Political Message
 

I am not one who goes for the cliche "bush suxxxorz" songs, put out by bands like Greenday, and all of these other wannabe punk bands bands that write songs with a political meaning, just to be accepted by the "Punk Community"

But I really do enjoy a song with good political meaning.
Especially when it is done tastefully and intelligently.

Lately, my favorite kind of music has been politically influenced rap (Immortal Technique, Nas) but I really go for any songs or artists that can get their meanings across in a song and do it with class.

Discuss politics in music, and, reccomend me some good politically influenced music (mainly punk, rap, country)

I think that this could spark some good conversation, kinda was sparked by the idea of a politics forum, but it combines the idea of music and politics

Nausea, Contravene, Crass, Discharge.
Is like awesome x core political music.

I dislike political messages in music, because usually it's predictable, horribly biased, and never very unique. I don't mind it, just so long as it doesn't become more about the message than the music.

Personally, I prefer lyrics that are more introspective rather than, oh gosh the war is so bad blah blah blah.

:laughing: :laughing: :laughing:

See, that isnt the kind of political message I mean.
I can't stand it when a song is filled with "war is ghey"
There is nothing more aggravating than listening to Good Charlotte try to get us to take them seriously, by making a political song

EDIT: I know I keep referencing this song, but it is because it is a great song

The Prophecy- Immortal Technique

I calculate planet alignment like Mayan astronomy
Discovering atrocities worst than Aristotle
Subjecting children to sodomy
Your theory of the galaxy is primitive like telome
The truth about the universe stuck up like Aztec pottery
Unpredictable results like experimental psychology
I stomp the streets with emcee's beneath my feet in colonies
But presentation and spirit revolve around autonomy
Searching for monogamy
And cutting fake bitches out of my mind like a lobotomy
So obviously I'm not gonna be here to play games
Walked the top of the world and leave the arctic circle in
flames
Battle the beast and false prophet predicted in the King James
I give a f**k about your emcee name I don't admire you
Only by dental records will you be identifiable
Cause the future is not reliable
Remember when rap was not economically viable
Comparable to what motherf**kers think of me
I might be nobody but wait till I'm together like a symphony
Resounding sound that will continue infinitely
Angel of death punishing all those who live in infamy
And shine so far away from you
You'll never get a glimpse of me
Attempts to extinguish me don't even bother me none
Like retarded kids throwing ice cubes at the sun
A victory against Immortal Technique will never be done
Just degrees of losing it every second your adding one

Some niggas dream of pushing kilos but I drop tons
With more facts and formulas and philosophical logic
Then a basement full of scientists puffing on chronic
Dip the mic in potassium cyanide and liquid bubonic
And use it as a sonogram to find the spawn of the demonic
Screaming like onyx is of absolutely no consequence
The poison is dense enough to clog up your arteries
Mercy is not a part of me
I cause you bodily injury permanently because simply verbally
murdering me
Is inconceivable cause of the unbelievable evil injected inside
The blood stream of my people
And redemption is not located under a church steeple
The feeble and the meek in soul just like the technique
Will inherit the earth, But the earth will be weak
Mother earth in her decrepit terminal illness physique
The year three thousand is bleak no happily ever after
Just death following the forth reich disaster, a legacy of
bastards
With plastic explosives your futures been eroded
Cause you forgot that when your free it's multiplied
indefinitely
By the struggle that be the struggle I see
To socialistically united the third world countries
Expose hypocrisy in Americas democracy
Sloppily obsessed with stopping me cause I speak prophecy
Trample and dismantle your capitalist philosophy
The same way I stomp the conquering rap monopoly
And I'm not a ****ing prophet
But that's the ****ing prophecy


I think that he makes his point brilliantly in that song, and it is done intelligently, and without complaining
That is one example of what I mean, but to get an even better example of what I mean

Check out

"Dance With The Devil" by Immortal Technique

I (as known to Bungalow) enjoy RATM...maybe too much. But he has also gotten me to start listening to politically based rap.

Yes. They are amazing.
They, and Immortal Technique both have rapped about Mumia Abu-Jamal
He was the Black Panther who was senteneced to death after being convicted of murdering a white cop. This was so contraversial, one, because the death penalty was going to be used, and, to compound that, many were convinced that he didnt recieve a fair trial (which isn't completely unbelievable, considering he was a part of the BPP)
That kind of thing is more the message I'm talking about

Not

"War sucks"

I read a big artical on that and I didn't understand the whole deal. Was Mumia being shot at for a wrong reason or what?

i like RATM a lot. for reasons both political and musical. i like the politically geared music because while a lot of it is just repeating "FUCK THE GOVERNMENT" or "ANARCHY ANARCHY ANARCHY", some of it actually is based on events that affect our lives, and explains why the government is failing or not doing its job. the political messages in music just make it clear that the issues affect everyone. at least thats my opinion.

I'll say what I know...

The whole contraversy was....

He was an out spoken member of the BPP
The FBI had COINTELPRO, an agency designed to get information from Political Associations like BPP
Therefore, he could have very well been a target of COINTELPRO, considering anotherBPP was convicted of murder under "quetionable circumstances"
Supposedly, Jamal was standing over the cops body, firing down onto him
It was said that, while on the ground, the officer fired back, hitting Jamal in the shoulder
If someone was below you, at shot at you, the bullet would enter your body at an upward angle
This wasn't the case, the bullet was lodged in Jamal's shoulder at a downward angle
Therefore saying that,the officer fired at Jamal while standing straight up
So therefore, Jamal killing the officer can be turned into self defense
For some reason, this evidendece was thrown out.....?
Many witnesses who testified against Jamal, after the trial said that they were paid or black mailed by the government into giving the jury the story provided to them

This is just some of the inconsistencies, I do not know everything about the case

That information right there is enough for me to believe that this was a very "shady" conviction

As i said earlier alot of crust/anarcho punk is politically driven. Contravene and Nausea being my favorites you should really check them out.

I concur.

What about Springsteens song "Devil's and Dust" which is a fictional introspection testimony from a solider in war.

Theres more than one way to approach a song, and while some songs come right out and say the usual stuff (sabbath "war pigs") this is a song that looks at it from a diffrent prespective.

Im sort of wondering what you think about songs like this.

In my opinion, songs can be as political as they want, blatantly or otherwise, but the key is to offer a solution to the problems they're talking about. Green Day can talk about how much Bush sucks all day and into the night, but it's not as if Billy Joe Armstrong would know what to do if we put him in the white house. And who would he suggest putting in there, anyway? Kerry? Why? That's the biggest problem I have with politically influenced music, people not knowing what they're talking about, and not offering any solutions.

On a side note, another "political" musician who annoys the **** out of me is John Mellencamp. If you guys like his music, fine, but he's always seemed like a really bland, untalented Springsteen rip-off to me. These days, he's apparently a big symbol for pro-democratic, anti-Bush rock music. He started pulling all this political bull**** at the Bridge School Benefit (if you don't know what it is, it's a concert Neil Young does to benefit a school his wife made for kids with cerebral palsy), not even close to being the right time or place. On top of that, the messages in his songs were no better than Green Day's, just a bunch of "Hey man, Bush is a mean, stupid old redneck" junk. **** that, worst act of the evening (to put that in perspective, Good Charlotte performed that night), and completely broke the mood. Sorry for the Mellencamp rant, I felt like it fit.

Big3, I agree that it's cool to see musicians approaching politics from a different perspective. One example (sort of) is John Coltrane's "Alabama", which he wrote as a companion piece to MLK's eulogy for the girls killed in Alabama, back in the 60's. It doesn't have any lyrics, but it's interesting how the mood of the music fits perfectly with the subject matter.

To piggy back off your comments though, sometimes political messages aren't directly about politics.

Mellancamp's "Rain on the scarecrow" is about the loss of farmland in america's bread basket. Thats a song that paints a pitcutre of how things are, but only tlaks about the farmers, not the way politicians are ignoreing their needs and outsourcing jobs like famring. You're made awre of it, and thats rather political in itself.

Also, Fogerty's "Have you ever seen rain" which doens't come out to say anything directly, but has its foot in political motivation.

The tough thing is to ablance message and music. I like "American Idiot" because the music is pretty good, and has a great vocal melody.

Yeah, those are valid examples of well-handled political songwriting. In fact, that's probably the best kind, because instead of telling people what to think, they're (at least, the Mellencamp song, from what you're saying) presenting the situation and evidence, and allowing people to come to their own conclusions. Which is great, in a modern age when kids' minds are getting programmed by parents/tv/bands/whatever, at way to early of an age. Like I said, what I've got issues with are people not knowing what they're talking about, and just mindless, aimless hatred/whining that doesn't lead to any way out of the situation.


I also agree that it's completely fine to like a political song for reasons other than the political arguments.

I personally don't mind politics in music at all.. There are a lot of people (myself included) who listen for the music first, lyrics second. Just because I don't agree with everything Zach De la Rocha says (and I don't), doesn't mean that I don't think RATM make (er… made) great music.

I believe that music (or most art, for that matter) doesn't really dictate peoples' basic values or political thinking - It just reinforces it. If you agree with someone's lyrics, you're probably going to think the music is good… even if it really isn't; And if you don't agree with someone's lyrics, you may think the music sucks… even if it doesn't. Or, you may be like myself, and not really care all that much… as long as it sounds good to you.

Thank you for bringing this thread back.
I agree, many times if I hear a song, and I think that the lyrics are wack, I will probably think to myself

"This song really sucks"

This may not be true, but, lyrics are a very important part of a song. As I have said before, I really can't stand all of the "war is ghey blah blah" politics that wannabe punk bands spew all over the place. Political messages should be done tastefully and intelligently. BYOB, was a terrible song in my opinion. I really don't think that SOAD articualted their point well at all. RATM on the other hand can get their point across effectively and have the spine to stand up for things that may not be too popular to stand up for.

^ At Loloapalooza they came out bare ass naked and stood there for 15 minutes or so protesting the mothers for censorship orginzation with guitar feeding back the whole time. Then they played.

I do prefer it when a band/artist articulates their political (or anti-political) views in an effective manner; Which is just one of the many reasons why I think Radiohead's "Hail to the Thief" was a great album - They were able to make an indirect political statement without directly spelling it out, and without letting it overpower their music… especially evident in a song like "2 + 2 = 5"

I'd be interested in hearing some Immortal Technique bill.

and I'm not a huge political message kinda guy. I like introspection and personal beliefs (such as faith or postive lifestyles or veganism) as lyrics more so than an agenda.

I don't mind it at all if it's done in an interesting manner, I don't even really mind Black Sabbath, I guess I'm just venting at punk bands who, while usually making valid points, rarely make new ones and just don't bring them across in an interesting manner.

I'm all about creativity and expressing feelings, but sometimes it becomes too much of a lecture and not enough of a means of expressing emotions.

Immortal Technique is the shizz.

I like some political lyrics. But I only like when an artist really gets stuck into what they believe.

Thats why I like RATM so much. They put so much energy into making their opinions felt that you almost didn't care what they were fighting for, as long as you were on their side and not on the recieving end. The fact that they were fighting for peoples rights did make it that much more emphatic however.

To really generalise right now, Greendays American Idiot is a terrible effort at being political. The presentation is not there. It's too watery and theres no punch whatsoever. Rage could have used the exact same lyrics and made a killer song out of it. Even though it's really short by their standards, I have no doubt that they would throw everything they had into that song and pulled it off.

My point is, I don't care if bands sing about cliched politics, I only care that they do it with some goddamn vindiction and passion. Politics play a massive part in peoples lives, in some places they are critical, and if a band is going to go down the political path I only wish they put their heart, arse and testicles into what they're fighting for.

Actually, this song was about heroin use by soldiers in Vietnam. That was their slang term for heroin "the rain" :pimp:

You're right that is a good song. If you haven't heard listen to it...now.

Rage Against the Machine's lyrics and political message I can identify with. While system of a Down I really like whenever they try any political lyrics it ends up sounding really juvenile to me.

Im pretty sure I read that in an interview, he said he didn't want to write a song that was topic and would be weaked by time.

I`d rather sit through the entre Tory/Labour/Lib Dem party conferences than ever listen to a Billy Bragg album

Right now I'm listening to Ghengis Khan by Jedi Mind Tricks, and, if I am hearing correctly, they have jumped behind the " fight for Mumia " wagon. It is a really good song, and once again, they actually have the ability to say something, without it sounding cheesy and lame.

"On my way to Philly to fight for Mumia/Only thug gorrilas will react to this/the laws try to destroy black activists"

One thing that really ticks me off is when people refer to African American people who are racist, as "reverse racism" I was listening to some song, and the guy was talking about rasicm, and he mentioned this so-called "reverse rasicm" How is that "reverse", it is the same thing as any other kind of rasicm. I just don't understand what makes that "reverse"

Alright. So today, I was talking to some kid at school, and he is really into country music. His favorite country artist is David Alan Coe.

I told him that I can't stand David Alan Coe, because he is a rasict, sexist, pig. He has a couple songs that he has written, and a couple that he has covered, that are blatantly rasict (****** Hatin' Me, Leroy The Big-Lipped ******) That is plenty enough reason for me to hate an artist. Then, the kid I'm talking to says "He isn't a rasict, he just doesn't like ******s" I then asked him to define "******" and he said that a ****** is a rasict black person.

So I asked him, what is the difference between Chris Rock making a rasict joke, and David Alan Coe making a song that is blatantly rasict? Why is it ok for David Alan Coe to do it, but not, Dr. Dre or any other rapper?

It shouldn't be accepted in either case. I especially hate it when artists attempt to make their rasict songs, seem like they contain some sort of a political meaning.

what about bright eyes? his song ' when the president talks to god ' is genius. When the President talks to God,
are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our womens rights,
and send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike,
when the President talks to God?

When the President talks to God,
are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind,
when the President talks to God?

When the President talks to God,
does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed,
when the President talks to God?

When the President talks to God,
I wonder which one plays the better cop.
"We should find some jobs, the ghetto's broke,"
"No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't;
just give 'em more liqour stores and dirty coke!"
That's what God recommends.

When the President talks to God,
do they drink near beer and go play golf
while they pick which countries to invade,
which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess God just calls a spade a spade
when the President talks to God.

When the President talks to God,
does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head,
when he kneels next to the presidential bed?
Does he ever smell his own bull****?
When the President talks to God?
I doubt it...I doubt it.