Dec 24th, 2008 at 12:42 pm
“Windowsill”
I’ve seen a few people putting together lists of definitive Bush-era songs (with the implication being that we’re looking for songs that capture the spirit of the age rather than just good tunes), many of which include Arcade Fire’s “Intervention.” That wouldn’t even be my choice off Neon Bible. I’ll go with “Windowsill”
I think this does a good job of capturing the sense of shame that a lot of people felt over the way the country’s good name was being dragged through the mud by an atrocious president.
50 Responses to ““Windowsill””
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December 24th, 2008 at 1:11 pm
“American Idiot” — Green Day.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:12 pm
I thought it was understood that the definitive song of the era is “Shitstorm” by Strapping Young Lad.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:13 pm
I hate to say it, but I think Al is right.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:20 pm
I’m gonna nominate Green Day too.
Wake me Up When September Ends…
And by that I mean…when the 9/11 paranoia ends.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:21 pm
American’s Boy - Broadcast
no contest
December 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Ack, that’s “America’s Boy” (got some yglesiitis today)
complete lyrics
Quaker toil & texan oil
Rockets on we’re arm in arm
Nasa nude you’re manly you
Oi american soldier
America’s boy
Gun me down with yankee power
Cock pit tom with army charm
The eagle lands army commands
Oi american soldier
America’s boy
Cowboy corn & bugle horn
{on son don’t post me on?}
You are dean and me the queen
Oi american soldier
America’s boy
December 24th, 2008 at 1:23 pm
Wow. Happy to see others feel the same way then. During the last few weeks of the general election campaign I would listen to “Intervention” daily. Sometimes more than once a day. Usually once on the bus to work and once on the walk home. It really resonated with me. Working so hard to help get Obama elected, watching people’s lives slipping away and trying to keep going myself with all the hope and anxiety…yes.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:24 pm
For straight-up 2003-2005 vintage despair, you can’t beat Calexico’s “All Systems Red“.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:27 pm
TVotR’s Dry Drunk Emperor could make the list, as well as Neil Young’s entire Living With War album.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:31 pm
What about flobox? or scars on broadway’s “they say?”
I’m not familiar with everyone’s choices, but I always like these threads cause I can go home and perhaps add some music to my library. I will not, however, be adding toby keith.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:32 pm
I think one can make a good case for both the Arcade Fire albums serving as the soundtrack to the Bush era. The paranoia and anger of the latter stages of the Iraq War are still fresh obviously. Alas, people forget what it felt in the period after 9/11. I think Funeral is as good of a summation of that period, 2001-2003, as Neon Bible is of the latter period.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:37 pm
Ted Leo’s ‘Bomb.Repeat.Bomb’ captures the Bushies’ attitudes towards Iraq and Afghanistan pretty well.
December 24th, 2008 at 1:51 pm
Surely this is cutting yourself and your fellow Americans a lot of slack? Most of what Bush did was done with the broad approval of the US population. Didn’t you support the invasion of Iraq, by the way?
December 24th, 2008 at 1:58 pm
Wow, you guys are newbs. Any discussion of definitive Bush-era songs begins and ends with “Cause of Death” by Immortal Technique.
“They dubbed a tape of Osama, and they said it was proof
“Jealous of our freedom,” I can’t believe you bought that excuse
Rockin a motherfucking flag don’t make you a hero
Word to Ground Zero
The Devil crept into Heaven, God overslept on the 7th
The New World Order was born on September 11″
And Dick Cheney, you fuckin leech, tell them your plans
About building your pipelines through Afghanistan
And how Israeli troops trained the Taliban in Pakistan
You might have some house niggaz fooled, but I understand
Colonialism is sponsored by corporations
That’s why Halliburton gets paid to rebuild nations
Tell me the truth, I don’t scare into paralysis
I know the CIA saw Bin Laden on dialysis
In ‘98 when he was Top Ten for the FBI
Government ties is really why the Government lies
Read it yourself instead of asking the Government why
‘Cuz then the Cause of Death will cause the propaganda to die..
Do all yourselves a favor and listen to Tech. Just straight up nasty stuff.
A close second would be “Makeshift Patriot” by Sage Francis.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I think a lot of the literal songs (i.e., those mentioning Bush, Osama, etc.) that are showing up in comments will be forgotten in a few years, much as most of the super-specific political ballads of the 60s passed away pretty quickly. The “definitive” songs will be those like Arcade Fire’s (actually, Neon Bible struck me right away as the perfect musical document of the Bush era), or Decemberist’s “16 Military Wives,” those which evoke the spirit of the time rather than just the specific issues. It’s why we remember “The Times They Are a-Changin’” or “Blowin’ in the Wind” better than “Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll.”
December 24th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
I think The National’s “Fake Empire” is going to be the song I most associate with the second Bush term. If you want to be more explicit, Spoon’s “Don’t Make Me a Target” works as well.
December 24th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
Certainly we all enjoyed the cathartic experience of hearing the more literal songs decrying what was happening to our nation, but I tend to agree the one finds a truer representation of the ‘structure of feeling’ through more mediated forms. Personally, I have always found Interpol’s second and third cd’s – not just because of what the dark synth sounds evoked, but also because the songs worked in a way that used the evocation of dread, fear, and shame of the bush crime years and turned them into something else.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Arcade Fire? The definitive song about the Bush era is from a Canadian band?
I think Seitz is on the right track… I like Ted Leo’s Ballad of the Sin Eater…
When you run, digger, runner
Listener, thief, you carry it all with you
Today I woke up uncertain
And you know that gives me the fits
So I left this land of fungible convictions
Because it seemed like the pits
And when I say, “conviction” I mean it’s something to abjure
And when I say “uncertain” I mean to doubt I’ll not turn out a caricature
So I set off in search of my forebears
Coz my forbearance was in need
But the only job I could get in dear old Blighty
Was working on the railway between Selby and Leeds
So I took a ferry to Belfast, where I had cause to think:
They wanted none of my arm-chair convictions
But nobody seemed to mind when I was putting on the drinks!
And you didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
You didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
You didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you ‘coz you’re guilty
So…I stayed out all night in Ibiza
By way of San Sebastian, where they said
‘Yanque, you better watch what you’re saying,
unless you’re sayin’It in Basque or in Catalan!”
So all the way east to Novisod
Where narry a bridge was to be seen
But mother Russia, she laid her pontoons on down
So I crossed over, if you know what I mean…
Then on the road to damascus, yes
The scales, they fell from my eyes
And the simplest lesson I learned at the Mount of Olives: everybody lies
And the French Foreign Legion
You know they did their best -
but I never believed in T.E. Lawrence,
so how the hell could I believe in Beau Gest?
And you didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
You didnt think they could hate you, now did you?
You didnt think they could hate you, now did you?
Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you ‘coz you’re guilty
So…I spent a night in Kigali in a five diamond hotel
Where maybe someday, they’ll do the Watutsi on down in Hutu hell
And I fell in with a merchant marine who promised to take me home
But when I woke up beaten and bloodied
I couldn’t tell if it was Jersey or Sierra Leone!
And you didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
You didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
You didn’t think they could have you, now did you?
Ah, but they hate you, and they hate you coz you’re guilty…
And the knocking in my head, just like the knocking at my door
And maybe it was me or maybe it was my brother
But either me or me and him went down to the bar
Where I got seven powers in me for to give me the cure
But when seven powers failed to spin meI had to get me seven more
And when I say “me” I mean my brain
And when I say “give me the cure” I mean to kill the pain
And when I say “kill the pain” I meant to get the devil out
And when I say “devil” I mean the manifestation of doubt!
And you didn’t think they could hate you now did you?
You didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
You didn’t think they could hate you, now did you?
Ah, but they hate you, make no mistake – they hate you…
December 24th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Duke: Win Butler’s actually from Texas, along with brother Will, even though they’re in Montreal now.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Andrew Bird’s “Scythian Empires”
Here.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:26 pm
The American Princes’ “Watch as They Go” certainly captures a certain essence of the era, although I don’t think it can be too specifically applied.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:42 pm
When I sing along with it I always scream out the lyrics “I DON’T WANT TO LIVE IN AMERICA NO MORE”, although not so much since the election.
December 24th, 2008 at 3:57 pm
Mark Knopfler, almost hidden from view despite his great success, has written a couple CDs worth of songs defining the Bush era. His CD “Ragpicker’s Dream” is built around economic refugees and other people on the margins. And his CD “Shangri-la” explores a series of men hollowed out by success — like Sonny Liston, Ray Kroc, and Elvis.
The song “Ragpicker’s Dream” (BTW) is one of the more beautiful Christmas songs I’ve ever heard.
December 24th, 2008 at 4:01 pm
How about a song the whole class can sing together after The Pet Goat? I mean, we don’t want to tax Bushs’s intellect too hard.
December 24th, 2008 at 5:05 pm
“(Antichrist Television Blues)” always struck a chord with me, for whatever reason. It’s not overtly political, as it’s apparently about Joe Simpson. But Mr. Simpson strikes me as being as much a representative embodiment of the last eight years as Mr. Bush does.
December 24th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
Wilco’s “Jesus, etc.” evoked a lot of the first horror and despair of September 11th for me when it came out.
“Tall buildings shake/ Voices escape singing sad sad songs/
Tuned to chords/ Strung down your cheeks/ Bitter melodies/ turning your orbit around.
Voices whine/ Skyscrapers are scraping together/
Your voice is smoking/
Last cigarettes are all you can get/
Turning your orbit around.”
December 24th, 2008 at 5:22 pm
There is only one Bush-era song that ever mattered: Super Pretzel!
December 24th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
“21st Century Pop Song” by Hymie’s Basement (Why? and Andrew Broder (Fog)) gets my vote.
“it’s root root root for the home team.
shout like your dad at the tv screen……”
December 24th, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Serj Tankian, Empty Walls
December 25th, 2008 at 9:54 am
Sleater-Kinney, Combat Rock
Here’s the lyrics, but you’ve got to hear it to feel it
They tell us there are only two sides to be on
If you are on our side you’re right if not you’re wrong
But are we innocent, paragons of good?
Is our guilt erased by the pain that we’ve endured?
Hey look it’s time to pledge allegiance
Oh god I love my dirty Uncle Sam
Our country’s marching to the beat now
And we must learn to step in time
Where is the questioning where is the protest song?
Since when is skepticism un-American?
Dissent’s not treason but they talk like it’s the same
Those who disagree are afraid to show their face
Let’s break out our old machines now
It sure is good to see them run again
Oh gentlemen start your engines
And we know where we get the oil from
Are you feeling alright now
Paint myself all red white blue
Are you singing let’s fight now
Innocent people die, uh oh
There are reasons to unite
Is this why we unite?
If you hate this time
Remember we are the time!
Show you love your country go out and spend some cash
Red white blue hot pants doing it for Uncle Sam
Flex our muscles show them we’re stronger than the rest
Raise your hands up baby are you sure that we’re the best?
We’ll come out with our fists raised
The good old boys are back on top again
And if we let them lead us blindly
The past becomes the future once again
December 25th, 2008 at 10:37 am
I agree with Craig and L.G.–”Fake Empire” and “(Antichrist Television Blues)” are the songs I immediately thought of when I saw this post. In the same vein, Interpol’s “NYC” also seems very Bush-years to me.
December 25th, 2008 at 11:25 am
Going to a Town – Rufus Wainwright
December 25th, 2008 at 8:35 pm
“We can’t make it here anymore” sums it up.
December 25th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
“We can’t make it here anymore” sums it up.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZbWRfBZY-ng
December 29th, 2008 at 3:08 am
good song but I think the Thermals – Power Doesn’t Run on Nothing sums it up better:
http://www.last.fm/music/The+Thermals/_/Power+Doesn‘t+Run+On+Nothing
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