Everythingsgonegreen takes no issue with political and social commentary songs. Songs like ‘Respect’, ‘This Land Is Your Land’, ‘Free Nelson Mandela’, and ‘Get Up Stand Up’ were pivotal to the movements they supported at the time and remain classic examples of where political lyrics can hit the mark.
Unfortunately,
sometimes it just doesn’t work and here are some examples – from the left, the
right, and up the middle – from songwriters who should’ve kept to subjects like
love and emotions. Craig Stephen pops his head above the parapet to take a peek
…
Extreme - Rest in Peace (1991)
All-American soft
rock boys Extreme reached out to the redneck fraternity with this pro-war dirge
that shouted ‘shut up pinkos and watch as our American heroes kill and maim’.
Dumb-ass
right-wing sloganeering is nothing new and this was another crude attack on
people who sang ‘Give Peace a Chance’. Extreme even reference Lennon’s song
but, in that crazy right-wing delusional way, suggest that going to war is the
only route to a world free of violence.
Here’s a snippet:
“Let's talk of peace/ Sounds so cliché/ A novelty/ Catch phrase of the day.”
And another: “Make
love not war, sounds so absurd to me/ We can't afford to say these words
lightly/ Or else our world will truly rest in peace.”
Yes, that’s right
by trying to stop wars, peace campaigners are actually making the world worse.
Plastic Ono Band - Give Peace a Chance
(1969)
And of course, we
all want love, peace and a world free of wars, but this effort was so cringy
and inane that peace groups must’ve groaned with embarrassment.
‘Give Peace a
Chance’ reduced global geopolitics into a hippy flower-waving slogan. As a
result it’s irritating and banal.
It’s a song to
sing to make you feel like you’re doing something about the state of the world
even if you’re not.
Typical stream of
consciousness line: “Everybody’s talking about/ Revolution, evolution,
masturbation, flagellation, regulation, integrations, United Nations,
congratulations.”
Eric Clapton - This Has Gotta Stop (2021)
Entitled white
rich guy scenario in excelsis. Released during the height of the Covid-19
restrictions, Clapton takes the side of the conspiracy theory lunacy wing as he
just wants his ‘freedom’ while millions of people were dying from the disease.
Here’s a portion
of this whingeathon: “This has gotta stop/ Enough is enough/ I can't take this
BS any longer/ It's gone far enough.”
Another veteran of the 60s turned tinfoiler Van Morrison meanwhile released a string of anti-lockdown songs, such as ‘Born to Be Free’ and ‘No More Lockdown’, with lyrics claiming that government control was over-reach, and that pandemic researchers were "making up crooked facts".
The song is about
the tragic death of two children in England during the Troubles (as a result of
the 1993 IRA-Warrington bombing). A worthy sentiment and if they had left it
that, who would’ve complained.
But in ‘Zombie’
Dolores O’Riordan and co take on the entire nationalist movement, decrying
“It's the same old theme, since 1916/ In your head, in your head they're still
fighting”.
The pointing to
the date is the Easter Rising in Dublin, a rebellion that ended in defeat but
ultimately played a prominent role in the events that led to the end of British
colonial rule in Ireland.
It’s a significant
moment in Irish history, but one which seems to be scorned at by The
Cranberries, who hailed from Limerick in the Republic.
Merle Haggard - Okie From Muskogee (1969)
Merle Haggard is
renowned for songs such as ‘Mama Tried’ and ‘Workin’ Man Blues’, but his
lasting legacy is ‘Okie From Muskogee’, a joke that snowballed into an
anti-hippie anthem.
It was hijacked by
those who used it for their own means – such as then President Richard Nixon
and, just like Springsteen’s ‘Born In the USA’, the meaning has been lost and
misused.
It was lyrics like
"We don't burn our draft cards down on Main Street, we like living right
and being free," that appealed to many and made Haggard a star.
In 1981 Haggard
told media that the song made him “appear to be a person who was a lot more
narrow-minded, possibly, than I really am.” Later still he would express regret
at expressing his opinions in song.
Phil Collins - Another Day in Paradise
(1989)
Written by a
struggling musician, the song may have received a pass mark. But in the hands
of a multi-millionaire and vehement supporter of Britain’s Conservative Party,
it just seemed like a way of cashing in on a problem he would only see from the
wheel of his expensive car.
It tells the tale
of a homeless woman being blanked by those who would easily be able to help
her. Collins may have meant well but the song was branded cringeworthy and
worse. In 1997 the ex-Genesis man threatened to desert Britain for the more tax
friendly Switzerland if a fairly timid Labour Party won the election. Labour
won in a landslide and Collins made good on his promise.
Toby Keith - Courtesy of the Red, White and
Blue (The Angry American) (2002)
Proving that
country and western music can result in some of the worst redneck malarkey is
this dire ‘patriotic’ song that wallows in retribution.
The
rally-around-the-flag anthem was released in the wake of the attacks on the
World Trade Center and the Pentagon - aka 9/11 - with cartoonish goon squad
lyrics like “you'll be sorry that you messed with the U.S. of A / 'Cause we'll
put a boot in your ass, it's the American way.”
Plenty was said
about this song last year and Billy Bragg wrote his own reposte. It’s not so
much the stance of the song, it’s the utter naivety that takes the biscuit.
Initially, Anthony
rails against low pay and greedy politicians in Washington D.C. Then he turns
away from the fat cats and the corrupt Congressmen and women to lash out at the
very people he initially defended - those made unemployed by the greed of the
system and forced to exist on welfare. Anthony seems oblivious to the
connection between low pay and unemployment and how both are used as tools by
the establishment to keep people down.
D:Ream - Things Can Only Get Better (1993)
The song wasn’t
political, in fact it was a feel-good dance anthem about, well, how you can go
from shit street to happy town if you persist.
But it became
political when the British Labour Party adopted it and D:Ream gave it
permission, either through loyalty to the Tony Blair project or just because
they needed the cash.
The New Labour
governments from 1997 to 2005 are synonymous with the illegal war in Iraq and
the continuation of Thatcherism. The former may not have been predicted in 1997
but the latter certainly could have so the band were hardly innocents who were
taken for a ride.
It’s also a
fucking annoying piece of disco pap.
The Deplorable Choir - Real Women Vote For
Trump (2020)
Do I even need to
comment on this?
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