Music and Politics

Tom T. Hall put this song out in 1971 (I’ve attached the DBT cover because it’s great).

I’ve always thought it a remarkably subtle anti-war song; some people may not have even caught on and just thought it was sad.

I’m a huge TTH fan; his stories usually have meaning well beyond a straight literal reading.

 

Still resonates almost 50 years later. The line 'nobody's right, if everybody's wrong' probably can't be more true today:

The Ramones take down of the Reagans:

L7 could have the theme song of 2020:

 

“Last night I watched the news from Washington; The Capitol.

The Russians escaped while we weren’t watching them. Like Russians do.”

I’ve been thinking about the Trump administration with those lyrics and how apropos they are.

 

Saw Midnight Oil at the Greek in Los Angeles on their last tour. At one point early on Peter Garrett says something about Trump and a bunch of people around me start getting pissed. One guy yelled "I came here for rock and roll, not for politics!"

Seriously, Midnight Oil has been around for 40 years and they've got maybe one or two songs that aren't political. (The Greek is absolutely the worst place to see a band. Beautiful setting but you're surrounded by 8,000 assholes there to drink and talk loudly who probably got the tickets as part of an annual subscription and couldn't name one song by the headliner.)

 

And while I'm here, maybe my favorite song by the Oils...

 

They killed with this song. So intense. Surprised they didn't have staying power.