The Hate of Politics

My sister once mentioned that she thought music and politics shouldn’t mix. Me, I couldn’t disagree more. Of course, I know what she really meant: her love of a band wan’t based on politics, and so when she found them to support a cause she was against, it really turned her off. The fact that my political inclinations lean nicely to the left means that I have to worry about this a lot less than she does, since most artistic types are of a liberal persuasion (although I was pretty sad to have lost the Nuge. ...Ha! ).

Now, mind you, they don’t always go well together. Patriotic propaganda is rarely inspiring in an artistic sense (have you forgotten Darryl Worley?). And even well meaning truth-to-power anthems can fall flat if there’s no feeling behind them.

From 2002-2008, I was desperately searching for political music to validate the feelings of dread, paranoia, and powerlessness that permeated the atmosphere at the time. And you know, for all of the ill will that is associated with George W. Bush and his administration, there was hardly any political music that did real justice to the era. Most attacks were too obvious, topical, and lacking passion. Really, it was mostly limited to Warped Tour pop punk bands, Eddie Vedder, and eventually the Flaming Lips, who made the worst album of their career trying to bash Bush.

Of course, there was Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, which actually was a powerful evocation of those troubled times. A good deal of its power lay in the fact that it’s not an overtly political album (even though its title led some conservatives to write off the band without even hearing the thing). Thematically, it’s pretty consistent with Radiohead’s past albums: dread, paranoia, and powerlessness. But the War on Terror certainly informed Thom and the gang on the songs of Thief; the lyrics fuse cracked storybook imagery with phrases that belie a group of adults worried about the future of the world (“I will lay me down in a bunker underground. I won’t let this happen to my children.”), rather than about buzzing fridges and Hitler hairdos.

But, aside from Radiohead, I looked to the past for my musical validation. Naturally, the 60’s have some great songs, especially Dylan’s “Masters of War,” the Beatles “Strawberry Fields” (again, not explicitly political, but evoking a feeling of the times), and Simon & Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence.” The 70’s gave me John Lennon’s “Imagine” and Randy Newman’s “Political Science.”

The 80’s, though, that was the gold mine. The Thatcher and Reagan years, forever etched into our eardums in indignant shouts and despairing howls from the musical underground. There was plenty of punk and hardcore railing against moral majorities and feared lapses into fascism. The Dead Kennedys were the most articulate of the bunch, but mention must also go to Gang of Four, Minutemen, and Reagan Youth.

But really, the most evocative 80’s stuff wasn’t punk; it was a lot of the stuff lumped into the post-punk and no wave scenes. Bands like This Heat, Pop Group, Einsturzende Neubauten, the Swans, Diamanda Galas, the Jerks, early Sonic Youth, Nurse With Wound. To me, this is music that is soaked in the blood of the era, even though most of them were mum on the specifics of their political views. Remember: expressive, not didactic.

Perhaps my two most played albums during trying political times, aside from Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief, are now This Heat’s “Deceit” and Diamanda Galas’ “The Litanies of Satan.” Deceit is almost a grandfather to Hail to the Thief. Despite more radical, experimental arrangements, the songs conjured the same sense of detached dread, like a defeated, hollow shell of a human reciting empty platitudes to keep themselves distracted from an impending nuclear holocaust. It’s powerful, sobering stuff, and their haunted chant of “History repeats itself, a war to end all wars” struck a particularly deep chord within me.

The Litanies of Satan was much less specific in content, but no less of a magical weapon for it. And this one does summon up an army of daggers. Diamanda’s vocal performances are truly astounding...and frightening to experience. Her music mainly consists of her moans, caterwauls and glossolalia, sometimes treated by filters and delays, but most of the chaos that emanates from your speakers comes straight from the singer herself. Her art is brutal, tortured, defiant, and even righteous. This is the sound of an idealist whose dreams and values are being stripped away, and she doesn’t take it lightly. If Jello Biafra offered some of the most pointed satirical attacks against Reagan and his cronies, Diamanda offered the most visceral attack upon the hypocrisy of the time, and the most vivid expression of an idealist’s fear for the future of their world.

Well, the political situation has changed; and while there’s certainly still lots of crazy in the world, the majority of America seems to have shifted to a more reasonable expectation of their country and its policies. Still, there’s plenty to be anxious and frustrated about; there’s still plenty of fodder for artistic release, right?

Or is it most effective to make politically informed art when railing against the party in power? I realize that one does not always agree with their party, even if they’re in power, and so one could make music informed by issues that are getting the short shrift by their own party. But does the really potent stuff come from the sorrow, rage and indignation of the dethroned and dispossessed?

And if so, does this mean that the Tea Party is going to release an album soon to rival the the folkies, the hippies, the punks, and the no-wavers?

Food for thought.