“Masters of War” is the truth. Bob Dylan’s 1963 screed against Johnson’s military-industrial complex closes with (I’d argue) the most powerful eight lines in popular music: “And I hope that you die/and your death will come soon/and I’ll follow your casket/by the pale afternoon/and I’ll watch while you’re lowered/down to your deathbed/and I’ll stand over your grave/’till I’m sure that you’re dead.” It’s an obvious anti-war song and one of our best. (long aside: Although the man himself has said that it’s not an anti-war song per se, but a pacifistic statement against war, I think that what the listener does with a track like “Masters of War” is potentially more important than anything that the artist intended. (aside internal to the existing side: Make sense of this quote, from the USA Today piece we linked to a second ago: Masters of War, for instance, “is supposed to be a pacifistic song against war. It’s not an anti-war song.” What? How are “song against war” and “anti-war song” different? I love Bob as much as anyone, but it’s entirely possible that he ate too many drugs. He’s saying that something isn’t the thing that people say it is, but then saying that it is that thing, just with an arguably identical definition. What? Bob’s a genius, but he clearly never finished off that degree in rhetoric.) I connect more with Pearl Jam’s cover of “Masters of War,” because their take on it was about a war that I understand, one which is contemporary to me. My reading of the track is absolutely as an anti-war song. I’m against (more or less) anything that increases suffering (I’ve read way too much Peter Singer), so I’m inherently anti-war. (although not universally so, in that I’m a bit of a rationalist as well; talk me into the need for violence to reduce overall misery and I’m probably good.) So Eddie and the boys were singing about Bush and WMD and all of that shit instead of Johnson and Agent Orange and all of that shit. I get the Pearl Jam take because that is about me and my people. Johnson is about somebody else’s narrative (and I’m always uninterested in the narratives of others). All this to say that even if Dylan (or Vedder, for that matter) didn’t mean for “Masters of War” to be an explicit anti-war song, it is. Dude sent that thing into the world and then it’s out of his hands. It is an anti-war song, whether or not that’s what he wanted it to be, in much the same way that “Cry Me a River” is a dance song, even if Timberlake wanted it to be a break-up song. That’s the last time we’ll be invoking Timberlake’s name in this forum by the way.) “Masters of War” pulls exactly zero punches, saying ugly things in response to a globally ugly situation; seriously, it’s pretty cold to say that you hope somebody dies, but that type of hyperbolic expression of emotion is what the situation called for. Things like Vietnam and the War on Terror force strong positions, I think. You’ve got to put on the grown-up trousers if you’re going to use art as a counterpoint to broad, systemic wrongs. (To clarify: I’m positive that I am supportve of the War on Terror. Terrorism is bad and should be eradicated (which is probably impossible, but so are a lot of things we try to do). But rolling into Iraq seemed like a shit idea at the time and about something entirely different. Also, for the record, I think that folks in the military deserve our respect and gratitude. It’s not at all their fault that their bosses are douches. Just saying.)
All this to get to this point: art that works to protest violence or social injustice or systemic destruction of America’s youth (or whatever) should be upsetting. Vietnam and the military industrial complex were (are?) things that should make you feel uncomfortable. The war in Iraq should make you feel uncomfortable. Art that says that those actions are wrong shouldn’t be easy to look at or listen to. Mrs. Citizen isn’t as on board with “Master of War” as I am, probably because it so baldly wishes for the death of another. But that’s kind of the point. The people in charge are so wrong that wishing for their demise might be the only logical recourse. Was Bob speaking in metaphor? Was he wishing for the death of the idea of war? Maybe. That’s probably irrelevant. “I hope that you die” is about as upfront as it gets. And it is a hard sentiment to swallow. But. In the face of injustice, it’s the only sentiment that makes sense. (See: Woody’s “This machine kills fascists.” as opposed to the much softer and nuanced sentiment on Pete’s banjo. The first is ugly but true. The second seeks to soften the blow, but might be ultimately less effective for that softening. This topic deserves a bit more exploration by somebody way more qualified than me.)
There aren’t any protest songs anymore. There aren’t songs (at least that spring to my mind immediately) that everybody knows and that are saying that the power structure is wrong. Frente’s “Cuscutlan” comes to mind, but I’m the only person on the planet who still loves that record. Neil Young wrote “Rockin’ in the Free World” in 1989. Chuck D spit “Fight the Power” in the same year. Looks like we struck out in the nineties on this type of thing. Hail to the Thief was politically charged, but the songs weren’t great. (“2+2=5″ is obviously anti-Bush and a standout on the record, but does it make you want to stop cutting your hair and get a march going? Not so much.) Bruce Springsteen? Bruce stopped writing about his life and started writing about shit he reads in The New Yorker sometime in the late eighties. REM have some recent alleged protest work, but none of it is as good as “World Leader Pretend,” which came out in 1988. (The message, apparently, is that Reagan and the first Bush pissed off way more artists than the second Bush. How the hell is that possible?)
Why are we talking about all of this on a Saturday? Seattle’s Blood Red Dancers have a five-song EP coming out on November 14 that is (largely) about the failure of the American dream and the obvious consequences that failure has on the world. It’s a violent, angry collection of songs that serve as a loud reminder that we ought to be unsettled by the state of the world. The message of the music is important, in that it serves the same function that “Masters of War” does, acting as a piece of art that is not sugar-coated and stabs as harshly as possible at the corrupt underpinnings of society. In other news, every song absolutely rocks. Protest songs (probably) only work if they’re good. Set my rantings to music and nobody would listen. Blood Red Dancers are talented enough to make music that exists as an entity separate from its subtext. The tunes aren’t only important. They’re also good.
The harshest track on The Bikini Island EP (our early emails from Blood Red Dancers had the title of the EP as Swimming Near Bikini Island, which is a thousand time better, but we’re willing to forgive) is the closer, “American Dream.” Told from the perspective of a soldier in one of the desert-based wars, the song has some devastating lyrics. “I ain’t here for no government plan/No, I came to settle a score./Well now I realize I’m just here for war” comes on the heels of a description of a rape of a Muslim girl. Jesus. Blood Red Dancers sum up the dystopic American vision that both got folks enlisted and got them to places that make no sense. Tack on Aaron Poppick’s David Yow plus three more packs a day growl (dude has a truly distinctive voice that has to be heard to be understood) lurking in front of a militaristic drum cadence and creepily out of sync piano lines and you have a truly disturbing song that serves to remind us that we should be in the streets telling the government that we’re against the war.
The other four songs are less impactful intellectually, but just as solid. Take the Let Him Fight, I’ll Be in the Breadline EP together with this one and you’ve got an exceptionally strong ten song record. There’s more diversity in the keyboard sounds that Julian Thomas pushes on this collection; the previous EP was about what Kevin saw as a kind of Doors inspired organ hook. There’s more piano on this EP which works nicely to highlight the elemental destructiveness of Poppick’s vocals. The piano line in “All You Need is Money,” another straightahead attack on American hegemony, is oddly bouncy but still pitch perfect. (“All You Need is Money” is my favorite track, for the record. This connection makes no sense, but it has a tempo shift that makes me think of My Morning Jacket, which is a decidedly good thing.)
Bikini Island will be available on the band’s myspace in the immediate future. You need to listen to it because it is incredibly well done and thematically important. We don’t get those two things happening together all that often. To whet your appetite, we’ve got “The Shepherd,” which might make you want to write a letter to your congressman.
Blood Red Dancers – The Shepherd
That brief mention of Frente above made me think of Cowboy Junkies for no apparent reason. As such, you get a live Lou Reed cover today. Who went to high school in the nineties and didn’t love this song? Nobody, right?
Cowboy Junkies – Sweet Jane, Live 1993
Lastly, today is the conclusion of our live Morphine stretch. (This ties in nicely with the Blood Red Dancers, only because I’d wager the BRD fellows are Morphine fans. Odd instrumentation, generally dark content, similar (kind of?) vibe. It makes sense that they’d be fans, right?) We’re closing with a couple of doozies. Enjoy.
