin man since their grandparents bought one,” we were still supposed to condemn or eye-roll R.A.T.M.to their futile existence as mosh pit rhetoric. It’s a shame too because the groundbreaking music R.A.T.M. created was a prototypical blueprint for a rap-metal hybrid that far too many follower groups misplaced during the horror of the genre’s late-1990s era.
When R.A.T.M. left us with ‘The Battle of Los Angeles’ in ’99 before breaking up, we could have cared less that the group had reached their peak and created a maturely evocative and powerful album. Singer and songwriter Zach de la Rocha crafted literate and even poetic lyrics that vastly improved from his previous work. But whatever, they were hypocrites. (sigh)
What I find strange about those who reject or avoid political songs is a common presumption that the song is telling the person what they’re supposed to be doing with their lives. As if it’s some guilt-triggering imposition for you to spend four minutes of your life being explained a cause.
No longer are you a person with free will or the ability to think for yourself. Somehow, this political song is attempting to propagandize you to some misguided advocacy and you’re all the more vulnerable for it…so beware and snark accordingly.
If conscientiousness is a no-no, what is one of the most universally accepted lyrical subjects? Love. Think of the lyrics to your favorite songs. Not just love songs but all songs. Do they express you, your views?
Here’s a Nick Hornby quote recently published in July’s edition of The Sun: “People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands — literally thousands — of songs about broken hearts and rejection and pain and misery and loss.”
And that’s putting it politely in sympathy to the heartbroken. How many songs out there portray love as a selfish, possessive, objectified pursuit — traits that will doom a relationship? Enough to make any artist ‘writing from the heart’ cautious of what they’re exposing. Here’s a recent AV Club interview with Buzzcocks’ Pete Shelley who wrote brilliant punk songs about hormonal angst and the ugly reality of young love:
“I was mindful not to make it so it was polarized. I tended to write things that were gender non-specific, because then it would work no matter what sex or sexual orientation you were. The questions about love and relationships were still the same. They’re still the same questions no matter who you are and what they’re directed toward. It’s more in common with people with any differences that can be devised or imagined.
AVC: “As you mentioned before, that’s one of the reasons the songs hold up so well. Those things don’t change.”
PS: “I mean, suddenly not much has changed. Starting a revolution, maybe that’s something. I’ll leave that up to someone else. It’s all about change for the individual, though. If you can get someone to look at something about themselves fresh. That’s the good thing about any form of art, is where it becomes a mirror reflecting their insides, so you can see more clearly.”
It might come as a surprise to Buzzcocks fans (or anyone who appreciated ‘What Do I Get? or ‘Ever Fallen In Love’) that Shelley was actually quite careful and deliberate in crafting his lyrics as opposed to impulsively conveying some personal experience.
What isn’t surprising is the common trend, especially in the broadening ‘indie’ genre, to express lyrics in an abstract or indirect way open to interpretation. Artists who favor that method might outgrow their vague phase and opt toward direct, highly personal lyrics as they mature. And why not? Isn’t growing older about becoming comfortable with who you are and realizing you didn’t know much about life in your 20s? Why not obfuscate your early lyrics with confusing metaphors and an impersonal distance littered in pointless descriptions?
To use Dylan again, he went from the surrealist wordplay of ‘Highway 61 Revisited’ to the devastating confessions and soul-searching of ‘Blood on the Tracks’ nine years later. He stayed true throughout to his proclamation “to write from inside me” and even returned to political songs post-’Blood’ with ‘Hurricane‘ and ‘Union Sundown.’
If we can accept or even embrace love songs with a simple understanding that the lyrics may or may not convey how you feel personally, why can’t we hold “political music” to the same casual standard? Must we always feel compelled to stigmatize its apparent intent, dubiously applauding the lovelorn instead? Aren’t the perils of love a more consistent path toward self-inflicted harm than societal ills, which are known to be indications (e.g. drugs, assault) of this specific abuse? Perhaps this is why songwriters are just as reluctant to express the complex ravages of love as they would an enraged moment of conscientiousness.
Although it was a fine decade musically, the 00s did not give us an abundance of protest music during an era of disturbing repression in our country. There could be boring industry-related reasons as to why but I wanted to discuss a perceived cultural attitude that I hope erodes for this approaching decade. It’s as if we all used the lyrics to The Beatles ‘All You Need Is Love‘ as a cultural template when we could’ve used more basic forays into dissent too.
And, lest we forget, you can still shake your ass with resistance music. Conscientious lyrics are not anathema to the dance floor when the rhythm remains. James Brown knew that. Fela Kuti knew that. M.I.A. knows that now.
My favorite indulgent “free your mind and your ass will follow” example is how Prince chose to end his ‘Dirty Mind’ album in 1980. The seven preceding tracks gave us no indication that he was about to end the album with an anti-draft (in ’80?!) funk explosion. (Especially when the previous two tracks celebrate oral sex and incest.) But, lo and behold, you find yourself gleefully chanting along in ‘Partyup’ to “you’re gonna have to fight your own damn war, cuz we don’t wanna fight no more.”
Partyup, people.
