According to the right-wing The National Review Online, these recordings represent the greatest conservative rock songs of all time. The original list covers the Top 50, but the ten were as far as I could go.
1. Won’t Get Fooled Again, by The Who. A theme song for disillusioned revolutionaries.
2. Taxman, by The Beatles.
3. Sympathy for the Devil, by The Rolling Stones. The devil is a tempter who leans hard on moral relativism.
4. Sweet Home Alabama, by Lynyrd Skynyrd. The title says it all.
5. Wouldn’t It Be Nice, by The Beach Boys. Pro-abstinence and pro-marriage.
6. Gloria, by U2. A rock song about faith with a chorus in Latin?
7. Revolution, by The Beatles.
“Don’t you know that you can count me out?” Lennon: “In.”
8. Bodies, by The Sex Pistols. A searing anti-abortion anthem.
9. Don’t Tread on Me, by Metallica. A plea for peace through strength, written in response to the first Gulf War.
10. 20th Century Man, by The Kinks. “You keep all your smart modern writers / Give me William Shakespeare / You keep all your smart modern painters / I’ll take Rembrandt, Titian, da Vinci, and Gainsborough. . . . I was born in a welfare state / Ruled by bureaucracy / Controlled by civil servants / And people dressed in grey / Got no privacy got no liberty / ’Cause the 20th-century people / Took it all away from me.”
Probably the most interesting thing about the list is the age of the songs - and the singers - the most recent was recorded in 1991 (fifteen years ago), while the eldest was written in 1966 (40 years ago) - so it’s a fairly easy sum to see where the selectors are coming from.
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Jun 2nd, 2006 at 5:08 pm
I saw this list–don’t read this publication, but I have to check it in at the library where I work. I had a bit of a chuckle over the list…
Jun 2nd, 2006 at 5:45 pm
proof that I am a conservative.
I like most of those tunes.
Take Care
Michael
Jun 7th, 2006 at 4:24 pm
15 years old? The top ten, yes. Go down the whole list and you will see bands such as Blink 182, The Offspring, Creed, The Cranberries, etc.
Jul 30th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
Of your top ten conservo-tunes, you can only claim Lynyrd Skynyrd & .
Come on, Mr. and Mrs. wishful repug,
The Who, The Beatles and the Stones sang the antiwar-songs that shut down the first neo-Straussian-war Viet Nam — Google the lyrics to “Sympathy For the Devil, or the new stuff “”How come you’re so wrong? My sweet neo-con, where’s the money gone, in the Pentagon” Stones 2006… ,”Beatles “Give Peace a Chance” — this is still sung in the streets, or the Who’s : The Ultimate Collection, Banned from US radio . . .
How about Metacallic’s
- Disposable Heroes:
Bodies fill the fields I see, hungry heroes end
No one to play soldier now, no one to pretend
running blind through killing fields, bred to kill them all
Victim of what said should be
a servant `till I fall
Soldier boy, made of clay
now an empty shell
twenty one, only son
but he served us well
Bred to kill, not to care
do just as we say
finished here, Greeting Death
he’s yours to take away
The Beach Boy’s sang a Charles Manson anti-war song..but they pretty much stuck to cars, chicks, and in their room.
Give me a break U2 — oh come on –Jezzzzus
“Streets with no name” -”Bullets for blue skies”, The entire Joshua Tree album…
The Sex Pistols — hum how about this little ditty ” The song “Rape The Pope” (a DIY release by the way) is a pro-choice song. The pope’s sexual politics have ruined thousands of lives.
The Kinks — Davis wrote whole concept albums that were anti-war. . .”Big Sky” where Ray promises “one day, we’ll be free”),
I’m sure if I put Lynyrd Skinners “Free Bird” under that magnifying glass and show you its a protest song along with a dozen others they did
pushing peace….
You can’t make a sow’s ear out of a silk purse you Straussian ying-yaks… no way no how. . .The reason their are no descent conservo-rock bands is conservos all sold their soul to the bushco, the devil on earth.
Wake up you have been “Comfortably Numb” too long! bush is pushing the Middle East into Ground Zero for WW III and here is a newsflash, bush has pissed the whole world off, “A little change will do us good”