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Author Topic: Was Student Demonstration Time an attempt at propaganda?  (Read 5993 times)
CenturyDeprived
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« on: January 20, 2017, 09:57:24 PM »

It has just occurred to me, being that we are in such an incredibly contentious time right now, with tons of young people taking to the streets to protest, that fear of violence and possible excessive reprisal from law enforcement could well be motivating factors that would dissuade someone from actually ever taking to the streets and marching against Trump.

And I tend to think that such a fear it would be exactly the type of fear that Trump would greatly *want* to instill in people; I don't believe that his administration wants to remotely deal with any activists with opposing opinions.  Not in the slightest way possible. Granted, that could be said for most any president, but this president in particular seems like someone who would be especially quick to immediately brush anyone off and not even acknowledge anything they would be saying whatsoever in any capacity.  And someone who would do so in as rude and dismissive a way as possible.

While I have always viewed this song as simply a rather innocuous and somewhat lame attempt at telling the listener to "be careful" in a dangerous situation, it almost feels like this is the type of song that would be played for someone young, to specifically send them a message - the very same message that would be propagated by the conservative powers that be. It makes me wonder if there was any such motivation behind the song when it was written.  I'm not implying that Nixon put Mike up to writing it. Only that if that actually had happened, it would actually make perfect sense.  If Elvis had released the song, people will probably be wondering that very question due to their actual connection!

On the other hand, it might just be incidental propaganda, a song that happens to give a propaganda-type message by sheer coincidence of the writer happening to have the same goal as the powers that be (stopping protesters before they start).  Either way, I can see the current administration wanting to create similar "don't protest, just stay home" propaganda this time around, and the song would seemingly fit right into their message.  It makes the song just seem so much more lame in hindsight.  It's basically saying that people shouldn't try to be the next Rosa Parks... which is problematic because where would we be without people like that in our history?   That said, even if it's square as f*ck, I can still "get" the point that Mike was trying to drive home to a certain degree.

Hopefully this isn't Sandbox territory, I'm just trying to tie and current events with the actual song and examine how the song's message is oddly particularly topical for one particular political side today.  I guess ultimately the song simply just reflects a conservative risk-averse viewpoint, but it's funny to think how such a song, if it wasn't widely considered a laughable, harebrained attempt at something political, could actually be utilized by a politician to influence public opinion.
« Last Edit: January 20, 2017, 10:12:22 PM by CenturyDeprived » Logged
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« Reply #1 on: January 20, 2017, 10:17:24 PM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.
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« Reply #2 on: January 20, 2017, 10:23:18 PM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.

Right. And I guess I get that sentiment and can't exactly completely argue with it, but it's oddly the exact same sentiment I would expect being propagated from both law enforcement and this administration, just wrapped up in the context of a pop song.
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« Reply #3 on: January 20, 2017, 10:36:25 PM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.

Right. And I guess I get that sentiment and can't exactly completely argue with it, but it's oddly the exact same sentiment I would expect from both law enforcement or this administration, just wrapped up in the context of a pop song.

Look who wrote those lyrics. Mike was no revolutionary. It's a very establishment-friendly message, indeed.
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« Reply #4 on: January 20, 2017, 10:41:28 PM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.

Right. And I guess I get that sentiment and can't exactly completely argue with it, but it's oddly the exact same sentiment I would expect from both law enforcement or this administration, just wrapped up in the context of a pop song.

Look who wrote those lyrics. Mike was no revolutionary. It's a very establishment-friendly message, indeed.

Totally. Yet if an administration actively sought to have subtle propaganda trickling into the media in order to influence public opinion, I could see this song being exactly what they would want to intentionally concoct. Again, I'm not suggesting a conspiracy, just that even though I'm sure it wasn't, nevertheless it oddly and hilariously plays as though it was actually conceived by a conservative politician making a secret pact with a musician. Still, I'm sure that such secret pacts between government and media have occurred in media now and again throughout the years. It's funny to think perhaps this was Mike's Argo Smiley
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« Reply #5 on: January 20, 2017, 11:52:23 PM »

Character-wise, wouldn't it be more like Mike to write the songs specifically to suck up to Nixon?
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« Reply #6 on: January 20, 2017, 11:55:11 PM »

Character-wise, wouldn't it be more like Mike to write the songs specifically to suck up to Nixon?

One almost wonders if this would've been an attempt to get invited to the Nixon White House the way Elvis did.
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« Reply #7 on: January 21, 2017, 01:22:06 AM »

That would have meant ditching Jack since he was hard left. But I wouldn't put it past Mike to do that.
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« Reply #8 on: January 21, 2017, 05:44:18 AM »

Pretty sure that SDT being penned by Mike Love was not a genuine attempt to make political messages, but purely to attempt to be relevant musically in those times with the social revolution and anti-war movement etc.

That the guy supported and played "in honour" of Trump all these years later shows the guy never had any integrity about what he was doing in those late 60s - early 70s years. He was just aspiring fame and relevance then as now. Bruce is also in this bag but at least he had the integrity to quit to preserve his "conservative conscience", whatever that may be regarded as...
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« Reply #9 on: January 21, 2017, 05:46:29 AM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.

Right. And I guess I get that sentiment and can't exactly completely argue with it, but it's oddly the exact same sentiment I would expect being propagated from both law enforcement and this administration, just wrapped up in the context of a pop song.

Actually it's a near identical sentiment to "Revolution" which, at the time, was viewed as an anti-protest song. The Beatles caught a lot of flak for that and the counterculture embraced more committed material like "Street Fighting Man".

I always thought of the lyrics to SDT as a rip off of "Revolution" myself.
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« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2017, 06:13:13 AM »

If you read the lyrics to "Revolution" it comes across as both a call for non-violence (always a good idea) and a put down of radical leftists. Certainly, the latter group took it that way and there's a lot of literature out there about how they felt betrayed by Lennon. It's no surprise, I guess, that Lennon (perhaps stung by the criticism) would very publicly embrace the protest movement the following year...and then stuck with it until HE felt betrayed.
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« Reply #11 on: January 21, 2017, 06:22:21 AM »

Lennon in his concept of Revolution is saying he's conflicted, he's sitting on the fence as to whether he goes all in or sits it out. There is an interview where he said the one line that is only on the "slow" version on the White Album crystallized it: "you can count me out...in". It was Lennon himself being indecisive, but then saying Ok, I'm in. Quite a few of Lennon's lyrics whether about revolution, or love, or anything else are along the same lines of "I'm not sure yet what to do...".

The line "out...in" was cut out when the decision was made, in some ways according to Lennon against his wishes, to speed it up and make it more of a "single" with a harder beat and more rocking sound, and that was the more familiar version that got used as the B-side of Hey Jude. So on the version that was designated as more likely to be a single, Lennon only says "count me out". But that wasn't where he was at or what he was thinking when he wrote the song, if anything it felt like Lennon thought he compromised the lyric for commercial reasons of getting a more single-friendly tune.
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« Reply #12 on: January 21, 2017, 06:32:36 AM »

Lennon in his concept of Revolution is saying he's conflicted, he's sitting on the fence as to whether he goes all in or sits it out. There is an interview where he said the one line that is only on the "slow" version on the White Album crystallized it: "you can count me out...in". It was Lennon himself being indecisive, but then saying Ok, I'm in. Quite a few of Lennon's lyrics whether about revolution, or love, or anything else are along the same lines of "I'm not sure yet what to do...".

The line "out...in" was cut out when the decision was made, in some ways according to Lennon against his wishes, to speed it up and make it more of a "single" with a harder beat and more rocking sound, and that was the more familiar version that got used as the B-side of Hey Jude. So on the version that was designated as more likely to be a single, Lennon only says "count me out". But that wasn't where he was at or what he was thinking when he wrote the song, if anything it felt like Lennon thought he compromised the lyric for commercial reasons of getting a more single-friendly tune.

He said in reference to how it was perceived at the time, prefacing that with "There were two versions but the underground left only picked up on the one."

He said in the same 69 interview that he said "out" on the single because "he didn't want to get killed".

The point is, the Stones seemingly had no such misgivings or second thoughts and as many have said, with the release of Street Fighting Man they became the counterculture band.
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« Reply #13 on: January 21, 2017, 06:49:08 AM »

Lennon in his concept of Revolution is saying he's conflicted, he's sitting on the fence as to whether he goes all in or sits it out. There is an interview where he said the one line that is only on the "slow" version on the White Album crystallized it: "you can count me out...in". It was Lennon himself being indecisive, but then saying Ok, I'm in. Quite a few of Lennon's lyrics whether about revolution, or love, or anything else are along the same lines of "I'm not sure yet what to do...".

The line "out...in" was cut out when the decision was made, in some ways according to Lennon against his wishes, to speed it up and make it more of a "single" with a harder beat and more rocking sound, and that was the more familiar version that got used as the B-side of Hey Jude. So on the version that was designated as more likely to be a single, Lennon only says "count me out". But that wasn't where he was at or what he was thinking when he wrote the song, if anything it felt like Lennon thought he compromised the lyric for commercial reasons of getting a more single-friendly tune.

He said in reference to how it was perceived at the time, prefacing that with "There were two versions but the underground left only picked up on the one."

He said in the same 69 interview that he said "out" on the single because "he didn't want to get killed".

The point is, the Stones seemingly had no such misgivings or second thoughts and as many have said, with the release of Street Fighting Man they became the counterculture band.

Lennon specifically said he wasn't sure, hence the "count me out...in" lyric.

The Stones were both conceived and perceived as the "bad boys" of the teen rock scene going back to when they first hit the bigger circuits. They were the band whose members your parents wouldn't want you to hang out with, so they always had the aura of that around them, whether sexual or political in later years. In the early days, it was 100% by design of their management too. Street Fighting Man was as much an update of Dancin In The Streets with current lyrics as it was a counterculture anthem.

If any song that cracked the mainstream was a "counterculture" song if not an outright anthem, it was Stills' "For What It's Worth". That came from one of the epicenters of the youth movement before the mainstream press even picked up on it, home to various Be-Ins and the Sunset Strip "riots" and the like. Street Fighting Man was in the counterculture lexicon, for sure, but nowhere near what bands like the MC5 were doing...I'd even go as far as to include the Dead and Country Joe and a number of others before the Stones in that regard.
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« Reply #14 on: January 21, 2017, 08:28:56 AM »

Lennon in his concept of Revolution is saying he's conflicted, he's sitting on the fence as to whether he goes all in or sits it out. There is an interview where he said the one line that is only on the "slow" version on the White Album crystallized it: "you can count me out...in". It was Lennon himself being indecisive, but then saying Ok, I'm in. Quite a few of Lennon's lyrics whether about revolution, or love, or anything else are along the same lines of "I'm not sure yet what to do...".

The line "out...in" was cut out when the decision was made, in some ways according to Lennon against his wishes, to speed it up and make it more of a "single" with a harder beat and more rocking sound, and that was the more familiar version that got used as the B-side of Hey Jude. So on the version that was designated as more likely to be a single, Lennon only says "count me out". But that wasn't where he was at or what he was thinking when he wrote the song, if anything it felt like Lennon thought he compromised the lyric for commercial reasons of getting a more single-friendly tune.

He said in reference to how it was perceived at the time, prefacing that with "There were two versions but the underground left only picked up on the one."

He said in the same 69 interview that he said "out" on the single because "he didn't want to get killed".

The point is, the Stones seemingly had no such misgivings or second thoughts and as many have said, with the release of Street Fighting Man they became the counterculture band.

Lennon specifically said he wasn't sure, hence the "count me out...in" lyric.

The Stones were both conceived and perceived as the "bad boys" of the teen rock scene going back to when they first hit the bigger circuits. They were the band whose members your parents wouldn't want you to hang out with, so they always had the aura of that around them, whether sexual or political in later years. In the early days, it was 100% by design of their management too. Street Fighting Man was as much an update of Dancin In The Streets with current lyrics as it was a counterculture anthem.

If any song that cracked the mainstream was a "counterculture" song if not an outright anthem, it was Stills' "For What It's Worth". That came from one of the epicenters of the youth movement before the mainstream press even picked up on it, home to various Be-Ins and the Sunset Strip "riots" and the like. Street Fighting Man was in the counterculture lexicon, for sure, but nowhere near what bands like the MC5 were doing...I'd even go as far as to include the Dead and Country Joe and a number of others before the Stones in that regard.

While I agree with all that (and considering Lennon spent the next 4 years screaming into a megaphone "Get it together! Violence is not the answer" so his indecision lasted about all of a week) you have to look at the literature of the times. The Stones' "Street Fighting Man", whatever its merits in retrospect, was taken very seriously and was definitely a counterculture anthem (naive as it may seem).

As for SDT...like much of the Jack Reilly era it seems contrived and plastic. Sort of like "Yeah, we'll book you to play the peace festivals, we'll chuck in a reference to Kent State..the college kids will eat it up!"
It's a credit to the group's talent that they managed to musically rise above the cynical gameplan at work.
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« Reply #15 on: January 21, 2017, 08:54:25 AM »

Lennon in his concept of Revolution is saying he's conflicted, he's sitting on the fence as to whether he goes all in or sits it out. There is an interview where he said the one line that is only on the "slow" version on the White Album crystallized it: "you can count me out...in". It was Lennon himself being indecisive, but then saying Ok, I'm in. Quite a few of Lennon's lyrics whether about revolution, or love, or anything else are along the same lines of "I'm not sure yet what to do...".

The line "out...in" was cut out when the decision was made, in some ways according to Lennon against his wishes, to speed it up and make it more of a "single" with a harder beat and more rocking sound, and that was the more familiar version that got used as the B-side of Hey Jude. So on the version that was designated as more likely to be a single, Lennon only says "count me out". But that wasn't where he was at or what he was thinking when he wrote the song, if anything it felt like Lennon thought he compromised the lyric for commercial reasons of getting a more single-friendly tune.

He said in reference to how it was perceived at the time, prefacing that with "There were two versions but the underground left only picked up on the one."

He said in the same 69 interview that he said "out" on the single because "he didn't want to get killed".

The point is, the Stones seemingly had no such misgivings or second thoughts and as many have said, with the release of Street Fighting Man they became the counterculture band.

Lennon specifically said he wasn't sure, hence the "count me out...in" lyric.

The Stones were both conceived and perceived as the "bad boys" of the teen rock scene going back to when they first hit the bigger circuits. They were the band whose members your parents wouldn't want you to hang out with, so they always had the aura of that around them, whether sexual or political in later years. In the early days, it was 100% by design of their management too. Street Fighting Man was as much an update of Dancin In The Streets with current lyrics as it was a counterculture anthem.

If any song that cracked the mainstream was a "counterculture" song if not an outright anthem, it was Stills' "For What It's Worth". That came from one of the epicenters of the youth movement before the mainstream press even picked up on it, home to various Be-Ins and the Sunset Strip "riots" and the like. Street Fighting Man was in the counterculture lexicon, for sure, but nowhere near what bands like the MC5 were doing...I'd even go as far as to include the Dead and Country Joe and a number of others before the Stones in that regard.

While I agree with all that (and considering Lennon spent the next 4 years screaming into a megaphone "Get it together! Violence is not the answer" so his indecision lasted about all of a week) you have to look at the literature of the times. The Stones' "Street Fighting Man", whatever its merits in retrospect, was taken very seriously and was definitely a counterculture anthem (naive as it may seem).

As for SDT...like much of the Jack Reilly era it seems contrived and plastic. Sort of like "Yeah, we'll book you to play the peace festivals, we'll chuck in a reference to Kent State..the college kids will eat it up!"
It's a credit to the group's talent that they managed to musically rise above the cynical gameplan at work.

Yeah, I'm not diminishing Street Fighting Man at all, or its impact at the time, but for me it feels like a "Lite" version of some of the really hardcore music that was going on, and not just the MC5 but the bands and music that truly was under the radar because it didn't sell.

I mean, look at the Woodstock film almost 50 years after the event. Country Joe and Country Joe and The Fish are given some of the biggest applause and attention, they were a huge deal at the festival. But - Outside of that, where are they? They got dropped from almost all playlists, and are virtually unknown unless someone under 40 somehow watches the Woodstock film. Yet, at that time, Fixin To Die Rag in many, many circles was an anthem.

Before I started digging into the history, I didn't think Stills' For What It's Worth was as important as it really was, but consider that was 1966/early 67 in the timeline. That was before a lot of the lines Stills wrote were starting to get reported widely. I think that song encapsulated what created it more than Eve Of Destruction - Not as much from PF Sloan's side of the coin, but after hearing Barry McGuire read the lyrics off cue cards because he was disinterested in it. That changed the song's impact for me, it was a guy reciting lyrics off cue cards that made the record. Sloan was feeling the song...the singer wasn't. Game changer. Stills for the win.

Consider even Street Fighting Man has lyrics that suggest the same indecision as Lennon's Revolution. yeah, Mick sings all this is going on, it's a revolution, yeah...but what's a poor boy to do but sing in a rock and roll band? There's just no place for a street fighting man.

Even Mick as narrator is torn between being counted in or saying count me out. He's more of a reporter as narrator, injecting some commentary, but erasing any commitment by saying 'what am I to do, I sing rock and roll'.

It's along the same lines as Lennon's non-commitment on Revolution. But for me, the year 1968 puts both of them a little bit late to the game. Stills nailed it, the CBS news crew that filmed Inside Pop in late 1966 nailed it with David Oppenheim. That was one of the epicenters, and that was some of what cracked the mainstream over a year before the Stones or Lennon reached the airwaves.
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« Reply #16 on: January 21, 2017, 09:31:57 AM »

That's something that has fascinated me for the past few years: how that history is perceived now -vs- how it was perceived as it happened. You and I are (I think) around the same age so we read all about The Velvet Underground and The MC5, while those bands were a complete non-factor for Rock fans at the time. There's even a level of resentment toward later generations cherry-picking the "greats" -one of the reasons Pet Sounds was such a tough sell for my radio audience; who haven't read the history books, don't have the internet, etc.
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« Reply #17 on: January 21, 2017, 09:46:37 AM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.

Right. And I guess I get that sentiment and can't exactly completely argue with it, but it's oddly the exact same sentiment I would expect being propagated from both law enforcement and this administration, just wrapped up in the context of a pop song.

Actually it's a near identical sentiment to "Revolution" which, at the time, was viewed as an anti-protest song. The Beatles caught a lot of flak for that and the counterculture embraced more committed material like "Street Fighting Man".

I always thought of the lyrics to SDT as a rip off of "Revolution" myself.

John wrote letters to underground papers denying that Revolution was pro- Establishment. He was in favor of the movement, but didn't know whether he was in favor of non-violent or violent protest (as noted by the constant change in the lyrics "when you talk about destruction don't you know that you can count me out, in").  The line about carrying pictures about Chairman Mao was a warning that that would actually harm and undermine the actual movement. This is all documented in Ian MacDonald's REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD and Jon Wiener's books about Lennon. Mike's lyrics say "stay home. Getting your head busted in is not worth it".
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« Reply #18 on: January 21, 2017, 10:58:02 AM »

It tells quite a different story than "Revolution". I do believe Mike is saying "don't be a martyr". The Boys, and many of their audience, weren't really counterculture figures at all.

Right. And I guess I get that sentiment and can't exactly completely argue with it, but it's oddly the exact same sentiment I would expect being propagated from both law enforcement and this administration, just wrapped up in the context of a pop song.

Actually it's a near identical sentiment to "Revolution" which, at the time, was viewed as an anti-protest song. The Beatles caught a lot of flak for that and the counterculture embraced more committed material like "Street Fighting Man".

I always thought of the lyrics to SDT as a rip off of "Revolution" myself.

John wrote letters to underground papers denying that Revolution was pro- Establishment. He was in favor of the movement, but didn't know whether he was in favor of non-violent or violent protest (as noted by the constant change in the lyrics "when you talk about destruction don't you know that you can count me out, in").  The line about carrying pictures about Chairman Mao was a warning that that would actually harm and undermine the actual movement. This is all documented in Ian MacDonald's REVOLUTION IN THE HEAD and Jon Wiener's books about Lennon. Mike's lyrics say "stay home. Getting your head busted in is not worth it".

Lennon knew very quickly which side of the argument he was going to be on. His fleeting indecision was captured on tape but it shouldn't be blown out of proportion. Lennon advocated non-violent protest.
Mike's lyrics reference the Kent State shooting but note that the guards came "battle-dressed" to a peace rally, essentially faulting them for the shooting. Mike is aligning himself with the counter-culture in the song. As these demonstrations continued to escalate into violence and in the climate of the times with cops looking to start riots, telling kids to stay away wasn't a bad idea. It was turning into a set-up. "The police will make sure there's a riot for them to contain,etc".

That said, I wish they had just covered "Riot..." instead. This song always sounds like bandwagon jumping to me.
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« Reply #19 on: January 21, 2017, 11:20:58 AM »

It sounds like bandwagon jumping, desperation to be relevant too late to the game, and above all it couldn't even be an original song. It is easily one of my least favorites and least played in the entire BB's catalog, mostly because it's more or less a cover of Leiber and Stoller with ham-fisted and desperate for relevance lyrics. The only saving grace I listen for if I do give it a spin is the work Stephen Desper did in recording it.
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« Reply #20 on: January 21, 2017, 06:51:31 PM »

It sounds like bandwagon jumping, desperation to be relevant too late to the game, and above all it couldn't even be an original song. It is easily one of my least favorites and least played in the entire BB's catalog, mostly because it's more or less a cover of Leiber and Stoller with ham-fisted and desperate for relevance lyrics. The only saving grace I listen for if I do give it a spin is the work Stephen Desper did in recording it.

Yea I agree completely. I wish he at least tried to write an original song. Its just such a stupid idea to cover a 50s song like that with those type of lyrics. Wasn't that type of song totally outdated by 1971?

Honestly, maybe its because I'm in my mid-30s now and so much "revolution" stuff has been going on nowadays but any song that would advocate for violence or rioting is so extremely dumb to me. And I certainly don't think "Street Fighting Man" has anything to do with advocating for that. I dunno, I just feel like people nowadays are spoiled and entitled and have no real reason to be doing this, so now it looks incredibly dumb to me in general.
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Ed Roach
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« Reply #21 on: January 21, 2017, 07:00:07 PM »

While I haven't read this whole thread, I assume you all know that The Boys originally performed this song as Riot in Cell Block #9.  Mike rewrote the lyrics, but I think the song elicited a stronger audience response as the original.  Here are 2 versions, although I'm sure someone can post The Boys, at least from an audience recording

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GuDnwc0KSw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2vAZ-yKe-6c
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Ed Roach
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« Reply #22 on: January 21, 2017, 07:23:35 PM »

Should have looked myself before posting that, because of course there are YouTube versions by The Boys:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1fWYA0nuKo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00ZrvGZkMSM
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Rocky Raccoon
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« Reply #23 on: January 22, 2017, 12:33:29 AM »

They had also previously recorded Riot In Cell Block #9 during the Party sessions.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yUbFI3zxXao
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adamghost
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« Reply #24 on: January 22, 2017, 01:18:28 AM »

I always thought "Revolution" had one of the most astute moments of political commentary ever stated by anyone, musician or no:

"You say you want a revolution,
well you know,
we'd all love to see the plan."

Effective action requires more than talk and desire; it requires commitment and preparation.  Nailed it.

Especially in '68, a very clear-eyed assessment of the perils and dictates of change.  Always loved it.

Mike's SDT is actually interesting; he's clearly not excusing the establishment's actions, but he is certainly cautioning people that they could get themselves killed at the same time.  In terms of acknowledging both the tenor of the times and the hard realities, it does share a little DNA with "Revolution."
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