Comments on: Who’s Right

By: Patrick

Patrick — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 14:41:44 +0000

I agree with the above poster about Minutes to Memories. Too bad Mellencamp dissociates his politics from his better art.

By: shaun

shaun — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:52:34 +0000

An obsure song, for Americans, but the Brit band Madness has a ditty very critical of the NHS, “Mrs. Hutchinson”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Deiq3UiJsw

Lyrics:

Well Mrs. Hutchinson, you’re looking healthy (huh)
But just in case,
Here’s a pill a remedy.
Well Mrs. Hutchinson, this is something,
That little upset, I thought I’d diagnosed,
Well not to worry, it’s not what I supposed.
You better sit down son your mother’s very I’ll (ah)
We may have to operate it’s more than just a chill.
But don’t you worry, it’s all in competent hands,
We believe it’s under the ribs or one of the glands.
Well Mrs. Hutchinson, eat up your breakfast (come on)
Don’t smoke, it stunts your growth,
Stick to your diet, let’s hope that you’re insured.
(Come on eat your breakfast !)
Well Mrs. Hutchinson, you must be very pleased to know you’re leaving here.
We’re going to miss you so (hold on)
Here comes your son again.
Are you thirsty son, I think you’ll need a drink.
There’s been some complications, she’s very near the brink.
I have to tell you, it’s my duty to speak.
Your mother will not last a week.
Shame !

By: joe bob

joe bob — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 22:03:08 +0000

Dave Rice posted “A very enjoyable list. I have to point out that Cheap Trick deserves to be summarily removed from the list now that they have re-recorded “Dream Police” as “Green Police” for an Audi “clean diesel” commercial running during the Super Bowl”

I guess you’re not allowed to be conservative if you aren’t actively trying to destroy the planet and mocking anyone who doesn’t enjoy the fresh smell of smog in the air?

By: Matt Strange

Matt Strange — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 19:16:08 +0000

I was too lazy to suggest anything when the original request went out, but I could have suggested the little-known “Complain” from the King’s X album “Dogman”. Where else can you find a verse like this:

Mr. Rush Limbaugh givin’ me the facts;
Treetops fallin’ while the newsman yaks;
I’m thinkin’ about Carter, and how I’m gonna’ get taxed.
(I complain… so much easier…)

By: Chris Arndt

Chris Arndt — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 17:00:43 +0000

How can you say “Pete Townshend is a lifelong socialist” if “he’s moved to the right in recent years” an he has not died before the rightward move?

You could say “he was a socialist for a long time” but if he is, he is, and if he isn’t then anything else is past tense.

By: tomfarrell

tomfarrell — Tue, 01 Jun 2010 14:45:17 +0000

Pete Townshend is a lifelong socialist, folks. He’s admitted he’s moved to the right in recent years but most of his life he was fimly on the left. However, the great thing about Pete is that no matter how far to the left he was, or is, he always maintained a passionate love for America. I’m a Who freak and never once read him say a bad word against us. Same with all of The Who. They are a great bunch of guys who always appreciated what America did for them.

By: Boko Fittleworth

Boko Fittleworth — Sat, 13 Feb 2010 04:24:34 +0000

As I watched The Who’s halftime show while reading the Corner, it occurred to me that Baba O’Riley is pretty conservative. “Out here in the fields/ I farm for my meals/ I get my back into my living:” Yeoman farmer, small is beautiful agrarianism, dignity of labor. “It’s only teenage wasteland:” The conservative complaint about the sixties and its carnage. The “exodus” verse probably needs to be understood in the context of the utopian Lighthouse project, but “Won’t Get Fooled Again” rejects this utopianism just as “We’re Not Gonna Take It” rejects the messianic Tommy. Townsend has a pattern of flirting with, but ultimately rejecting, utopianism.

Of course, “Rough Boys” is a little creepy now.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:27:54 +0000

I’m a bit late to the party, but I would definitely put “Cygnet Committee” by Bowie up there. It’s a very powerful (imo) dystopian song about a man who drained himself helping hippie-type idealists rise to power, after which they’ve become an oppressive horror. The song could really be about any idealistic movement overthrowing society.

The lyrics are powerful, but they really take life in the song, a long crescendo of sadness, betrayal and despair. It has always chilled me since the first time I heard it way back when. But then I really like old Bowie stuff

By: The Who’s Pete Townshend: Not the Left’s Fool | NewsReal Blog

The Who’s Pete Townshend: Not the Left’s Fool | NewsReal Blog — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 11:02:32 +0000

[...] John J. Miller had discussed this very song back in 2006 for National Review. At the time, he said: The [...]

By: Robert Putnam

Robert Putnam — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 01:20:50 +0000

Of all the British Invasion bands, I think the Kinks have to take the title of the most conservative, or at least the most Burkean.

Village Green Preservation Society and Livin’ on a thin Line alone secure that.

But even in songs not evidently about politics–Death of a Clown, for instance–you get the observation that: “the lion tamer’s whip doesn’t crack anymore/ the lions they won’t fight and the tigers won’t roar.”

Swift made much the same point about our politics with his Lilliputians.