REGIE'S BLOG
SAY WHAT YOU NEED TO SAY ... and it better be good
Posted: 6/7/2010 3:25:52 PM
I am an almost teary eyed First Amendment freak. I love freedom of speech and I wield it daily. I will do so until the speech Nazis come take me to speech prison and even there, I'll probably be put in solitary confinement for screaming obscenities at the guards. As long as the stars and stripes fly somewhere, no one is EVER going to tell me what I can or can't say. I would take up arms to make sure everybody gets that same privilege. I think free speech is essential to those of us who are seekers and truth tellers ...but I've always hated protest songs. My hatred of them has nothing to do with the protest itself. I'm all for letting the Dixie Chicks spout off or giving the 18-year-old rock star of the moment a pulpit from which to spew unintelligible ramblings. I say speak your mind even if you don't have a good one. My problem with protest music is the masturbatory nature of using art to air the grievances of the moment. That turns it into something not universal and divisive, thus diminishing something sacred. Speech may be free but it shouldn't be cheap.
True art is timeless and deeply entangled in the human condition. Great artists know how to protest the moment without painting it in a corner. Dylan was the classic example of that. Everyone applied his poetry to Vietnam and Lyndon Johnson and the establishment, but these words are still relevant and ominous today: "Come mothers and fathers throughout the land and don't criticize what you cant understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command." He was writing about something beyond the moment - it just happened to be relevant in the moment. On the other hand John Mayer's, "me and all my friends are all misunderstood. They say we stand for nothing and there's no way we ever could," kind of sounds like a 14-year-old whining. My point? If you're going to get into protest writing, be a freaking prophet or leave it alone. The very minute the guy you campaigned for gets elected and the world has essentially "changed", your song is then obsolete, like a bumper sticker. We won't need to hear or sing it anymore. Your problem has been solved. On the other hand, if you're writing about broken pieces of the human condition that get repeated time and time again throughout history, then your song will never be obsolete. John certainly achieved that with "Daughters". It's a subtle yet profound distinction.
My take on all those who like to march and scream and pound their fists about political stuff is that a genuine, truthful observation and legitimate thought often spawns hacks on the subject in the world of entertainment. I love stand-up comedy but when I see a stand-up special listed on TV, I always check the year it was taped. If it's anywhere between 2002 and 2008, I know I'm going to have to endure at least a 10-minute rant on George W Bush. That's fine, if it's really funny. Most of the good material on Bush, however, was burned up by 2006 and then the "Bush joke" just became this thing everybody knew they could do with impunity, so they piled on whether the material was funny or not. That's bad art and a poor use of freedom of speech. I'm not offended by jokes, I'm offended by bad, cheap jokes - especially if the one delivering them is supposed to be an artist, or at the very least, a professional.
This past week one of my musical heroes let me down. Sir Paul McCartney, the man who has written several of my favorite songs, the man whose show I saw in Memphis in 1995 and still ranks as the best I've ever seen, the man who wrote the piano piece that was my pre-show warmup for years (Martha My Dear), laid the egg of all eggs ...he angled for a cheap Bush joke. Once he knew "Library Of Congress" was on the menu, he went for the easy swipe. Ouch! Now, let me tread softly here. Sir Paul has earned fair treatment from this often venom-tongued songwriter/blogger. Still, my guaranteed-in-writing speech freedom demands a comment.
Sir Paul knows a lot about nailing a musical and lyrical hook to the wall. He is the master of his art. What he should also know is that if you throw a comic punch in front of Jerry Seinfeld ...you'd better, by God, land it. Unfortunately, he did not. "W" has joined Brittany Spears, Monica Lewinski and OJ Simpson in the pantheon of subjects that have been over-mined, targets that are too easy, and punch lines that are simply no longer funny. It's like saying "where's the beef?" or "whazuuuuup?" We get it. We got it 6 years ago and it was actually starting to get a little old then.
If you're going to be a social commentator, you have to understand who's in power and who's not and have a firm grip on the absurdity of the now. If you're going to turn it into humor, you have to be funny. I always loved John Lennon's intro to "Twist and Shout" when the Fab Four were playing for the royals in '63. Paul should remember - "This one goes out to the cheap seats ...everyone else ...just rattle your jewelry." That was courageous because he said it to their faces, it had impact because it spoke to the larger history of classism in England ...it was also funny. Billy Joel turned down an invitation to jam with Bill Clinton in '92. His response? "It has nothing to do with politics ...it just doesn't sound like a good jam session to me." That was a subtle, yet non-partisan comment on the absurdity of politicians using artists as props to make them cooler than they are. It was also funny.
In the spirit of help, I offer these humble suggestions, off the top of my head, to Sir Paul as possibilities of more current alternatives to his stale and outdated Bush joke:
1) "It's great to see Mr Obama here. Because of my home country of Britain and it's petroleum business, he actually will be able to walk on water now. At least in the gulf ...you're welcome Mr President."
2) "The American Revolution. The war of 1812. WWl. WWll. Me and the boys invading in '63. Now BP. We Brits must feel like that annoying little sister who won't leave America alone."
3) "It took a lot of British petroleum to fly me here from England. Fortunately, you can just swoop down and get it right out of the ocean now."
4) "I don't blame you Mr Obama. I'd rather be here listening to me than in the gulf too. You really ARE the smartest president ever!"
5) "I was going to sing 'Blackbird' tonight, but I didn't want to offend the pelicans in Louisiana."
These are just a few of the more topical (and even self-deprecating) offerings I might have tried to play around with were it me accepting the Gershwin award (something that will almost certainly never happen) and flaunting the first amendment. I know I'm just a simple, obscure paper back writer, but I would suggest that Sir Paul not live in yesterday. Whenever you do that, you end up coming off like a bit of a nowhere man. Because of America, Sir Paul's songs have been heard across the universe and will be for a long time to come. Maybe the next time he feels like making a quasi-political statement in someone else's country, if he can't find something really funny or biting or topical or profound or timeless to say, he should probably just smile, bow ...and let it be.
R
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