do you ever think it odd that we have been at war for what, 11 years, and there isn’t any pop song about the war(s) or the people we’re fighting, or the people fighting it?
and it’s 4 years since the financial bubble burst but there are no plays, no operas, no folk songs about it. no smothers brothers, no tom lehrer, no woodie guthrie singing about underwater mortgages. there’s lots of PBS documentaries but there’s no art about it, there’s no music expressing the feel of it.
there is no theme song for the occupy movement. they don’t sing, period.
in WWII we all understood the power of music to inspire and galvanize people. i think it interesting that the music we hear is saturated with standard teen romance issues and little else. when i was a kid, we were all singing “1-2-3, what are we fightin’ for?”
(Come to think of it, i never hear little kids singing anything. They just scream. There is no focus to their emotional energy. Is this . . . intentional? When I was a kid we had all kinds of fun songs insulting our school and teachers. “We will fight our teacher’s baaaa-aatles wi-ith spit balls, bubble gum and clay . . . .” )
i do think it is a role of a true “artist” to observe and comment on political issues. so why are today’s musicians so non-political? Why are they not engaging in any political discussions? Tens of thousands of kids graduate from music school every year but they don’t seem to have much interest. if i didn’t know any better i would think there was a subtle form of censorship going on. 🙂 if there is, it’s censorship by saturation (can’t hear it among the din), or maybe, since ticket sales don’t pay the bills, the sponsors, either the very wealthy or the govt, need to be placated. hmmmm. or maybe it’s just careful indoctrination or even brainwashing. I could make a good argument.
maybe i should stop asking why no one is doing this and just do it myself. i can play 3 chords on a guitar. just need new strings.
