Won't Get Fooled Again!
... is reportedly going to be named the most 'conservative' rock song in the June 5 issue of the National Review. Yes, the song by The Who. Just thought you'd want to know (hat tip: Jonathan Adler at Volokh).
posted by Joshua @ 1:23 PM
4 Comments:
The only explanation I could give is that the National Review is trying to claim that Bush name-dropped a song with strong conservative values, rather than ungracefully avoid saying "shame on me."
Personally, I'm not sure that rock and conservatism mix well at all, but surely they could've combed through the Ted Nugent collection to come up with something that didn't immediately bring to mind Bush's enforced innaccountability.
Actually, I think "Won't Get Fooled" is, at the very least, skeptical of radicalism. I always think of the Iranian Revolution with the line "and the beards have grown longer over night."
I watched an interview with Townsend once and he said that the song is against violent & radical revolutions, because that kind of thinking just leads to sorrow in the end, so he wrote the song. That sounds like something out of Edmund Burke!
So I just read the whole list, and ny-oh-ny, it does a little bit of reaching, doesn't it? For one thing, I'm having trouble discerning if they mean for "conservative" to read as "republican," "neo-con," "theo-con" or actaully as "conservative." For some reason, it feels - for the most part - like anything but the last. Also, they claim quite a number of universally shared values as "conservative," which would be fine except that they then define their views as much by their enemies, so that they come off as putting words into the mouths of liberals. Words that liberals would never say. Between that and a complete lack of understanding for irony, the list comes off as - to put it lightly - ignorant. Still, a few highlights:
1. When placing Godzilla, by Blue Oyster Cult, at #34, they quote the line, "History shows again and again / How nature points up the folly of men." Isn't this an environmentalist statement? Am I not getting something?
2. In letting Creed squeak in at #47 - a crime which may discredit the list on its own - they talk up the Racial Unity angle of the song. What? Now, I'm not saying that conservatives are racist - most of them aren't, from what I can tell - but when has racial unity ever been a tenet of conservative political theory as opposed to, say, one of the lynchpins of modern liberalism? I honestly think this got on the list purely because every better-written song on the issue of race has either directly or indirectly stared down the right. You have to dig your way down to Scott Stapp before you find someone who doesn't think to make that connection.
3. "Stand By Your Man" as a rock song? Or was it just to end on a Hillary slam? Because that would at least make sense.
4. Name-dropping every song that has ever tackled abortion, as if treating abortion as an upsetting, life-turning event is equal to a pro-life stance. Have you ever heard anyone, on any side of the political spectrum, discuss abortion as a positive? Buckley apparently believes that liberals are running around like Kodos shouting "Abortions for everybody!" Not only does he twist people's meanings, but he twists the issue as well, in order to demonize his opponents, which plays to me like a cynical disregard for the issue itself as anything other than a political tool.
5. Six rungs down from "Stay together for the kids," and fifteen up from "Wonderful," which they celebrate for asking that families remain together for the wellbeing of the child, the list finds time to laud, "Janie's Got A Gun," about a teenage girl suffering sexual abuse and murdering her father. Does the National Review not see the place for a sensible middle-ground approach here? Nevermind that the murder is viewed in the negative sense here, Janie had a gun and used it. Go America.
Oh, and I forgot about #5, "Wouldn't it be nice," by the Beach Boys. Very pro-marriage. Almost wishfully so, you might say. I can think of 9% of the popluation who is thinking some variation of that sentiment right now, actually.
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