Trapped in a library somewhere in the United States, our correspondent's only means of communication is...
My Word's Worth
WE WILL ROCK YOU
In case you're wondering why I know more about rock music than a fiftyish
lady has any business knowing, blame it on my love for poetry. It all began
when I was trying to find out who sang the line "Freedom's just another word
for nothing left to lose." I went to my quote books and discovered that
there was no quote book of rock music lyrics.
So my son and I edited a collection of great lines from rock music, only to
discover that the reason no such book existed was that publishers didn't
want to mess with getting hundreds of permissions from hundreds of
publishers. The end result is that we have an unpublished manuscript, and
thousands of lines from rock music floating around inside our heads.
That turns out not to be a bad thing. The lyrics I am talking about are
first class poetry. I was amazed to find out how much superb language is
being lost to grownups who don't listen to their kids' music. I am
convinced that if poets wish to be heard, they need to form rock bands and
sing their words.
Poetry, like epigrams and jokes, has the virtue of brevity and wit. It
crystallizes
complex ideas and emotions in a few perfectly chosen words that can start
you thinking, or help to sum up your thinking.
Many of my columns have taken off from a particularly good rock music quote.
Take my musings on our Congress, for example. When I wanted to talk about
why the Republican leaders are so scary, the words of the J. Geils Band
came into my head: "Briefcases drawn and loaded, these men travel halls in
packs, deciding mankind's future." These guys are so caught up in ideology,
they have no understanding of the complexity of issues, and they don't even
try to find common ground. They are more interested in grandstanding for
their C-SPAN audience. "Listen to the Congress where they propagate
confusion primitive and wild." [R.E.M.] They are so very, very certain,
and so very, very wrong that it frightens me, because I agree with
R.E.M.--"the only thing to fear is fearlessness." And our Republican
leaders care so little about what their policies will do to ordinary people;
it makes me think of the Church's line: "Oh, what a feeling, baby,
knowledge and brutality."
When Gingrich brings the polluters into the conference rooms of Congress to
write their own environmental rules, and the NRA in to write the crime
legislation, how can you NOT think of Peter Schilling's song, "Let's Play
U.S.A."?
Won't it be a lot of fun? Every man will own a gun.
Shoot the one whose point of view makes a point that bothers
you
Go on and pollute the land. Clean air will be sold in cans.
Did you hear the master plan? One nation under Disneyland!
When I worry about the government abandoning any responsibility for our
children and our homeless and our unemployed, I think in the words of U-2:
"We're one, but we're not the same. We get to carry each other." Because
the problem is, if we hide ourselves away in our rich, tidy suburbs, and
allow bad things to happen to the hopeless people at the bottom, the bad
things spread, and affect us all in time. The Grateful Dead had it right
when they said "Wherever we run, we'll never get far from what we leave
behind; we can run, run, run, but we can't hide."
You know, one of the great things about America was that we always used to
make sure that everyone had a chance to succeed. That's what our public
libraries and schools and universities, and the scholarships and loans that
made it possible for poor kids to get there were all about. But our new
leaders are starving our public institutions of oxygen and cash; it's
getting to the point where success comes to those who choose their parents
carefully. Your Martin Newell says it all: "Lots of well off older people,
not so many young. Shall we help them climb the ladder? Let's remove the
bottom rung."
When I hear vicious, bigoted remarks about blacks and Hispanics on talk
radio, and when I see the respectable media embracing racist nonsense like
Charles Murray's book The Bell Curve, I react in Bruce Hornsby's
words: "Hey old man, how can you stand to think that way? Did you really
think about it before you made the rules?"
Because we can't have thought about it much. We're a lot nicer people than
those racist ideas suggest. And the problem is that racist words and
thought become self-fulfilling prophecies. If we constantly tell people
they are inferior, that they have no chance to succeed, they eventually stop
trying, and we'll never find out what brains and talent we wasted. It's
like the Sundays say: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will
finish me off."
Sometimes, when I see the ugliness and mean-spiritedness of our political
landscape, I think, like Todd Rundgren, "Must be a factory somewhere keeps
on cranking them out...violent men, hardheaded women, unloved children."
Since so many of our middle-aged and older people are mired in bad ideas, I
have to rely on our kids to come up with better ones. Kids are ruthless in
their idealism, and contemptuous of older folks for compromising too easily.
"Someone set a bad example, made surrender seem all right." [Rush] Well,
it's not all right. Right is right, evil is evil, and evil, and evil must
be challenged. Any country needs the idealism and energy of its youth to
keep it from sinking into complacency and corruption. As the Railway
Children sing, "We must protect this urgency"; it forces us to be better people.
Of course, that urgency is damned uncomfortable. And dangerous to the
existing order. No wonder so many older people don't really want to hear
it. Cat Stevens says it all: "From the moment I could talk I was ordered
to listen." Weren't we all?
And the people who don't like those ideas sometimes set them on fire. "The
church of matches anoints with ignorance and gasoline." [XTC] I hate the
bookburners. I am, of course, a lover of books. They liberate us, free us
from "the lizard part of our brains, giving the orders." [the Church] They
turn ideas on their heads, introduce new information, new perspectives on
old issues. "Pay attention to the poet...you need him to show you new ways
to see." [Bruce Cockburn]
And books delight us. The Church says "Volumes have secrets. Take them on
holidays." Don't I wish! We just finished moving into a new library, and
we've been working so hard, and getting so little sleep, that in the
immortal words of Elvis Costello, "I've been talking to the wall and it's
been answering me."
Rock lyrics sometimes start me thinking about my own life. When you get to
be my age, you start to think about what you've done with your life, what
kind of dent you've made on the world. "When you look into the mirror, do
you recognize someone? Are you who you always hoped you would become, when
you were young?" [Del Amitri] That's a hard question, because we always
fall short, don't we? I find comfort in the words of Engine Alley: "I'm
not a might have been; I am a gonna be." Like Rush, "I'm not giving up on
implausible dreams." I say, like Janis Ian, "Nothing is forever young, and
I'm not done--this train still runs."
Have I impressed you yet with our children's words? Suzanne Vega says
"There must be passion in the language." And there is, oh, indeed, there
is. Our kids know it, because they listen to it.
Maybe the grownups need to listen to it too.
Please feel free to send any comments on this column to Marylaine Block
Previous Columns: America in 9 Innings, Thank The Ludd, Target Market, Naming Names, Something Amyth , In Praise of Men, Small Truths , White Whine, Draft Dodger, Tar Baby, Sensible Lizards, Debut, Week 2, Hard Copy, Word Child, Every Other Inch A Lady, Naming of Books, Progress, maybe (sort of...), All Reasons Great & Small, On achieving perfect copy, OJ (On Justice), Waiting for Webster's, What Genes Have Wrought, Light Out, Staying on the Map, Don't just stand there..., Remotely Funny, No Government Day, Advice For Desperate Men, Why Kids
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