In honor of Memorial Day, and in a desperate attempt to get angry/confused people to talk about their magazine (It's working, guys!), the people at the conservative National Review have cobbled together a list of the 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs.
Now, there are a number of rock songs that genuinely come from a conservative political stance (anything by Ted Nugent comes to mind), but not many of them are on this list.
Instead, the National Review pulls certain lyrics out of context and stretches them to fit their (very loose) definition of conservative values, ignoring the rest of the song, and, in most cases, the actual politics of the band singing it.
This is how The Clash somehow made the list.
Basically, it's the stupidest thing you'll ever read. (And you can do so here.)
Here's my favorite:
28. "Janie's Got a Gun," by Aerosmith.
How the right to bear arms can protect women from sexual predators: "What did her daddy do? / It's Janie's last I.O.U. / She had to take him down easy / And put a bullet in his brain / She said 'cause nobody believes me / The man was such a sleaze / He ain't never gonna be the same."
Uh, yeah. It's also about how the right to bear arms can lead to horrible vigilante justice, and desperate people taking the law into their own hands.
Didn't realize that was a conservative value, but if it is, how come there's no Tupac or Dr. Dre on this list?
Here's a real paean to the right to bear arms, from a much better song, "Bitch Please II" by Eminem, Snoop, and Dr. Dre:
"I got 50 guns and I love all them the same/ Bang Bang"
If you're going to take things out of context, you might as well go for broke, right? Anyone want to nominate some others?