Trump, Charlottesville, And Why We Need To Turn To Music Now More Than Ever To Bond A Broken Country

Born in the U.S.A by Bruce Springsteen is the most WIDELY misinterpreted song in the history of music. Why? Because millions of sheeple seem to think the song is an anthem to being born in the “greatest country in the world” filled with opportunity and SO MANY chances at joy. It is not that song, whatsoever.

Here, watch and LISTEN and then let me give you some of the lyrics without the catchy riffs behind it and see what YOU can take away from it.

Here is first and second verse with titular chorus taken out:

Born down in a dead man's town
The first kick I took was when I hit the ground
End up like a dog that's been beat too much
Till you spend half your life just covering up…
Got in a little hometown jam
So they put a rifle in my hand
Sent me off to a foreign land
To go and kill the yellow man.

And it ONLY gets sadder after that. Gets turned away by Vets hall and ends the song looking
at a photo of his dead brother holding his lover he met in Saigon during the Vietnam war.
It is not an anthem to being born in the best country in the world, it is an anthem to being born in what PRETENDS to be the best country in the world but could really give a shit less about its people, real talk. And now, as in RIGHT NOW, with Charlottesville and President Trump being, well, President Trump, what can music give us now that we need more than anything else?
Solidarity and empathy. Peace of mind. Empowerment and cultural interconnectivity, and I could keep going. It also gifts us with the understanding that we are not alone in all this and life has been plenty shitty before and if you give it enough time, it will swivel back to a place where we ALL feel safer in our homes and in our own skin again.

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn

The world is ugly right now. All “eyez” are on us (like that Tupac album!) worldwide, with everyone seemingly just waiting for our president to say something stupid enough that it:

1) Starts a civil war
(Or)
2) Has someone nuke us

And nothing about any of that is okay or acceptable. That last time we had this many people hating us was, well, now that I think about it, the world has NEVER hated us as much as they do now, and can we blame them? 

We have a president who talks about the size of his cock. Yo, you KNOW JFK had to have a nine incher and dude never said shit, just saying.

But Turn, Turn, Turn is included above for a very significant reason. Don’t forget, in the 60’s and 70’s there was much political upheaval, and songs like that made the point that I tried making earlier. That, given enough time, it will cycle (away from the insanity).

It also subliminally advises the listener to turn the other cheek, be the better person. There is NOTHING we can do right now other than be better humans to one another.
THAT is when music is essential. When morale is it it’s lowest.

People = Shit

Ah, good old metal (and grindcore, and doom metal, and black metal, and blue metal, and pelvis metal, and thundercore, and yes I did just make up those last few sub genres) is a cure-all for bottled rage. It really is. I picked the Slipknot classic People = Shit here for a reason. That seems to be the energy most are carrying right now and what we need to understand is, we are NOT shit. 

THE PEOPLE are not represented by extremists like Trump and the Neo-Nazi’s. Yes, SOME people are shit, but the idea that all people are shit is poisonous right now and feeding an
already poisoned culture more poison only makes the proverbial rabies outbreak that much worse.

BUT…

Do NOT deny the cathartic release one feels when one is filled to the brim with bubbling rage and has nothing they can do with it, then they hear a song like the song above, or below:

And immediately feel better. You do not always need to act on the rage, but you can close a door, shut some windows, crank that shit to eleven and start a one person pit in your living room. That shit helps more than most humans know.

I Saw the Sign

No idea why this is here, but watch it and tell me you don’t feel better afterwards. It is like shooting cheese whiz directly into your mouth. By the way, has enough time passed that I can say the Nazi guy in the band is scary as hell? And yes, he is a Nazi.

Maybe this was a bad choice here or maybe, just maybe, it fits perfectly.

Either way, moving on.

I’m Just Riding My Wave, Baby, Surfin’ on My Own Wave….

As usual, Kid Cudi says it best. You listen to above song and watch the accompanying video and ask yourself:

Is this a man in denial?

Dancing around, being all happy and shit, enjoying life, aren’t we not allowed to feel that way right now?

NO, DON’T YOU GET IT, THAT IS HOW WE WIN! 

We shine when the world is trying to dim us. We throw a roof party when they try to bomb us (like we do to everyone else). As the brilliant Dylan Thomas once said:

We rage against the dying of the light. 
In other words, we rage AGAINST the machine, but or real this time:

We are not racists or bigots or victims or helpless. We are not silent, faceless entities locked away to be forgotten about. We are people who love and live and feel things, and the WORST thing we can do right now is feed into the propaganda bullshit and perpetuate it by doing so.
We rebel against it, and nothing makes a better background noise to rebellion than music, which in itself, is just that:

The Gift Born of Rebellion.
Now let’s use it.

*Drops all the microphones ever