Isn't it time for a new election thread?!

[Moe_Syzlak]

As I've stated before on this board, I'm not a lyrics first music listener. That said, I think you can easily appreciate music without subscribing to its messages. For example, I am NOT religious or Christian, yet there is a lot of music about Christ and God and Biblical stories that I love. How is that any different from music that has a political bent one way or the other?

[Analogman]

I clearly admit that my feelings on this are sort of "old fashioned". Music and the people who played it used to take clear political positions and their fans more often than not bought into them. John Lennon wanted to be remembered as a peacenik, rather than a Beatle. That says something. Imagine is NOT simply about unicorns. When people want to be inspired to a higher ideal, they sing this song and it makes them feel better, because it is clearly about something, not about nothing.

 

LouieB

 

The 60s called, they want you to come home. LOL

[uncool2pillow]

BTW, I agree that McCain should respect artists' wishes regarding the use of their music. I think it's a conservative view to respect property including copyright.

 

I'd be more surprised to discover a conservative who loves Rage Against the Machine

I like much of Rage Against the Machine's music. Leftist lyrics aside, it's great music. I think it's somewhat shallow just to say you disagree with someone that they're not saying something worth listening to. Good Old Neon has cited several examples of conservative thinkers he like. I doubt he usually agrees with them.

, or a person who isn't deaf that likes the sound of Jay Farrar's voice.

I'd take Tweedy's over Farrar's. I know I'm in the minority on that one.

[Guest Jules]

Clearly because someone likes a band or singer doesn't mean they have to do everything the same as that band, that's just plain silly. But generally speaking, I would find it hard to listen to too much of an artist (frankly I would not listen to or buy Ted Nuggent's albums ever....but that's me I would never buy Kid Rock either, but that's because he is sort of a jerk and not every good as far as I am concerned).

 

There is a reason that bands keep objecting to McCain using their material at his events, etc., and it's because they don't support him and they don't want to be associated with him in any way. Wilco is clearly and definitely in Obama's camp and if one is particularly uncomfortable with Obama I would think that listening to them would eventually not be something you would want to do, but again, that is just me. If an artist (any kind of artist) is significantly in another political camp it does make me uneasy at certain points and certainly in the case of a musician I really like, I would stop supporting them after awhile.

 

I clearly admit that my feelings on this are sort of "old fashioned". Music and the people who played it used to take clear political positions and their fans more often than not bought into them. John Lennon wanted to be remembered as a peacenik, rather than a Beatle. That says something. Imagine is NOT simply about unicorns. When people want to be inspired to a higher ideal, they sing this song and it makes them feel better, because it is clearly about something, not about nothing.

 

LouieB

Fair enough Lou, but you should understand that many people feel differently, and this really shouldn't surprise you anymore. This is not the 60s. My lack of support for Obama is a personal thing, and Wilco's strong support of Obama has no affect on my appreciation for their music or desire to buy their albums or concert tickets. Same goes for MMJ and others mentioned here.

 

As someone mentioned, if Wilco's lyrics were more politically charged, maybe I would feel differently. I don't think so, but maybe.

 

And my Nugent and Kid Rock references were tongue in cheek.

[austrya]

According to Colbert, there are ironic hipster voters out there.

 

[Duck-Billed Catechist]

"reported"

 

Seriously though, I'm sure they're out there. I just don't know any.

Laura Ingraham or what's her face are, I think.

[Winston Legthigh]

I like much of Rage Against the Machine's music. Leftist lyrics aside, it's great music. I think it's somewhat shallow just to say you disagree with someone that they're not saying something worth listening to. Good Old Neon has cited several examples of conservative thinkers he like. I doubt he usually agrees with them.

 

Right, but I'm assuming RATM's fans are mostly liberal. I don't know what the split is, but I think it's safe to assume it isn't 50/50. A conservative in their fanbase is a rare find, is all I'm saying. I don't have a survey handy, but that's my thesis on the RATM demographics.

[LouieB]

I do like gospel music and some music with religious themes (religion is somewhat different than politics though...), but a steady diet of gospel music isn't something I would like.

 

Wilco is clearly NOT a political band, unlike Rage or Steve Earle. But knowing that Tweedy and company strongly support Obama I would think would make a McCain supporter uncomfortable after awhile...

 

As for not listening to lyrics....that makes songs simply instrumentals....words in songs are important or else the song itself simply isn't that important (yea, the 60s are calling, I suppose that point of view is terribly dated ...)

 

LouieB

[Analogman]

As for not listening to lyrics....that makes songs simply instrumentals....words in songs are important or else the song itself simply isn't that important (yea, the 60s are calling, I suppose that point of view is terribly dated ...)

 

LouieB

 

I agree - Jeff has said some things from the stage that were political in nature.

[LouieB]

Since what musicians sing and their political views don't matter, since Jim James is injured and couldn't play the Obama benefit last night, maybe Kid Rock should have filled in.....same thing if you believe people in this thread....

 

LouieB

[MattZ]

No one's a bigger Lennon fan than me. And I don't think Imagine is about unicorns. But let's be honest. Elvis hit that song on the head. It's a beautiful song, and a beautiful ideal. Sung by a guy with more money and possessions than he knew what to do with.

 

John's head and heart were in the right place, for sure. And he came from nothing, so he knew what it was like to have no possessions. But he wasn't exactly practicing what he was preaching. Not saying he has to. And not saying that it takes away from the beautiful song it is. But that's reality.

[MattZ]

Also, to pick up on the theme of musicians and their politics, I can sympathize with Jules. I try to divorce myself from the personalities and positions of the musicians/artists I like. Plenty of musicians beat their wives, or are assholes, etc. (Any Dylan fans out there get lost during the Christian years?)

 

It's a dangerous recipe. Sometimes it's unavoidable. I dig Wilco but I squirm when Jeff gets too political in concert. That's not why I am there. And I happen to agree with his positions.

[mountain bed]

I think the best political lyrics are those that don't just come out point blank and say things. Like setting a newspaper or magazine article to music. When things are vague enough for the listener to draw their own conclusions, that's what I dig the most.

 

Robert Hunter was a genius at that - you knew he was talking about revolution, but it was expressed in metaphor.

[LouieB]

(Any Dylan fans out there get lost during the Christian years?)

Uh...yes actually he lost me during those years. I have only picked up his Jesus albums since only because I wanted all of his albums, but I almost never listen to them.

 

I can appreciate some of what was written during those years, but I still have little feeling for them.

 

Art that doesn't make you a bit uncomfortable is mostly just entertainment....

 

LouieB

[Moe_Syzlak]

At the risk of putting this thread back on topic, Real Clear has its electoral map with Obama over the 270 mark with Virginia's latest polls.

[John Smith]

My lack of support for Obama is a personal thing,

 

Personal? What did he do to you to make this personal? Did he steal your lunch money? Girlfriend? Give you a flat tire? What????

 

No one's a bigger Lennon fan than me. And I don't think Imagine is about unicorns. But let's be honest. Elvis hit that song on the head. It's a beautiful song, and a beautiful ideal. Sung by a guy with more money and possessions than he knew what to do with.

 

John's head and heart were in the right place, for sure. And he came from nothing, so he knew what it was like to have no possessions. But he wasn't exactly practicing what he was preaching. Not saying he has to. And not saying that it takes away from the beautiful song it is. But that's reality.

 

So if a person has beliefs and ideas they have to live those ideas and beliefs to the hilt? So Lennon writes Imagine and it's invalid because he's not living the utopian dream with no posessions? People have expressed this same notion when Bono lobby's for the poor. But if either one of these guys were destitute no one woudl listen...catch 22 I guess. So extending this how should Nick Cave be living? Is Gene Simmons a phoney for not rocking and rolling every night and partying every day?

[solace]

re: Lennon

 

have you guys ever read Lennon Revealed?

 

he gave to charity a LOT more than was ever reported... just fwiw

[uncool2pillow]

Wow. Real Clear is a conservative Web site too. Doesn't look good for McCain.

[lost highway]

At the risk of putting this thread back on topic, Real Clear has its electoral map with Obama over the 270 mark with Virginia's latest polls.

 

High five!

[Moe_Syzlak]

Wow. Real Clear is a conservative Web site too. Doesn't look good for McCain.

Yeah still a long way to go, but as it stands now, McCain would need to pull all of the "toss up" (and he is currently leading only in IN) and win closer Obama states like Virginia, Wisconsin, Michigan and Washington. Given he has pulled out of Michigan, that doesn't look good.

 

Does anyone know of a way to compare this year's polls to poll's from the same # of weeks out from previous elections? On this site or any other site? That, to me, would be interesting. Are there states, for example, that 4 weeks out kerry was polling with an 8% lead and ending up losing the state.

[uncool2pillow]

Is Gene Simmons a phoney for not rocking and rolling every night and partying every day?

Haven't you seen his reality show? Okay, I haven't does he rock and roll all night and party every day? I bet he did when they wrote the song.

 

In all seriousness, no I don't think John Lennon is not a phony for not living up to the lyrics in Imagine. I would think someone like you who has expressed a lot more passion for those lyrics than I might think he was though. I guess my interpretation of our dialogue is that I appreciate Imagine (and 1000s of other rock songs and other works of art) as a work of art. The unicorns and rainbows were a little belittling, but I stand by the point. You are much more inspired by the lyrics in a political sense. I don't see anything wrong with either of our points of view.

[mountain bed]

We know what we're up against here in Hoosierland, but we're trying, really trying to change some of those attitudes. Indiana really IS the Alabama of the north (sorry, Alabamans).

 

I want this state to turn blue (for the first time since '64) SO badly.

[Analogman]

'Rednecks for Obama' want to bridge yawning culture gap

 

by Michael Mathes Thu Oct 9, 9:50 AM ET

 

SAINT LOUIS, Missouri (AFP) - When Barack Obama's campaign bus made a swing through Missouri in July, the unlikeliest of supporters were waiting for him -- or rather two of them, holding the banner: "Rednecks for Obama."

 

In backing the first African-American nominee of a major party for the US presidency, the pair are on a grassroots mission to bridge a cultural gap in the United States and help usher their preferred candidate into the White House.

 

Tony Viessman, 74, and Les Spencer, 60, got politically active last year when it occurred to them there must be other lower income, rural, beer-drinking, gun-loving, NASCAR race enthusiasts fed up with business as usual in Washington.

 

Viessman had a red, white and blue "Rednecks for Obama" banner made, and began causing a stir in Missouri, which has emerged as a key battleground in the run-up to the November 4 presidential election.

 

"I didn't expect it would get as much steam and attention as it's gotten," Spencer told AFP on the campus of Washington University in Saint Louis, the state's biggest city and site of last week's vice-presidential debate.

 

"We believe in him. He's the best person for the job," Viessman, a former state trooper from Rolla, said of Obama, who met the pair briefly on that July day in Union, Missouri.

 

The candidate bounded off his bus and jogged back towards a roadside crowd to shake hands with the men holding the banner.

 

"He said 'This is incredible'," Spencer recalled.

 

It's been an unexpectedly gratifying run, Viessman said.

 

Rednecks4obama.com claims more than 800,000 online visits. In Denver, Colorado, Viessman and Spencer drew crowds at the Democratic convention, and at Washington University last Thursday they were two of the most popular senior citizens on campus.

 

"I'm shocked, actually, but excited" that such a demographic would be organizing support for Obama, said student Naia Ferguson, 18, said after hamming it up for pictures behind the banner.

 

"When most people think 'redneck,' they think conservatives, anti-change, even anti-integration," she said. "But America's changing, breaking stereotypes."

 

A southern comedian, Jeff Foxworthy, defines the stereotype as a "glorious lack of sophistication".

 

Philistines or not, he said, most rural southerners are no longer proponents of the Old South's most abhorrent ideology -- racism -- and that workaday issues such as the economy are dominating this year's election.

 

"We need to build the economy from the bottom up, none of this trickle down business," Spencer said. "Just because you're white and southern don't mean you have to vote Republican."

 

To an important degree, however, race is still the elephant in the polling booth, experts say, and according to a recent Stanford University poll, Obama could lose six points on election day due to his color.

 

Racism "has softened up some, but it's still there," Viessman acknowledged from Belmont University, site of Tuesday's McCain-Obama debate in Nashville, Tennessee.

 

Despite representing the heartland state of Illinois, and having a more working-class upbringing than his Republican rival John McCain, Obama has struggled to shoot down the impression that he is an arugula-eating elitist.

 

Surely he alienated many rural voters earlier this year when the Harvard-educated senator told a fundraiser that some blue-collar voters "cling to guns or religion".

 

But Viessman, who says he owns a dozen guns, said Obama "ain't gonna take your guns away."

 

The South traditionally votes Republican -- victories for southerners Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter were exceptions -- but with less than a month to election day, four states in or bordering the South are considered toss-ups: Florida, Missouri, North Carolina and Virginia.

 

Viessman says he'd like to think his grassroots movement could sway enough people in small-town America to make a difference.

 

"There's lots of other rednecks for Obama too," he said. "And the ones that's not, we're trying our best to convince them."

[Good Old Neon]

Asking a conservative why and how they like Wilco, is, to me, sort of like asking how on earth a liberal could ever befriend a conservative or a conservative, a liberal.

[austrya]

Asking a conservative why and how they like Wilco, is, to me, sort of like asking how on earth a liberal could ever befriend a conservative or a conservative, a liberal.

 

Or how I could have atheist friends.