Rock The Body Politic
 
Ultimately, music is about what really matters to us. It doesn’t really matter exactly what it is about it that resonates to us, as long as something does. It just means that we’re human enough to be affected by it.
 
What matters is the idea that a song can change a person—and that’s an idea I really believe. And I don’t necessarily mean it can change someone’s specific ideas (in fact, I don’t know if I believe that or not), but music can change someone emotionally. I guess a better way of putting it is that a great song can make you feel like you’ve seen another piece of the puzzle, the big picture that is ultimately the truth of our lives. And I believe that a change on that level is more important than a change of a specific idea. That is why there are so many songs, and why people keep writing new ones.
 
I guess that is true of everything--we are never satisfied with anything, we keep innovating and scheming and worshipping "progress" like a god. We depersonalize everything by making it less difficult to acquire and operate, and then we have to create more art and more transcendent experiences to repersonalize our society. And that’s okay. There’s nothing we can do to stop it, because it is a hard and fast rule of life. Like gravity, we cannot conceive life without it. Removing music (or any similar transcendent experience) would throw our existence, as we have somehow fashioned it, out of balance, just as eliminating the stress that ultimately leads to the necessity of music would do the same. If music really "tames the savage beast," (and I have no idea who said that originally) then we have to stop and celebrate the proverbial beast as well.
 
Which leads me to the strange bedfellows of politics and music. My friend Dennis once described politics as "the things that do matter, but really shouldn’t," and I think that’s a pretty good view of it. In a perfect world (and who’d want any other kind?), politics wouldn’t matter to us. We’d collectively do exactly what Jesus would do (or whoever), and we could focus on what really matters--art, science, philosophy, sport--all the aforementioned transcendent experiences. Of course, that’s a fucking pipe dream. Power corrupts, people disagree, somebody feels shafted, and then somebody writes a song about it. Political songs, protest songs, nationalist songs, social commentaries; these are nothing new. Beethoven dedicated his Fifth Symphony to Napoleon, and then un-dedicated it well before Incubus started writing songs about George Bush. Grieg and Smetana were writing songs about how great their homelands were a long time before Toby Keith threatened to put boots up people’s asses (which he claims is the American way, but I don’t remember voting on that).
 
So, it is clear that these songs stoke our passions, both collectively and personally, but I have one question from earlier: Can they really change anyone’s mind? I mean, does Lee Greenwood’s "God Bless the U.S.A." make anyone proud to be an American if they weren’t already? Was anyone in favor of imperialism before hearing "London Calling" or "Oliver’s Army" and then suddenly changed his mind? In my experience, I don’t believe so. A song may make you more aware of a subject, but most of the time, your opinion is already set. I didn’t know about the killing of many (no exact number is known) young women in the Mexican boarder area of Juarez before the At the Drive-In song "Invalid Litter Dept.," but I can’t say I was in favor of killing young women before that. Ultimately, I think most political songs are like college fight songs--you pretty much know who you’re rooting for, and the song tells you when to cheer. (And I know someone will email me pointing out that Regan hijacked Springsteen’s "Born in the U.S.A." without realizing its true message. To them I say: My theory is not disproved because Regan was an idiot.)
 
That being said, that doesn’t make political songs any less valuable. Dylan’s poetry, the Clash’s passion, Costello’s wit, Gaye’s soul, Rage Against the Machine’s force, Springsteen’s humanity, Public Enemy’s determination, John Lennon just being John Lennon--think of how empty music would be without all of them. And those are just some of the ones that resonate personally with me. You know what works for you. Each song works for someone, and the circle completes itself again. So yes, politics matter, but not as much as a song (at least for me).
 
And don’t forget to vote, knucklehead.

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Anthony Eldridge is a columnist for the footnote, as well as cheap social barometer.