2011 - The Year We Take Back Congress and Make Obama's Life Hell!

Friday, May 26, 2006

Conservatives ROCK!!

John J. Miller at the National Review has posted the 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs:

Here's the Top 10, click on the link for the rest:

1. “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who. The Who - The Kids Are Alright - Won't Get Fooled Again ;
The conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries; this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naïve idealism once and for all. “There’s nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.” The instantly recognizable synthesizer intro, Pete Townshend’s ringing guitar, Keith Moon’s pounding drums, and Roger Daltrey’s wailing vocals make this one of the most explosive rock anthems ever recorded — the best number by a big band, and a classic for conservatives.

2. “Taxman,” by The Beatles.
A George Harrison masterpiece with a famous guitar riff (which was actually played by Paul McCartney): “If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street / If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat / If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” The song closes with a humorous jab at death taxes: “Now my advice for those who die / Declare the pennies on your eyes.”

3. “Sympathy for the Devil,” by The Rolling Stones. The Rolling Stones - Sympathy for the Devil Remixes - EP - Sympathy for the Devil ;
Don’t be misled by the title; this song is The Screwtape Letters of rock. The devil is a tempter who leans hard on moral relativism — he will try to make you think that “every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints.” What’s more, he is the sinister inspiration for the cruelties of Bolshevism: “I stuck around St. Petersburg / When I saw it was a time for a change / Killed the czar and his ministers / Anastasia screamed in vain.”

4. “Sweet Home Alabama,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Lynyrd Skynyrd - Then and Now - Sweet Home Alabama ;
A tribute to the region of America that liberals love to loathe, taking a shot at Neil Young’s Canadian arrogance along the way: “A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”

5. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” by The Beach Boys. The Beach Boys - Good Vibrations: Thirty Years of the Beach Boys - Wouldn't It Be Nice ;
Pro-abstinence and pro-marriage: “Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true / Baby then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do / We could be married / And then we’d be happy.”

6. “Gloria,” by U2. U2 - Under a Blood Red Sky - Gloria ;
Just because a rock song is about faith doesn’t mean that it’s conservative. But what about a rock song that’s about faith and whose chorus is in Latin? That’s beautifully reactionary: “Gloria / In te domine / Gloria / Exultate.”

7. “Revolution,” by The Beatles.
“You say you want a revolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world . . . Don’t you know you can count me out?” What’s more, Communism isn’t even cool: “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.” (Someone tell the Che Guevara crowd.)

8. “Bodies,” by The Sex Pistols. Sex Pistols - Filthy Lucre Live - Bodies ;
Violent and vulgar, but also a searing anti-abortion anthem by the quintessential punk band: “It’s not an animal / It’s an abortion.”

9. “Don’t Tread on Me,” by Metallica.
A head-banging tribute to the doctrine of peace through strength, written in response to the first Gulf War: “So be it / Threaten no more / To secure peace is to prepare for war.”

10. “20th Century Man,” by The Kinks. The Kinks - The Kinks' Greatest: Celluloid Heroes - 20th Century Man ;
“You keep all your smart modern writers / Give me William Shakespeare / You keep all your smart modern painters / I’ll take Rembrandt, Titian, da Vinci, and Gainsborough. . . . I was born in a welfare state / Ruled by bureaucracy / Controlled by civil servants / And people dressed in grey / Got no privacy got no liberty / ’Cause the 20th-century people / Took it all away from me.”

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home