World Leader Pretend
September 30, 2008 by Karl McDonald
Filed under Anablog
[youtube:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDhOKNlbuwM]
As the world watches Governor Palin fluff answers to serious questions, muddle more answers than Bertie “Smokes and Daggers” Ahern and generally continue to realise that helping to run The Free World is more difficult than hunting a wolf from a helicopter, my thoughts wander. There was a time before, after eight years of Republican government, that American bands made good, fear-infused music about politics. And for a couple of albums in the late eighties (Life’s Rich Pageant until Green, say), REM got pretty good at it. In the video is a song called World Leader Pretend from (in my opinion) the peak of their powers as a live band. From a time when they were actually good, shall we say.
“This is my mistake/I will make it good/I raised the wall and I will be the one to knock it down”. - Michael Stipe
“In 1998, the Clinton Administration and we in Congress agreed to abolish the United States Information Agency and put its public diplomacy functions inside the State Department. This was a mistake. Dismantling an agency dedicated to promoting America’s message amounted to unilateral disarmament in the struggle of ideas. Communicating our government’s views on day-to-day issues is what the State Department does. But communicating the idea of America, our purpose, our past and our future is a different task. We need to re-create an independent agency with the sole purpose of getting America’s message to the world” - John McCain
Heavy enough for you?
Can’t think of a noughties band who’s done fear/politics/rock music as well as some of the stuff from the 80s, but maybe they don’t need to when Tina Fey’s around:
