You have to see this video. Talk about gaining perspective!
Sometimes, you know how it is…… We watch a youtube video, then the phone rings, we get distracted, youtube still runs, and we come back to something completely unexpected.
Well, this was a gobsmack of an unexpected video.
The clip was posted by a guy name Matthew Murray, in November of 2017. It’s a rock concert…. but there is no rock star…….. no band…… the stars are the concert goers.
It looks like the stagehands were testing the equipment, and happened to play Bohemian Rhapsody to check the sound……. and a strange thing happened.
Everyone started singing.
Everyone.
All 60,000 people sang, on cue, hit the high notes, clapped during the staccato, jumped up and down during the rock portion, swayed together during the slow portion. THEY ALL did it…… together. Look at the crowd. They ALL know the song.
We can tell, the person recording the video didn’t expect it to happen because we miss the very first portion of the song. Thankfully, someone turned on a camera from the stage to capture the video. It was a thing of beauty.
It’s been 28 years since Freddie Mercury died, and 35 years since the song came out. Can you imagine what it would have been like to be there? At that moment? Be honest. We all know the words; you were probably singing along as well. ….. I was.
THIS is what a unified culture looks like. If I were an enemy, I wouldn’t want to go to war with this country. Even a bunch of concert goers all sing the same “battle hymns”. Old or young, color of skin, gender, none of that crap matters…… they’re together. If they can sing together, surely, they can get along.
Think of how the Boston Red Sox sing “Sweet Caroline” at the 7th inning, or how we all know the same Christmas carols, or yes, our National Anthem. We all know the same songs. The music make our culture unique to others.
Remember the stories of WW2 when the Allies were trying to question an enemy? They would ask, “Who was the 1st baseman for the Brooklyn Dodgers?”, or…. the words to a song, or Lana Turner’s measurements. When the ‘spy’ didn’t know the answer, they were quickly outed. We need an American culture that unifies us…….. not a media, Hollywood, and music, which relishes in division and angst.
We’ve read the history of Queen and we’re familiar with what they went through to get this song made and played on the radio. It was a long song, true, and the DJ’s didn’t think people would listen…….. but we did. Yeah, 35 years later, it was worth it. Bohemian Rhapsody has become an anthem. Despite everything, the people, ordinary concert goers, understand.
Maybe the music can bring us back together. Solve some of the discord in America? Gee, it’s hard to hate when you’re singing and dancing. It’s often said, music brings out our innate tribal rhythms. Well, maybe it’s time for us to realize we’re all part of the same tribe.
Enjoy the video, and sing along!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vp7j3ji5U24
Bohemian Rhapsody
Published
You are a treasure, Daughn!
Quite cool and amazing both. TY DNW.
… 😮👍❤️ … WOW‼️ …. seriously cool 🖖😎❤️ …
TY Daughn, awesome find‼️
Rodney! How did your doctor appointment go???
Oh, my! Gave me chills!!! Outstanding!!!
Plato bemoaned the poets influence on the population…
The left knows this. That’s why they went berserk trying to destroy America’s unique musical culture in the 1960s. The British Invasion was not an accident or a coincidence of history.
Seize control of the cultural means of production, that was the Gramsci model, updated by the Frankfurt school and of course Marcuse.
Did they succeed? I don’t know. They were wildly successful in many respects. We learned Mrs. Robinson was a hypocrite and all Christians are hypocrites. We learned that we should “imagine” a world where totalitarianism is the norm. We learned that drug induced hallucinations and new age/occult practices are the best means for spiritual enlightnment. And of course, Marcuse’s “make love not war” theme fed many songs.
The 50th anniversary of Woodstock is a total bust. No one cares, no one wants to do it. The false history of Woodstock says that Jimmi Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner was the high point of the event – but by that point most everyone had left already.
But there is a shocking power here that we might overlook: A modified rendition of the Star Spangled Banner points us back to the point. A common language of music made the Star Spangled Banner unmistakable. Everyone knew the song. Was Hendrix trying to co-opt the symbol or re-mix the symbol? It doesn’t matter: The symbol retains its power because there is a reality that it points us to.
Despite all the crazy changes in music since, disco/dance/techno punk rock hard rock heavy metal new age gangsta rap, there’s been a strong concerted effort to reprogram people and yet the results are, AT BEST, totally mixed.
I remember at VMWorld several years ago they had like 10,000 conference attendees at a private concert by Bon Jovi. All these people were belting out lyrics to “bad medicine” and yet the irony is that while they knew the song, the song itself and the image of all of these technical professionals singing seemed oddly out of place. It didn’t much matter, corporatism sponsoring a concert with songs that rebel against authority has become the norm, precisely because the idiot Marxists that pushed all these “counterculture” ideas didn’t realize that creating things (artifacts) is creating culture – their against the grain message became mainstreamed to the point that a multi-billion dollar corporation had no problem sponsoring a concert for their customers.
It should also be noted that the “Summer of Love” and the British Invasion followed JFK’s assassination. As soon as he was removed, the all-out assault on American culture began. From the Wikipedia on the British Invasion:
“On December 10, CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, looking for something positive to report, re-ran a Beatlemania story that originally aired on the 22 November 1963 edition of the CBS Morning News with Mike Wallace but was shelved that night because of the assassination of US President John Kennedy.”
Now that’s some cabal messaging right there.
BTW, “Weird Scenes Inside the Canyon” by Dave McGowan should be mandatory reading for all in the truth movement. tl;dr: Many beloved 1960s musical celebrities had military connections. Pedophilia and Satanism were rampant in the community. None of these beloved bands and beloved music were organic in the least.
I had heard a while back that Britain was very busy seeding all of our musical culture, so when I heard a couple of months ago about that British rapper busted in Atlanta as an illegal immigrant, I immediately suspected he was some kind of player. Indeed, he would not be the first Brit “player” I met who had more than an average interest in the music industry.
All making sense now.
Fascinating. I had not realized how much of a cultural ATTACK the “British Invasion” actually was. The TAKEOVER of rock and roll. Which, of course, was after the music died, about 4 years before JFK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Music_Died
This CAB report (precursor of NTSB) is worth a close look.
https://web.archive.org/web/20090226025843/http://www.ntsb.gov/Publictn/1959/CAB_2-3-1959.pdf
It was definitely pilot error – the CAUSE of an improperly experienced young pilot on the job is absolutely certain – but the question in my mind is whether one or more parties was encouraged to take the risk by a social hack. Either a young pilot encouraged (this takes under 30 seconds) to lie about his abilities, or a musician encouraged to take a risky flight. The way these approaches work is NOT that it’s a sure thing. It’s to repeatedly expose the target to enough dangers that sooner or later, one of them succeeds. All statistical and very post-Bletchley Park, if you catch my drift.
I have personally witnessed the deployment of such social hacks by British assets, and in one case (dark-humorously and coincidentally) one that was associated with the music industry. That is precisely WHY the idea immediately jumped to my attention. I could imagine that person pushing either the pilot or the passengers to take the risk.
Simple historical question. WERE THERE BRITISH anywhere near these guys? Holly had just returned from Australian and UK tours.
Let’s just say I’m no longer trusting of certain nationalities.
I just Love to hear (sing) OUR National Anthem…….
Unless of course it is performed by an “Urban Yodeler” with all the additional re-writes that make it hard to follow along with.
OUR National Anthem should be performed traditionally so that WE can sing along.
JMHO
Military bands do it best. Precise. Every. Time.
daughn, seriously cool!
And I love how your correctly tied this in to the pop culture questions asked of potential spies in WW2 and the larger issue of needing a unified culture. Just great!
Such a great Post Daughn!!! Scaramooch Scaramooch can you do the fandango!!!!!
A song about being a filthy rich British queer coming out of the closet arouses group praise.
We have lost the moral high ground in so many subtle ways that getting back to public standards of morality is virtually an impossible dream. I hope I see a day when shame makes a comeback. It is sorely missed.
Maybe, sort of, but I think the song is much more complex than that. And I loved Freddie Mercury, for his talent alone. No shame here, sorry. Talent is given by the Creator, and Freddie used his in incredible ways.
This website delves into some of the language of the song, the meanings of the words he used. Some of it is about Jesus, some about God, some about Allah. It is great, complicated lyricism.
http://runpee.com/what-is-a-scaramouch-the-meaning-behind-bohemian-rhapsody/
I understand that and I don’t disagree that he was gifted with a great vocal ability. The ‘great complicated lyricism’ of which you describe is precisely what I call a tortured soul desperate for escape from his personal spiritual hell.
What he got instead was everybody feeding the very things that caused him to be so far lost – his homosexuality; his obvious Godless existence; his extraordinary fame; etc. The vast numbers of people (groupies; hangers-on; etc) who did not want Mercury’s personal demons vanquished because their gravy train might go off the rails as a consequence.
Whatever fascination this song holds for others, to me it is a funereal dirge – he died from AIDS. Sad beyond belief.
I apologize if my previous comment was too rough.
“The vast numbers of people (groupies; hangers-on; etc) who did not want Mercury’s personal demons vanquished because their gravy train might go off the rails as a consequence. ”
________________
Hasn’t that always been true, for every performer, probably for time immemorial?
I’ve read that Don Ho absolutely hated the song ‘Tiny Bubbles’. But he HAD to sing it, every time he performed anywhere, because that’s what people expected to hear, and they felt cheated if they took the time to see him perform and didn’t get to hear his ‘signature’ song.
Imagine having ‘tiny bubble’ demons… 😁
Gravy train is a very apt term. Pink Floyd (the group, there is no member of the band named ‘Pink Floyd’, which is pertinent to the song lyrics which follow) wrote about that very thing:
Come in here, dear boy, have a cigar.
You’re gonna go far,
You’re gonna fly high,
You’re never gonna die,
You’re gonna make it if you try;
They’re gonna love you.
Well, I’ve always had a deep respect,
And I mean that most sincere.
The band is just fantastic,
That is really what I think.
Oh by the way, which one’s Pink?
And did we tell you the name of the game, boy?
We call it Riding the Gravy Train.
“A song about being a filthy rich British queer coming out of the closet arouses group praise.”
__________________
But this is a perfect example of what was discussed here on Wolf’s website a month or two ago. Regardless of the intent of the author or what he was trying to communicate, music (more than any other art form, it seems to me) lends itself to personal interpretation.
Many songs are written with that very understanding in mind, and it is also why many artists don’t want to explain the meaning of their songs, because they know that everyone brings their own meaning to it.
Joni Mitchell described this very thing in her classic 1971 song ‘Blue’ from the album of the same title:
……………………
Blue,
Songs are like tattoos
You know I’ve been to sea before
Crown and anchor me
Or let me sail away
Hey Blue, there is a song for you
Ink on a pin
Underneath the skin
An empty space to fill in…
……………………..
The lyrics provide a structure, but we ‘fill in’ our own meaning. Maybe the first time you heard a song, you were having a great time with your friends, or you met you future spouse, and every time you hear that song afterwards, it takes you back to that moment in time, and you relive it just a little bit, and it makes you happy. It may not have anything to do with the lyrics, or you may interpret the lyrics in a way that specifically relates to your remembered experience, in a way that no one else would, because they didn’t have the same experience you did.
Someone else might hear the exact same song, and it makes them sad (in a good way, the way music can do), reminding them of something (or someone) lost. And even though it might be sad, or nostalgic, it’s in a good way, a way that makes you happy that you had that moment to think about it again, and smile at a happy memory associated with whatever it is the music causes you to recall.
Now consider all those thousands and thousands of concert goers in the video above.
It’s a fun song to sing, no matter what the song is about, because it’s so… dynamic. Soft parts, loud parts, funny parts, sad parts, fast parts, slow parts, it’s all over the place, most of it without repeating, and it’s a LONG song, so it requires at least a little bit of effort to learn it.
Every one of those concert goers knows that song by heart, clearly. They have ALL sung that song, many, many times, by themselves. In the shower. While cutting the yard. Driving to the store. Jogging. Working out. Or sitting in the ‘sweet spot’, in the ‘stereo chair’, in front of a stack of classic tube electronics and giant floor standing speakers, with the volume turned up to ’11’, like the guy in the old Maxell audo tape ads. 😁
Or maybe it was ‘Is it Live, or is it Memorex’… I don’t remember know.
The point is, each of those tens of thousands of people have that common bond, that shared experience of singing that song hundreds of times over the decades. And for one moment, spontaneously, without and planning or manipulation of any kind, a song starts playing.
A few people start singing along, and it spreads throughout the entire concert crowed in less then 5 seconds. Everybody smiles in recognition, not just of the song itself, but of what is suddenly happening around them, that EVERYBODY is on the same wavelength, tens of thousands of people, singing this crazy, dynamic, complicated old song, in UNISON.
And it’s a BLAST!
Nobody even knows or cares what the song is about, and it’s about many things to many different people anyway.
It’s the experience. It’s the recognition that you share something in common with your fellow man, on a LARGE scale, and the longer it goes on, the more fun it is.
Like being ‘in the zone’ when you’re shooting basketball in your backyard, and you’re hitting shot after shot after shot, you can’t miss… but nobody is around to see it, and nobody is ever going to believe you, lol!
Well this, everybody was ‘in the zone’, and EVERYBODY was there to see it, and the longer it went on, they better they were.
It’s the kind of thing you don’t want to come to an end, even though you know exactly when and how it’s going to end, and you do your best — along with 30+ thousand others — to nail the ending 😁
What was that song supposed to be about again?
Does it even matter?
Nothing really matters
Any one can see
Nothing really matters
Nothing really matters, to me…
Any way the wind blows….
😁
What a beautiful post Scott467!
I just love music 😁
60s and 70s classic rock mostly, but with lots of exceptions.
In many songs there are lyrics where I can’t even understand what the singer said, and it doesn’t bother me bit. You can check the lyrics online, and sometimes three different websites will give you three different answers, because nobody can understand what the singer is saying.
It does crack me up when I hear other people singing along to song and I realize they get the words wrong though. The example I remember best is of my girlfriend in college, singing along to Jet Airliner by the Steve Miller Band.
She made it through the first part just fine:
Leavin’ home, out on the road
I’ve been down before
Ridin’ along in this big ol’ jet plane
I’ve been thinkin’ about my home
But my love light seems so far away
And I feel like it’s all been done
Somebody’s tryin’ to make me stay
You know I’ve got to be movin’ on
And then it happened. Keep in mind the song is titled “Jet Airliner”
And the chorus goes “Oh, big ol’ jet airliner…”
But that’s not how she sang it.
She sang it “Oh, big ol’ jet had a light on”.
So she sang it this way:
Oh, Oh big ol’ jet had a light on
Don’t carry me too far away
Oh, Oh big ol’ jet had a light on
Cause it’s here that I’ve got to stay
I almost fell out of my chair laughing 😁
And I’ve made similar mistakes a thousand times, just different songs and different lyrics… doesn’t matter, just enjoying the music… 😁
Can’t tell you how many times I have messed up the lyrics.
Thank heaven for our understanding boyfriends.
The official term for such misheard lyrics is “mondegreen” [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondegreen ] — named such for a folk song praising a heroic figure that veers off into a comment about “Lady Mondegreen.” Was this his lover? His sponsor? Did she save him from his peril?
No, the actual lyric was that the hero perished and they “laid him on the green.”
I used to sing along with Pink Floyd, “…no dogs or cats are in the classroom…”
I was too young to know what “dark sarcasm” was. LOL.
That’s a good one!
I remember the first time I heard Jimi Hendrix sing Purple Haze, and instead of ‘kiss the sky’ I was positive he said “Excuse me while I kiss this guy”.
I remember thinking “Wait… what? That can’t possibly be right…”
Then I checked the lyrics on the inner sleeve, and everything was okay again 😁
Purple haze all in my brain
Lately things just don’t seem the same
Actin’ funny, but I don’t know why
‘Scuse me while I kiss the sky
The “Grand Illusion” by Styx has some lyrics that seem appropriate in the very interesting Q timezone we are living in……..
Welcome to the Grand illusion
Come on in and see what’s happening
Pay the price, get your tickets for the show
The stage is set, the band starts playing
Suddenly your heart is pounding
Wishing secretly you were a star
But don’t be fooled by the radio
The TV or the magazines
They show you photographs of how your life should be
But they’re just someone else’s fantasy
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because you never win the game
Just remember that it’s a grand illusion
And deep inside we’re all the same
We’re all the same
So if you think your life is complete confusion
Because your neighbors got it made
Just remember that it’s a grand illusion
And deep inside we’re all the same
America spells competition, join us in our blind ambition
Get yourself a brand new motor car
Someday soon we’ll stop to ponder what on earth’s this spell we’re under
We made the grade and still we wonder who the hell we are
Fandango we can, and will, do, if all other options on the table fail..
Nice!
Always, like cranking up Queen as I drive along the highways and bi-ways… Great music. Great memories.
It’d suck to be an actual American who didn’t follow baseball and/or popular music, right?
Oh nooossss! I still haven’t watched a full Star Wars movie… I’m doomed!
Daughn, I get your overall point, but I can’t help but point out how dark pop culture is and has been for a long time. “Sweet Caroline” is about 9 year-old Caroline Kennedy. An alternative interpretation of “Bohemian Rhapsody” is that it’s about occult sacrifice.
I recommend that all take a critical look at the lyrics some some of the popular mega-hits over the decades. A few months ago, for example, U2’s “With or Without You” was stuck in my head. Even years after that song was released, that song was everywhere. Well, the lyrics “And you give yourself way” kept repeating in my head, and it made me realize how much of a demoralizing effect this song must have on the world. Yes, I’m sure the cabal loves the idea of millions of “sheep” happily singing “And you give yourself away” and “I can’t live” (another repetitive lyric from that song) to themselves. I could point out dozens of pop culture examples like this. They intentionally flood culture with these demoralizing songs out as yet another psychological assault on us.
Yes, we need a unifying culture, but we need to be careful what we choose to unify around.
You guys are so serious.
We can argue dogma, anytime.
Sometimes, you just need to live in the moment……… and sing.
Amen, sister!
I know, words have meaning and all that. But, sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
“….but I take it out of my mouth every once in a while….”
[Anyone not familiar with the Groucho reference?]
I am grateful that I’m not alone with my obviously minority view.
You’re not alone, pgroup.
I’m on both sides of this one, as usual. AND LOGIC! 😉
Seriously, I loved this song for a lot of GOOD and (if I’m honest) BAD reasons. And it IS INDEED a wonderful cultural unifier, but that CULTURE was being CHANGED by that unifier – which MUST happen (the whole process being beautiful and scientific and macro-quantum).
Didn’t you (asking all readers) feel better about gays because of Queen and the great music? Of course you did. Don’t DENY IT. Well, you were SUPPOSED TO. Accept that, too.
Musicians like David Bowie and Freddie Mercury were designed to make gay cool enough to be acceptable. Mott The Hoople – same thing. And now that I look back on those days, I believe there was some pretty amazing TECH being deployed to HELP.
I’m not necessarily saying that’s a good or bad thing. Leave that fight for another time. Just accept that there was indeed a huge gay agenda before we even realized it.
Let’s be honest. The music industry created a group called QUEEN very intentionally – for REASONS. The same reasons that if you want into the CIA, an art history major is a good background. Understanding LARGER CULTURAL MOVEMENTS is useful if you want to take part in CHANGING culture.
People don’t sit around and determine this stuff in some Snidely Whiplash hand-rubbing individual plot. The “thinking” occurs across numerous individuals who have all been INFLUENCED to accept and promote an agenda, mostly without conscious thought. Snowballing culture is WHERE IT’S AT. How do you make the snowball roll the way you want? ASK KGB-CIA. ASK MI6. ASK A COMMIE. But don’t be surprised if they LIE and say it can’t be done.
I have learned to QUESTION MY INPUTS. I look for the snowballs, and WHO IS STARTING THEM.
So while I may remember the great times DRINKING instead of studying, while listening to this song (not necessarily good, but it was fun), I also remember that it was filled with interesting “anti-heroic” lines that were the OPPOSITE of what I personally believed, including things that border on NIHILISM (supposedly the philosophy of the FAKE New Zealand shooter). Even when I first heard the song, I was thinking “WHAT THE HELL?”
Gotta say, this is a great post by Daughn. The original point is very well taken, and true. But this antithetical point is also very well-taken and true.
And the reason we can SEE IT, is because we have almost fully left behind THE FAKE NEWS, and now we are even beginning to see the FAKE ENTERTAINMENT.
You want “in your face propaganda?!?!?” Try “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”. Leni Riefenstahl should have sued for copyright infringement.
“You want “in your face propaganda?!?!?” Try “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy”. Leni Riefenstahl should have sued for copyright infringement.”
________________
Never watched it.
A show with a title like that was sending a signal LOUD and CLEAR that it held literally nothing of interest.
If you want to make sure some people will never EVER tune in to see what your show is all about, give it a name like ‘Queer Eye for the Straight Guy’.
I don’t care who the queer guy has an eye for.
They lost me at ‘Queer Eye’, 😁
Goebbels said:
“The best propaganda is that which, as it were, works invisibly, penetrates the whole of life without the public having any knowledge of the propagandistic initiative.”
Goebbels took over all the art, music and writing, of the time…and used it for propaganda purposes.
It’s actually not a new concept, to use the Arts to propagandize a population.
The ancient Greeks and Egyptians did it…and the ancient Romans followed their lead and did it too.
“Didn’t you (asking all readers) feel better about gays because of Queen and the great music? Of course you did. Don’t DENY IT. Well, you were SUPPOSED TO. Accept that, too.”
_________________
Actually, no!
I was about 10 or 11 years old when Queen’s album ‘News of the World’ (the album with ‘We are the Champions’ and ‘We Will Rock You’ on it) came out. It was a birthday or Christmas gift, my first “long-player”, along with ‘Kiss – Alive!’, lol!
I didn’t know anything about either group.
And I didn’t know ANYTHING about homosexuality. I didn’t hardly know anything about heterosexuality. It just wasn’t a subject kids talked about at that age.
It seemed strange to me that a group consisting of men would be called ‘Queen’, but the album had an amazing giant robot on the cover, reaching through some sort of concrete reinforced dome, and grabbing people as they all ran in terror. It was fascinating to look at. I don’t even remember if the word ‘Queen’ appeared anywhere on the cover.
Bohemian Rhapsody is from a couple years earlier, album titled ‘A Night at the Opera’ (1975).
Anyway, I didn’t know about ‘Queen’ and the association with ‘homosexuality’ until I was a couple years older, maybe in 7th grade. Then I was horrified!
It was strange enough taking ‘sex ed’ in 6th grade. The book they gave us to read, and then the 1960s film they played, with the narrator who sounded like the narrator to all the nature films. Just bizarre. But okay, whatever.
But then, to find out about homosexuality, was just over the top.
So I didn’t listen to Queen for a while after that. It took some time to come to terms with that whole ‘thing’. Eventually I realized that I liked the music for the music, not because of the people singing it or their personal habits.
And it helped that ‘We Will Rock You’ and ‘We Are the Champions’ were regular sports arena anthems.
But the group Queen didn’t make homosexuality any more acceptable as far as I was concerned, and I don’t remember any of my friends thinking that way either. NOBODY wanted anyone to mistake them for being gay back then — not that I can imagine anyone wanting to be mistaken for gay now — but the metrosexuals seem fine with it.
I’m not fine with them, either. The whole ‘androgynous Pat’ thing creeps me out.
Weird is weird, and there’s a reason why some things are SUPPOSED to be ‘weird’. It’s a social signal that you ought to keep your distance from something 👍
WordPress hates me.
Eh, you’re not so special. WordPress hates all the meat puppets that it has to deal with. It’d rather deal with the NSA and Google any day of the week — and twice on Saturdays.
My comment below was wordpressed into the wrong place. It was in response to you.
“Daughn, I get your overall point, but I can’t help but point out how dark pop culture is and has been for a long time.”
_______________
Hasn’t that always been true? Hasn’t the ‘entertainment industry’ in general, by its very nature, always been associated with immorality of one kind or another?
Regardless of whatever dramas and antics might be going on behind the scenes, it’s the performance which the audience sees. And often times the best performances (or screenplays, or songs, etc.) are those which allow (or even require) the audience to fill in the blanks, rather than hit you over the head with the writer’s ‘message’.
Yes it’s a manipulation of sorts, particularly films, where the entire point is to take the viewer on some kind of adventure. If it’s a ‘whodunit’, the objective is to keep the audience guessing until the last moment. If it’s a morality tale, the objective is to show the audience how choosing the ‘wrong direction’ at a critical fork in the road ultimately leads to some kind of tragedy. If it’s horror, the objective is to give you a thrill ride by scaring the daylights out of you. If it’s a comedy, the objective, of course, is to make you laugh.
It’s “storytelling”, which people have been doing, ever since there have been people.
.
“A few months ago, for example, U2’s “With or Without You” was stuck in my head. Even years after that song was released, that song was everywhere. Well, the lyrics “And you give yourself way” kept repeating in my head, and it made me realize how much of a demoralizing effect this song must have on the world.”
__________
Or, might we just be reading too much into it?
It didn’t have a demoralizing effect on me, because much like Shep Smith or Garaldo or Juan Williams, I instinctively changed the channel when they came on.
I never understood the popularity of U2, or their one-note Johnny lead singer, but that’s just me. To me, all of their songs sound the same, droning on and on (and on). Seems like U2 became popular in the very early 1980s, with the advent of MTV, and IMO it was MTV which pretty much ruined music.
Before MTV, what mattered was musicianship and songcraft.
After MTV, it didn’t even matter if you could play an instrument — you could just fake it. What mattered was how outrageous your outfit was, or how big your hair was, or how pretty you were, or how you could fit an exercise routine into your stage performance.
Music and musicianship and songcraft were so far down the list of importance that it wasn’t even an afterthought. After a while, they just let computers and drum machines do the work, and then they didn’t even sing, they just lip-synced. Milli and Vanilli (so much for creativity in naming the group…) won GRAMMYS for that garbage. That’s how completely video destroyed music.
Before MTV, music was about the EARS.
After MTV, music was about the EYES. Whatever sound was going on in the background hardly seemed to matter.
Eyes and ears are two very different things, and process stimuli completely differently. You don’t need your ‘eyes’ AT ALL to enjoy music. Eyes have nothing to do with it. In fact, most people who actually sit and listen to music do so with their eyes CLOSED.
But the reverse doesn’t work.
Try it. Try watching a music video with the volume turned down to zero…
.
The first song ever played on MTV was “Video Killed the Radio Star”.
They weren’t kidding, either.
I admit that I hesitated before hitting “Post Comment” because I didn’t want to be the party pooper, but people need to be aware of the amount of subversive and subliminal tactics used against us. That’s all. Over the last few months, I’ve been revisiting the beloved movies and songs of my childhood with new eyes, and it has been very red pilling indeed. I’ll stop here.
Oops…this was intended as a reply, not as its own separate comment.
You’re all good Sadie!
I agree with you, Sadie. All it takes is a little research to find the occult underpinnings of the music and entertainment industries, and it’s about lyrics and much more. Vigilant Citizen is one good site. I’m not criticizing anyone, and I would not tell them to stop listening to music they like, but knowledge is power. The difficulty is that it has so infiltrated our culture that many people have fond memories attached to certain songs, concerts, and experiences.
I can not STAND the current music. Jazz, Blues, Ragtime, Classical, Rock, even Country & Western and WWI & II stuff (we have the piano rolls) I will listen to any of that but not the current stuff. At this point we do not have a working radio in the house and none in my trucks and I do not miss the noise one bit.
Interesting that at the last plant I worked, when they did hearing tests, I was the ONLY person in the entire plant with ZERO hearing loss.
I myself can NOT stand to hear C-RAP…..
it’s like “Poetry with a drum beat”
Rap is a difficultly acquired taste, but I was determined! I want to “get” every musical form – but I also want to “get ahead” of every MESSAGE that is being drilled into us using them.
Country-rap was easy to love after the original, but it just REEKS of iHeart social(ist) manipulation, so now every song launches me into very useful musings on how to fight the cultural manipulations. I dig deep and try to see how the music is politically weaponized.
Very important is the desire of the Lefty Luciferians to push the country music base into the same social mess – DRUGS – ALCOHOL – SINGLE PARENTHOOD – NO RELIGION – that black America is trying to climb out of. They are weaponizing and distorting nostalgia in very devious ways that CHANGE the MAGA yearning into something destructive.
We need REAL country music that raises REAL awareness and rejects manipulation into self-destructive lifestyles.
“REAL country music”?
They say:
If you play it backwards……
You get your wife and house back 🙂
HA!!!
And your dog.
And your truck!
“I myself can NOT stand to hear C-RAP…..
it’s like “Poetry with a drum beat””
__________________
There are a lot of problems (for me) with ‘rap’.
It’s hard to even know where to start.
I guess first is the language. To quote (or paraphrase) the movie “Airplane!”, I don’t speak jive. So I can’t understand what they’re saying half the time, and when I do understand, it’s usually profanity simply for the sake of profanity, or offensive for no other apparent reason than to be crude or lewd or offensive.
Next, there is no singing.
Just some dude, enamored with his own speaking voice, eager to demonstrate to the whole world how incredibly lacking his education must have been, starting with the English language. They sound like animals trying to grunt out coherent word.
And it all sounds so angry and hateful. Just mean-spirited.
Next, there are no actual musical instruments as far as I can tell. Just Dopey-Dope with a Mr. Microphone. And some other guy, horribly abusing a record needle by dragging it backwards across a record… like figuring out how to use a record player was just too complicated for him 😁
Basically, I can’t tell if there is even a coherent story being told, because I can’t understand what they’re saying; the parts I do understand are mostly juvenile foul-mouthed immaturity, and the part that is supposed to be the ‘music’ sounds like a combination of fingernails on a chalkboard and glass breaking, accentuated by blown-out speaker woofers.
Other than that, it’s great 👍
And here’s a Paean to that song, and the blogosphere, and netiquette, called “Opinion Rhapsody”. I mentioned it just a couple of days ago, but it seems oddly apropos (if only because of the melody 🙂 )…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IABRgZH12YA
This was soooooooooo good!
Hilarious! I was ROTFL when the XXXXXX appeared! (no spoilers)
Yep. Kind of like where “ol’ sol doesn’t rock’n’roll” anymore, if you get my drift…
daughn, My son was very sick for 2 years before he died. He was living with me at the time. Some friends wanted him to go to Myrtle Beach to the Harley Memorial Day Rally the year before he died. He needed me to go to take care of him so I said sure. He was in a wheel chair by then. He died on Memorial Day May 28th in 2004.
We had such a great time at the Rally. I had never been to one but he and his friends were really good to me and we had a lot of fun.
One night we were all in a suite together and Bohemian Rhapsody came on. My son and another of his friends sang it perfectly. They had beautiful voices and knew all of the words. It was a wonderful memory for me. For a while we were all just happy and having fun and the pain and hurt was forgotten.
He died the next Memorial Day weekend. He was born on Veteran’s Day and died on Memorial Day when he was 42. I didn’t know if I could watch this but it was good for me. We are approaching Memorial Day weekend and I found it healing to remember a really good time we had together.
Thank you for sharing this.
“One night we were all in a suite together and Bohemian Rhapsody came on. My son and another of his friends sang it perfectly. They had beautiful voices and knew all of the words. It was a wonderful memory for me.
For a while we were all just happy and having fun and the pain and hurt was forgotten.”
________________
Sometimes it seems like that’s exactly what music is for.
Like a sort of refuge… or a shelter from the storm.
Not many things can do *that* better than music 🙂
Music is extremely powerful!
What a wonderful memory for you, Elizabeth. I didn’t mean to cause you pain, ever. Music is such a strong identifier. Takes us right back to where we were…..
Love to you this Memorial Day.
My first thought was Trump rally! LOL
Some people here might enjoy this video. It’s by an opera singer and professional voice / singing trainer named Linor Oren. As far as I can tell, she normally has around 5,000 to 10,000 views for her videos.
Then one day (late last year) she did a review of Freddie Mercury’s singing, from a professional voice trainer’s perspective. That video has had over 2 million views, so far.
Amazing what a difference the subject matter makes 😁
It’s pretty interesting, too:
Pretty cool, I must say.
Now multiply this by a few hundred million+ people given immortal and perfect voices singing Handel’s “Hallelujah Chorus”…joined by the angelic choir…. in absolutely perfect harmony and synchronization…in praise of King of kings as he sits upon the Mercy Seat.
This video a very intriguing look at the joy and wonder that is to come.
If YT tries to cut you off, it’s /watch?v=vp7j3ji5U24 .
Very cool.
People here I respect are impressed. I’ve worked in TV, videos and movies, and, to me, it’s a sweet hoax. Check out the left-hand side of the crowd. I could be wrong. Just sayin’. Anyway, either way, it amounts to glorious globalist propaganda at its most elusive, right? 😉
“People here I respect are impressed. I’ve worked in TV, videos and movies, and, to me, it’s a sweet hoax.”
_______________
Not really impressed, any large gathering of people could do this same thing, just kind of neat that it happened, and it was recorded.
It could easily be a hoax, we can’t see anyone’s faces or even see that anyone is singing anything. It could just be a video of a crowd, with a ‘soundtrack’ spliced in from somewhere else.
Either way, it’s something that many people can relate to, because so many people are familiar with the song.
There are LOTS of songs where this kind of thing could happen. It just happens that it was this particular song, in this instance, where the event occurred and was recorded.
Or so it appears, anyway.
I noticed at the end of the video…..it was a time lapse recording.
So the singing had to be overdubbed into the video….
Just sayin’
I myself can NOT stand to hear C-RAP…..
it’s like “Poetry with a drum beat”
Gotta say, I’m extremely disappointed by comments. Stunning that a post about hopefully bringing people together with music could cause so much division.
Yet, here we are…… Definitely not my intent.
I actually thought about not saying anything, to avoid controversy but avoidance is not the right thing to do.
1. It’s an amazing thing for 60K people to sing the same song, spontaneously…. and joyfully.
2. ……… which is what the post was about.
3. If you found yourself in the midst of 60K people singing…. would you enjoy the moment….. and sing, or would you leave because it didn’t agree with your ethics?
4. Sometimes a song is just a song.
5. Should we also ban the other two songs I mentioned? Sweet Caroline because Neil Diamond might be a Dem and advancing a Communist agenda? Or even worse, the Star Spangled Banner because Francis Scott Key may have had a slave? Cuz that’s where this is going. Where does it stop?
6. Instead, we make knee jerk reactions about the singers lifestyle and therefore we don’t like the song. Gee, it reminds me of those on the left who don’t like anything President Trump does, just because he said it or proposed the policy.
I don’t want to be in the judgement business. Not my place. I’ll leave that up to the big guy, upstairs.
Unfortunately, DW, we live in a deeply conflicted age of hidden agendas and dangers……where every impulse is subject to analysis, and every happiness is suspect. Gramsci, the bastard, did a number on us.
But there are also comments about having a common culture and sharing pleasure in each other’s company. Your post has gathered attention and camaraderie among the crowd here, and comments seem to be clipping along at a good pace — so there is real interest. In that, we are not divided.
When I had a keylogger dropped on me in 2015, I started looking into cybersecurity and rapidly became extremely cynical about a number of popular technologies. I’d recommend against popular apps because they leaked data; I’d argue against popular operating systems because they spied on their users; I’d recommend against any unsecured microphones or cameras in anyone’s household. It’s not because I started hating people, their comfort, and their convenience……it’s because I had become aware of the risks, dangers, and manipulation involved.
A 60,000 person singalong is a wondrous event (provided they’re not singing a hymn of praise to Kim Jong-un), and it’s a great thing that you have brought it to this group — but it’s also entirely natural that people have had some paranoid riffs off of it.
Yes, we are conditioned by many disappointments, deceptions, betrayals, gas-lighting, cruelty to SUSPICION.
Suspicion and fear are the consequence.
Sounds like you could use a little pick-me-up.
Some songs always do that for me, even when I’m feeling lousy or upset about something. Music is amazing like that.
The end of “Layla”, when the piano solo begins, is like that (for me). No matter what’s bothering me, when those first piano chords are struck, it’s like everything washes away, and I can smile again 🙂
Lots of songs can do that.
This one came to mind just now. It almost always works.
I have no idea what it’s really about.
I have never analyzed the lyrics, or even really given them any thought. You choose to sing along with the chorus or the lead, or both, and it’s just pure joy 😁
.
.
.
.
.
And this one always goes on next. It’s nearly impossible to stay in a funk when songs like these are playing. I don’t know what this one’s about either, though I’ve probably sung it a thousand times… I just like it. Every guitar note, every drum beat… it’s impossible to sit still, or to not sing along, and smile 😁
I’m just trying to figure out how we got to a point where I had to agree with the ethics of an artist, from the Beach Boys – Beethoven…….. before I was allowed to sing along.
What are we doing?
“I’m just trying to figure out how we got to a point where I had to agree with the ethics of an artist, from the Beach Boys – Beethoven…….. before I was allowed to sing along.
What are we doing?”
__________________
I don’t know about anyone else, I’m just enjoying the music 😁
I don’t know how to analyze music and enjoy it at the same time. I have engaged in ‘critical listening’ many times, to discern sonic differences between one LP (e.g., and original 1st pressing) and a later reissue LP, comparing the same song on each LP (or comparing different issues of the same CD, for that matter).
I can do it for a while, long enough to notice the differences and determine which I like better, but I analyze of listen ‘critically’ for long, because my mind wants to enjoy the music and the listening experience, not analyze it.
As for the ethics or even worse, the politics of an artist, the less I know about that, the better. I don’t care or want to know what they think, about almost anything. Even if I happen to agree with them, which is almost never.
Just shut up and sing already 😁
edit / correction: “but I can’t analyze
ofOR listen ‘critically’ for long…”Not sure what happened there…
“….What are we doing?”
The people on this blog are WOKE, as Wolfie says, once your eyes are open YOU CAN NOT NOT SEE. So people on this blog are not going to respond in a simple manner
This is what we see in our Fake News, Fake Art, Fake Entertainment and most of all our Fake Music and this is what we are talking about.
THE 45 COMMUNIST GOALS AS READ INTO THE CONGRESSIONAL RECORD, 1963
Even Country and Western music has been infiltrated by the Communists.
Bill Ivey of Global Cultural Strategies
“…Cultural Policy shapes and directs the Expressive Life of societies through the framework of law, regulation, and customary practice that governs the creation, distribution, consumption, and preservation of knowledge, information, and art.
All societies have cultural policy.
The United States has neither a cultural ministry nor department of cultural affairs…..”
BIO
Bill Ivey to John Podesta
Dear sweet, Daughn,
We have been training ourselves to use Critical Thinking and apply it to…everything.
For example, I clicked on the video that you featured and read the info & comments, to find our where this concert crowd was located…
This was a crowd for a Green Day concert on July 1, 2017…in Hyde Park, London.
Green Day…whose lead singer came out on that stage and said “Fuck Trump”…and got a huge round of cheers and applause for it.
So forgive me for not giving a thumbs up for our tormenters who hate on our President…and hate us for supporting him.
That said, I can appreciate what you’re saying.
🙂😊
We *do* need things that can unify us as a country.
And thank you for forwarding the thought…and opening up a discussion of it.
But this Bohemian Rhapsody video is not us…and not here.
Guess you’re in charge…………
No, Daughn, we are all in charge of ourselves. You just ran into a YUGE reminder that Conservatives are more like cats and Leftists are more like sheep.
You meant to show a great example of unity but instead, as Wheatietoo showed above, you really illustrated the mind bending and lock step of the left, even though it was unintentional.
You also showed WHY civilization needs Conservative ‘cats’ and NOT leftist ‘brain dead sheep’. Those who surprise you are the same ones who advance civilization by discovering new and better ways of doing things.
Lockstep? You might need a mirror.
I submit you’re doing the exact same thing the leftists are doing and you can’t see the irony.
Daughn,
Remember I have not been made numb by a constant deluge of TV and radio.
Tracy Beanz had a video weeks ago where she showed some snippets from ?Cardi B? I was HORRIFIED! The crap was almost pornographic.
I can not find the Utube but here is a Tweet.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1124151238893940737.html
It is certainly an illustration of:
“25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.”
If YOU as an Adult want to watch that crap or do stuff in the privacy of your own home, no problem. Where I have a problem is when it is FORCED ON CHILDREN! And what do we find? After a generation or two of “Break down cultural standards of morality…” We now have
1. DOUBLE the number of gays in the USA than in the UK.
2. The North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA) is a pedophilia and pederasty advocacy organization in the United States.
3. A Supreme Court Justice who thinks it is just FINE for little girls to be married to men.
4. Gay Boy Scout leaders who assualt their scouts (Think Wolfie)
5. Little boys being show cased as Drag Queens
6. Children as young as 3 transitioning to a different sex.
I can not read this on my old system but it should be ‘enlightening’ https://www.kqed.org/futureofyou/440851/can-you-really-know-that-a-3-year-old-is-transgender
7. SCHOOLS and LIBRARIES indoctrinating young children in what Christians call ‘perversions’
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
I remember reading that Julian Huxley (first Director General of UNSECO) said, to paraphase, Ideas that HORRIFY people now can be made common by gradual introduction (I am sorry I did not save the quote off line)
SO I am sorry if it ‘offends’ but I AM going to point out that todays ‘artists’ were SPECIFICALLY PICKED by the Fabians & Communists like Bill Ivey to destroy Western Civilization. This is not saying it should be ‘banned’ it is saying Radios and TV should no be
offeringPUSHING the stuff to young children.Hear, Hear!
I think the GREATEST POINT is that we need to TALK BACK to the “change artists” – to CALL THEM OUT. That is what made Hollywood great, IMO. BALANCE.
The point where Hollywood really took a turn for the worse was when “decency” was mocked into submission by the Soviet-instigated cultural revolution of the 60’s. The “old school” Hollywood czars who actually cared about morality, and understood the fine line, and listened to the organizations that cared about morality in media, were SHAMED out of power by the cultural subversives.
We are pushing back now, but we need to do it smartly – to TAKE and HOLD the intellectual high ground. Much of that centers on avoiding hypocrisy, and FIGHTING BACK IN TRUTH when accused of it wrongly, but ADMITTING IT and CORRECTING when the shoe fits.
Some change is necessary because the changing universe cannot be “undiscovered”. Society WILL CHANGE. But that change is not SMART unless we CONSERVE THE GOOD.
This is extremely true. One of the requirements of being a true questioner is to question our own questions. Seeing both sides of things is HOW we make sensible decisions. It’s TRUMPIAN.
Trump plays a ROLLING STONES song at MAGA rallies. Is there a message? Is there not a message? Maybe both?
Q said something very important:
MEMES ARE IMPORTANT. Music is one of the OLDEST forms of human meme-making. Memes are filled with irony, humor, both sides, multiple messages, etc.
I know it seems very weird that something can be both “message” and “no message”, but THAT is the weird, advanced, beautiful reality with which we are faced, and trying to understand.
This is a great post precisely because it stirs things up and makes people THINK. Don’t be disappointed! Be proud!
😨😧
Huh?
No, not hardly…and I don’t understand why you would say such a thing.
You might want to reread what you posted.
Haven’t seen anything that condescending in a long time.
I for one, Love your idea behind this article.
Everyone TOGETHER in UNITY for a common cause (Trump Rally style)
And remembering good times in our lives.
I also understand those dissenting here for their various reasons.
I really believe that EVERYONE here LOVES YOU!
You are and have been a real BLESSING to me.
I LOVE you three ladies soooo much. I see each of your points.
I love the sound of the people singing – but hate that they are the stupid Green/Climate/globalist hoax movement and hate our President.
My life/family/trauma has made me suspicious and distrustful and very careful about crowds and movements.
When upset/angry about all the idealogies and movements rising up against us – I go to Psalm 46:10 – BE STILL AND KNOW THAT I AM GOD.
The Psalm 46:10 verse also holds a lesson to comfort us:
“Be Still and know that IAM GOD, I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.”
Be Still – H7503 – Rapha – Completely cease, as to die.
Know – H3045 – Yada – Know intimately as in a marriage relationship.
That – H3588 – Kiy – surely/verily/certainly
IAM – H595 – AnoKiy – truly only holy sovereign
GOD – H430 – Elohiyim – GOD
Exalted – H7311 – Ruwm – rise above, rule over
Heathen – H1471 – Gowy – people, multitudes, nations, movements, political, philosophical, ideological systems
Exalted – H7311 – Ruwm – rise above, rule over
Earth/Heavens – H776 – Erets – all creation, heaven space, sheol, all physical, material and celestial entities, all time and eternity.
———
ANY system or ideology that exalts itself above GOD, be it communism, Islamism, Globalism, Humanism, pansexualism, atheism, environmentalism – is operating in the Anti-Christ spirit – and IS ALREADY DEFEATED in Heaven and will be defeated in Eternityforever and ever AMEN.
“I love the sound of the people singing – but hate that they are the stupid Green/Climate/globalist hoax movement and hate our President.”
________________
Me too.
I won’t try to speak for Daughn, I just think part of the point is that those things weren’t any part of the video she posted.
Wheatie mentioned that apparently the video was shot in England, before a ‘Green Day’ concert, and when they eventually went on stage, the radical conformists of ‘Green Day’ made nasty comments about the president. Oh how bold and brave of them, lol!
Okay, so they’re idiots. Both the goofs in ‘Green Day’, and the clowns who cheered what they said. But what did that have to do with the crowd’s spontaneous rendition of ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ (which itself has been called into question)?
I mean, suppose 60,000 people spontaneously sang ‘Amazing Grace’ together.
And then some of them, later on, said something nasty about the president, or went home and beat their kids, or their wives. Or got drunk. Or any of a thousand other bad things.
What does that have to do with the moment, when they all sang ‘Amazing Grace’ together?
Do we condemn the song and the entire experience, because of what some people said or did, afterwards?
Forgive me please for all the details about that Scripture. I was trained as an artist and English lit minor, to look for interesting minute details, so that’s the way I approach Scripture. I will look at the Greek and Hebrew words, their roots, etc. to get to the depths and intricacies of their meaning.
My point is – the movements that rise up against our Sovereign, all powerful, Eternal Holy GOD are futile and powerless and have no hope of ever dethroning HIM – or even disturbing HIS peace.
I feel your pain.
While there are examples that are clearly in poor taste —
— there are any number of popular songs with less than savory pasts.
I am just gonna slide down here… because, although I have known and sung to Bohemian Rhapsody, I never really knew its actual background… It was just pretty, and interesting… and not really that easy to sing..
I liked the idea of cultural identity…Whenever I am at some kind of party, and they call for a line dance.. that is exactly what I imagine.. It started with the electric slide (in my mind) and then included some fun country songs.. but seeing a huge group of people just doing the same dance.. and having such fun// it’s great.
I guess back in the day, it was ballroom dancing…TY dw247
Just so we all understand the new rules.
Just so we’re all clear – Anything by Elvis is no longer allowed, because he was surely flawed.
We should probably strike Shakespeare too, given the number of people who died in the last act of Romeo and Juliet. Too violent, and thus, someone will surely object.
Mozart, nah, forget Mozart, cuz he was crazy as hell.
Van Gogh, Da Vinci, Plato, Aristotle, no one can pass muster.
All gone.
Any music made from the 60’s to today, should not be allowed, because no one can pass this kind of a purity test. If they were not doing illicit drugs or having premarital sex, then surely they knew someone who was………. and that’s all it takes, according to these rules.
I get it. If one member of a band has a political or moral ideology with which we do not agree, we should ban their music and pass judgement all members of the band. That 1st Amendment wasn’t that important anyway.
You know what this means?
Better not invite your DEM relatives to Christmas dinner….. because it’s the same logic. What happens if your children adopt an alternative lifestyle and you disagree? Do you become a hypocrite if you love them? How can you rationalize your behavior?
More hate, more division, more isolation………, don’t ever associate with anyone with whom you disagree………, judge the body of a man’s life/work based on one bad incident or flaw, ……… tear down their statues, ………….silence and ban the “bad” people, ….the “Communists” just won.
Advocate for personal freedoms, and less censorship, as long as you agree with the message…….. We’re doing the exact same thing the left does. Can you not see the irony?
There’s not enough room for me to stand on top of this high moral ground.
First to admit, I am deeply flawed and have made many mistakes.
Good thing God is in the forgiveness business, at least in my religion he still is. Perhaps it’s not the same for all.
Definitely, this is the day the music died. Yet, you better not listen to the this song, because there was a movie made about it, decades later, and surely there was someone in the movie you didn’t like.
YES!!!
‘MUSIC’ died when the Communists decided to use it to advance their agenda. It died when who was advanced in the field of the arts and who was not was based on the USEFULNESS to advancing the Communist agenda AND NOT TALENT. It started dying in 1915 when the Banksters took control of the newspapers in the USA. link
I can enjoy a tune and tap my toes, but that does not mean I have to FORGET that todays music, like todays Fake News and TV programing and movies are specifically designed to destroy my country.
It is the leftist and the muslims who are saying JOIN OR BE DESTROYED! And if some of us warn against their methods and tools It does NOT mean we are the haters. Did you FORGET the left telling their supporters to be complete SHITS to Conservative relatives at the Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners after President Trump was elected?
Did you not read just yesterday a comment about how a person had to keep their mouths SHUT and not voice an opinion to get along with his DEM relatives? I have that crap going on in my home too. I am SILENCED so as not to upset my b-i-l.
WELL I AM SICK OF BEING MUZZLED because of a bunch of toddlers in adult bodies screaming and tossing temper tantrums and even getting violent if they do not get their way. If THEY don’t want to be around me because of MY opinions than fine by me! I HAVE HAD IT!
The trick now is fighting back culturally. That means WE have to be the “culturally aware” side. Not in imitation of the left, but in CRITICISM of them. They will try to make our criticism appear stupid – hypocritical – puritanical – unknowing – valid only in adherence to the outmoded or no-longer-true.
This is one of the reasons that Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg STRIKE DOWN anybody on the right who has cultural relevance, cultural astuteness, or cultural gravity. Watch WHO they go after. It is those who threaten to make leftism culturally SECOND-PLACE in the CURRENCY OF THE MOMENT. When the RIGHT is both edgier and smarter than the LEFT, they are SKEERED.
I am going to state this boldly:
If we don’t get what Daughn is saying, we CANNOT WIN that cultural war.
We must be prepared to EMBRACE CULTURAL RELEVANCE. That is not easy. We are out of practice. But we MUST DO IT. I believe that Greek thought – first native and then its intermarriage with Roman-era Judaism (through Hellenization) and early Christianity actually HAD that kind of pull, which is why Eastern Med ideas and philosophies swept the world, but after many centuries, we’ve let the enemies of “godly thought” turn the tables.
We have to TURN THE TABLES BACK, but not “back in time”. Every time they grab culture, we grab it higher, smarter, hipper, fresher and BETTER. How do we do that? KEEP ASKING THE QUESTION, because the answer will change as they fight back. DON’T REST ON LAURELS.
Ask the question – what will be OUR Bohemian Rhapsody? WHEN will it happen? We have to have a will to make America SMART and HIP and CURRENT if we want to make it great.
We have to GRAB CULTURAL CONTROL of our own culture. That means OTHERS are going to have to be made to let go. But we also have to have the will to TAKE CONTROL, and not, in doing so, succumb to the pitfalls (see Germany, 1930’s) of BAD cultural control.
Michael summed it all up in the first 4 words of his reply:
Plato bemoaned the poets….
Which one do we get rid of? Philosophers or poets? Reason or emotion? Truth or beauty?
Wolf chooses NEITHER! 😉
daughn, I love the American Pie song. It is just wonderful. Music touches my soul. Somehow in the late 90’s there was a sadness and repetition in music that mostly took away my enjoyment of it. I had my clock radio alarm set to music. I just started using the alarm without the music. I think they were beginning to use AI to create songs for mass consumption then.
I went to a record store back in the day and bought 5 albums -33 1/3. The owner looked at them and said that I must be buying gifts for several people. I looked at my albums. All 5 were different – classical, Country and Western, modern rock, songs from movies, and Classic Hymns. I just giggled and told him they were all for me.
I looked up Bohemian Rhapsody after my son sang it to me that night. “Oh Mama” and it made me feel sad. Then I decided that what really happened that night was that he was just entertaining me. He and his friend were laughing. The whole room full of people were smiling and laughing. I had tears running down my face and was laughing.
Music is personal to me and had always been a huge part of my life. I find that the people who can step back and analyze everything never really relate to the core of the thing they are analyzing. I loved the Musical Hair and saw the movie a few times and had the album. I never did drugs. Years later, my son explained to me that a lot of songs I loved were about drugs. I was surprised. Puff the Magic Dragon, Mellow Yellow and on and on. I never endorsed drugs or used them. My son was raised his first few years on Classical Music because I was going through my Classical stage. When he was a teenager, he would change the radio station in the car to classical. Bohemian Rhapsody is Classical Music and my son had the voice of an Opera Singer.
We don’t have to agree on things or even analyze everything. It often destroys the whole meaning. “How do I love thee?” becomes a psychological analysis instead of a beautiful heartfelt tribute to someone I love that goes beyond the word breakdown.
I don’t know why we fall in love or why it is with a particular person. I can’t describe a lot of things I have felt in words that others can understand. I stood by my daughter’s crib watching her sleep a few weeks after she was born. I felt this tremendous surge of love and light. It was beyond anything I had ever experienced. I tried telling a couple of people and they just stared at me like I was crazy.
Each of us is made up of our own experiences, knowledge, circumstances and we can only touch each other in small ways. I can never really know anyone else and they can never really know me. We each live alone in our own world. But I have been in huge groups of people at concerts when the person on stage stops singing and the audience continues the song. The artist considers that a great tribute. It is. For a few minutes the whole audience shares something that they really can’t explain to others. It is important. It is beautiful. Somehow we are able to share something beyond our own individual understanding and just be together in peace and harmony.
Your post brought back a very important time of love and enjoyment that I got to share with my son before he died. We still had a lot of hard times to share but I have always remembered that night and that song with a feeling of tenderness and tears. I can’t even share that with others in a way that most will understand.
Thanks again for posting this.
Beautifully said, as always 🙂
American Pie is one of my favorites, and strongest early memories.
It was released in 1971, so I was about 4 years old, depending on what time of the year it came out. I knew what a Chevy was, but had no idea what a ‘levy’ was… or why anyone would drive there. Didn’t bother me a bit. I’m still not sure why anyone would drive their Chevy to a levy, come to think of it 😁
This whole thing has been a very interesting discussion. I see both points of view, and I understand both.
Music is very special to me, as it is for many people, and everyone has their own reasons why, whether they ever stop to think about why, or not.
I had one of those white plastic suitcase record players, when I was about 4 years old. It was mostly orange plastic inside when you opened it, with a white platter, if I remember correctly.
I spent a lot of time in my room as a young child. My Mom grew up in an abusive home, and she had no idea how to raise a child. I’ll never understand what was wrong with her, but it wasn’t good. Mostly I think she just made up reasons to explode at me and send me to my room, so she could watch her soap operas — which did nothing but twist her mind even more.
Kids didn’t have TVs in their bedrooms in those days. Or at least, I didn’t. No video games. I wasn’t old enough to read. I had picture books, but you can only look at those so many times. And time is the one thing I had plenty of. Four walls to stare at, wondering what I had done wrong, and knowing it didn’t even matter, because there was nothing I could do about it. I was just trapped. And bad, apparently.
Constant solitary confinement, hour after hour, day after day, for a 4 or 5 or 6 year old child, is just mean and cruel. It’s a great way for a primary caregiver to make a child think you must hate them, and that child would probably be right. If not actually, then at least practically. Six of one, half a dozen of the other — the effect is the same, from the child’s perspective.
But I had that record player. And I had some 45’s. I had the ‘ABC’ song so I could learn the alphabet. I had Alvin and the Chipmunks singing the Christmas Song, but I didn’t play that one too much. Alvin’s voice really got on my nerves. I had “Snoopy vs. the Red Barron” by the Royal Guardsmen, with Snoopy on the cover, sitting on top of his dog house, wearing WWI flying googles and cap, and I played that one a lot.
I had PP&M’s ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’, and I played that one a lot, too. Still love it. In Kindergarten, I traded one of my Hot Wheels to my friend for his older brother’s copy of the Beatles’ I Want to Hold Your Hand. I played that one a lot, too.
But the song I remember playing most was American Pie. It’s a long song, too long for a 7″ 45rpm, so it fades out at the end of side one. Then you have to flip it over, and it fades back in to finish the song on side two.
I was in a bad situation. I didn’t understand what was wrong with the world, or my primary caregiver. I tried to run away when I was five. I only made it a few blocks, but that was a lot further than I had ever been by myself before. I was absolutely forbidden to EVER cross the street by myself. But cross it I did. And several more after that. I was going. I didn’t know where, but I was going. That’s how it was. Anything, even the complete unknown, had to be better than where I was, so I grabbed a few of my favorite small toys, and I made a run for it. But they found me, and brought me back. Then I was punished for that, too.
Punishment was the theme of my childhood. I guess many people can relate, but at the same time, I sure hope not. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody.
Seemed like endless days, locked in that room, with not a thing to do.
Except for the music. So that’s what I did. I played music. And lucky for me, I had a few good songs to play. And I played them a LOT. 😁
Music had the power to take me somewhere else. Out of my prison, away from the pain and confusion. Away from the sadness. At least for a while. And that was important. I don’t know if I would have made it, otherwise.
To this day, music still has that same power. Like an all-natural mood-altering substance. Like Dobie Gray sings, in ‘Drift Away’:
Give me the beat boys
And free my soul
I wanna get lost in your rock ‘n roll
And drift away….
So I guess all of that is just my way of saying that I’m with you, Daughn. Sometimes a song is just a song, and it just feels good to enjoy it. 👍
Speaking of which, I haven’t heard Dobie sing Drift Away in a long time. Think I’ll play it now 😁
edit / correction: ‘Levee’, not ‘levy’ 😁
Daughn, for what it’s worth, I get your intention with the post. I am as cynical and jaded and frustrated as the next person, but sometimes you’ve just got to shut off all the noise, live in the moment, and enjoy the experience.
My mother is in the mid-late stage of Alzheimer’s and watching a parent’s mind crack into a million pieces is the most difficult thing in my life.
But NOTHING brings more joy to her and the other residents than singing songs together from the music of their youth. Music is the last thing to go in their broken minds and memories.
So thank you for posting the video. We enjoyed it and for a few mins just felt joy.
Now I’ll go back to resuming my cynical, jaded and frustrated state of mind.
This is one of the most important posts that has ever been made here. It goes to the very CORE of MAGA. I would argue that it’s as important as Sundance and the Roadmap post which helped put Trump in the White House.
There are THREE messages that we MUST internalize:
(1: Daughn) WE, Americans, have the POWER OF ANTHEM.
(2: Others) Somebody else has been writing our anthems.
(3: Wolf’s Linear Combination) WE, Americans, have the POWER TO WRITE AND SING OUR OWN ANTHEMS.
This is the CORE of MAGA. Everything is downstream of the cultural truth that we cannot achieve our destiny if we do not take control of it, and that means TAKING BACK CONTROL FROM OTHERS.
Cannot sit still for this one. My apologies.
It’s wrong.
Of course, “We have the power to write our own anthems.” – Does that mean we avoid other anthems?
Sure feels like I’m being told what to listen to, or to whom I can befriend, speak to.
“Stay in your lane, Daughn”, to which I have a knee jerk reaction and run in the opposite direction.
Can’t get past this knee jerk judgement call though, for Bohemian Rhapsody. It’s the worst possible part of identity politics, and I fear, we’ve fallen into the trap.
We’re doing the same thing.
How is it possible anyone can live such a pure life, do nothing with which we disagree?
I disagree with husband all the time…. daily.
This is no different than tearing down statues. Eviscerating the entire body of work of a man’s life because of one perceived injustice.
If Isaac Newton was gay, do we hate “gay” so much that we ignore gravity? Of course, not. The two issues are totally unrelated to each other.
I appreciate the work of Carl Faberge, today, even though he worked for a Tsar. Should we NOT have played Tchaikovsky’s 1812 overture at the beginning of American July 4th fireworks during the Cold War? Or during “Muh Russia” investigation?
I suppose people will see “bad” wherever they look.
Yet, it’s a new thing, a leftist thing, to tear down the entire work of a man because of ONE issue.
THIS is the problem.
It’s dangerous to a free society and we have to stop it.
It’s mob rule – just as the leftists are doing now.
I submit, it is a mortal wound to American culture. Erasing the history of a person, the music/art/science/historical contribution, because of one “alleged” infraction is bad logic. If we adopt this position, make it common place on the left and right, free-will is gone. We all lose. Self-censorship becomes commonplace and innovation dies on the vine….. “better not say that, think that, do that, try that, someone will object”.
The entire premise of “the song is from the occult” is a fairly odd position to take, and had nothing to do with the post. Yet, I do understand posts get hijacked as we all descend into a larger conversation. Could it be the song was was a modern opera? As advertised? Where drama occurs? And someone dies? A modern tragedy? Beautifully written? Yes, it’s a more probable answer.
“Someone else has been writing our anthems” – does this mean Freddie Mercury is now the enemy? If he is not part of “our side” to write “our anthems”, he is therefore on the “other” side to write anthems for the “enemy”….. and is the enemy? Thus, “We are the Champions” is also thrown out? And I was under Communist or occult influence when it became “our” song in high school, when we won the state 5A championship?
Come on……… You think that might be a little bit severe?
Or, was it just a fun and interactive song, where we could all stomp on the risers and make noise, when we won a football game?
When Eric Clapton “Shot the Sheriff” was he sending a dog whistle for Communists which beget the Anti-Police movement? No, Clapton found a song written by Bob Marley and sang it to make money = pure capitalism. In fact, Marley, who originally wrote the song, claimed, “the sheriff” was a metaphor for shooting the elements of wickedness. Marley was anti-police decades later, in general, but REALLY took a stand against birth control and abortion.
So, do we listen to the song or not?
Someone tell me, please, cuz I can’t keep up with the new rules.
When Whitney Houston wanted to “Dance with Somebody”, did she only want to dance with her same ideological group? Or her same race? Or did she want everyone to just DANCE?
How about “I’m a Lumberjack and I’m Okay” from Monty Python? He wore suspenders and a bra…. in 1969. Clearly, this is subversive according to new rules, or is just silly and comedic? I still know all the words……. and I really loved Monty Python. Can’t believe Monty Python statues will be torn down next, but apparently we must defer to the mob. No more comedy – the Communists don’t laugh. And the strict censors are found on both the right and left. No more fun.
The “Power of the Anthem” was about a common identity – western culture. Whether the song makes you grin, dance, or invokes a sweet or horrible memory. Whether the song is silly or thought provoking is immaterial because we ALL have the same range of emotions at some point in our lives. It’s about our collective experience, as Americans, and within western culture. Those of us who grew up when the song was popular all listened to radio. We can still sing the same songs today. That’s what the post was about. Comfort and familiarity…….. irrespective of races and genders and politics and perceived injustices.
Actually, we could blame the younger generation for all our controversy, because their music stinks, and they keep stealing OUR music…. and reinterpreting our music in a different time/different rules.
So strange that Bruce Springsteen, the furthest leftist of them all, sang “Born in the USA”, and became a “Power Anthem” for those who wanted to destroy the Soviet Empire……. Springsteen sang an anti-war and anti-government song……Springsteen was complaining about America. Yet, to those behind the Iron Curtain, the song was a rally cry…. for freedom.
Guess it all depends on your point of view, eh?
“Of course, “We have the power to write our own anthems.” – Does that mean we avoid other anthems?”
________________
I have written a LOT of anthems, naturally.
I mean, who hasn’t?
I’m sure everyone here has had the same experience. We’ve written this great anthem, so we go to a major sports venue to try it out, and wait for our moment.
Then, at a point when the 60+ thousand member crowd is relatively silent, you start singing your new anthem at the TOP of your lungs, and wave your arms, encouraging everybody to join in.
Then it happens (again). Everybody just turns around and looks at you like you’re a freakin’ nutcase.
I’m thinking maybe it’s because I’m the only one who knows my anthems, but… it’s just a working theory. I’m still shaking out the ‘root causes’ details on that one.
If my anthems have to become famous for decades and part of a shared experience among tens of millions of people first, that’s really going to throw a monkey wrench into my success plans 😁
Hehe, good one!
“Sure feels like I’m being told what to listen to, or to whom I can befriend, speak to.
“Stay in your lane, Daughn”, to which I have a knee jerk reaction and run in the opposite direction.”
________________
I resemble that remark…
I just have to be careful to make sure someone isn’t using ‘reverse psychology’ on me 😁
When I learned to drive, especially on the highway, we were taught to drive in the right hand lane, and use the left lane for passing. Pretty much everybody did that, and it worked reasonably well.
As I got older, people got dumber. Or they stopped teaching what I was taught, and started teaching something else called ‘do whatever the &^%$ you wanna do’, I’m not sure which.
And the other thing that happened is people started driving slower. Especially if there’s a hint of rain, or (gasp!) snow.
Other cars started to become like pylons on an obstacle course. I was having to move into the passing lane every minute or two… when the slow cars weren’t driving mindlessly in the passing lane, that is.
Over the years, the driving habits of the general population have only gotten worse.
So I weave through the traffic. Especially the ‘Talladega’ groups, named after the way packs form at the biggest high speed racetracks like Talladega and Daytona speedways. You know the ones. You’re driving along the highway, minding your own business, and all of a sudden you come up on a group of 10 or 20 or even 30 cars, all driving side by side, stacked 5 or 10 rows deep. Everybody is oblivious to everyone else.
If one person at the head of the pack changes lanes suddenly, or blows a tire, or falls asleep, or spills covfefe on his crotch while reading the newspaper and putting on his mascara, the whole pack is going to get wiped out. Talladega packs are crazy dangerous. I wouldn’t want to drive as part of a Talladega pack even if I knew the other drivers and was comfortable with their level of driving skill and ability.
I sure don’t want to drive in a Talladega pack of complete strangers…
So I pick my way through them as fast as possible, and get away from the zombie car herds.
It’s not hard to do. In my experience, surprisingly, most people are terrified to drive (which means they shouldn’t be driving, at all — they don’t have the requisite skill, ability, experience or confidence).
If you don’t do anything at all, you’re just stuck there, and the Talladega pack grows one car larger, and you all hurtle toward certain doom together.
But if you ride someone’s bumper, eventually they wake up from their dream state, and either move out of the way, or put their stubborn jerk hat on, and decide to block you.
If they block you, move over to the other lane and ride his bumper. Yes, they could do something really dangerous like ‘brake check’ me, and that has happened once or twice, but my reaction time was more than sufficient. Even with one jackass who locked up his brakes and came to a complete halt (that was on a rural highway, and he was going about 10mph under the speed limit, mile after mile, after mile…). I stopped with the same amount of space between us as we had been driving.
So if you’re going to do it, you have to anticipate what the crazies might do.
If the second driver decides to work with the other driver and block you too (this happens frequently), then you move between the two lanes, and ride BOTH of their bumpers at the same time. If they break check you then, and manage to cause an accident, they’re both going to spin outwards.
Most of the time though, they realize that their stubborn intransigence is going to get someone’s car damaged, so somebody moves out of the way and waves the international sign for peace.
It’s not my fault they don’t know how to drive, or can’t find the gas pedal.
Or both.
But sometimes they just don’t care, everybody is going to block you, no matter what you do. Some people are just that way, and if you have two of them, side by side in front of you, that happens.
And that’s when the breakdown lane becomes the passing the lane. This is a last resort, because there is often junk in the breakdown lane that you don’t want to drive over, like shredded tire debris from a blown semi-truck tire.
Best you can do is back off the Talladega pack about 30 feet, and get a line of sight into the breakdown lane, and when it looks clear for at least a quarter mile, drop out of 5th gear into 4th and go for it.
Once you’re in front of the pack, the temptation to return the favor of the courtesy they showed you is great. You can block the whole pack, make them slow way down, and wave. But I don’t recommend that. It wasn’t the zombies at the front or the middle of the pack who blocked you, it was the goons at the back.
So just move on, until the next Talladega pack looms on the horizon.
It’s a shame so few people know how to drive anymore. The old system worked pretty well.
Now it’s like Mad Max.
Anyway, my lane’s always clear. I don’t block anybody. I know where the rearview mirror is, and I use it. On the rare (and I do mean rare) occasion that someone is going faster than I am and coming up behind me, I move over into the slow lane, and get out of his way. If he’s going that fast, he probably has a good reason.
So if you don’t like your lane, or if the lane you’re in is going too slow, or if the lane you’re in doesn’t go where you want to go, then just bump-draft with me through the Talladega pack, and we’ll be clear in no time 😀
I really, REALLY, love to drive. I do like fast cars but now, it’s all SUVs and trucks.
Dad went with me to buy my first real car, a stick shift, which I didn’t know how to drive at the time. He left me in the parking lot and said, “figure it out”
I drove 400 miles home and by the time I got there, I had it figured out.
Yes, I have cursed those who do not follow proper etiquette of driving and learned to anticipate from the masters in my family.
I do all the family driving.
It’s easier and we make great time. no need to lay on someone’s bumper and be a jerk. Plenty of room on my highway.
“no need to lay on someone’s bumper and be a jerk.”
_______________
Just to be clear, the jerk is the guy who is in no hurry at all, and who has no consideration for anyone else in the world but himself, the guy who isn’t paying any attention to something that requires ALL of your attention (i.e., driving a 3,000lb plus car at speed), and who, when he notices that he is impeding someone else’s progress, actively BLOCKS that other person, out of pure spite, just to aggravate, just to make someone else’s life a little more difficult — for the fun of it.
That’s the jerk.
No self-awareness, no situational awareness, no competence, and no consideration for anyone but himself. And when he suddenly notices his inattention to the world around him, his reaction is to block or impede someone else.
Not the guy who rides his bumper after trying to get his attention by the other usual means.
We are not hostages to zombies and incompetent people.
Not unless we choose to be.
However, I’m always eager to learn. If there is a more effective way to get past someone who is blocking you, initially out of obvious incompetence, and then out of pure spite, I’m all ears 🙂
edit / correction: “If there is a more effective way to get past someone who is blocking you, initially out of
obvious oblivious incompetence, and then out of pure spite…”I luvs me some WordPress.
edit / correction: “If there is a more effective way to get past someone who is blocking you, initially out of
obviousoblivious incompetence, and then out of pure spite…”I do recall Dad passing people in the emergency lane. I’ve never done it but I have thought about it.
Normally, there are not two jerks, traveling at exact same speed. One jerk in left lane, okay, usually the guy in the right lane realizes what is happening, slows down, and unplugs the snarl.
“I do recall Dad passing people in the emergency lane.”
_____________
Way to go, Dad! 😁
I can only think of twice that I’ve done it. One was a six lane highway (3 lanes each direction), and all three lanes were blocked solid, and nobody would budge. Went on that way for miles. One would speed up just a little, but not enough to get past. Then another would do the same, just to be an ass.
And people wonder how road rage incidents happen.
It’s not the drivers who are focused and paying attention to what they’re doing. And it’s not the aggressive drivers, either.
It’s the dumbasses who aren’t paying attention to anything, or texting on their phones, or putting their make-up on, or eating, and then when they wake up, decide they’re going to block someone out of spite.
I can relate to the guy who is in a hurry, and I’m quick to get out of his way. All I ask is the same courtesy.
I’m grateful for aggressive drivers. If everyone drives ‘defensively’, you end up with total gridlock. The moving equivalent of coming to a four-way stop-sign intersection, and nobody has a clue what to do, or the initiative to just GO. So they all sit there and look at each other, waiting for somebody to find the gas pedal.
I understand the order, and who is supposed to go. It’s not rocket science.
But if someone who is supposed to go next hesitates longer than 3 seconds, I’m going. It’s not my fault if they don’t know how to figure out a 4-way stop. They can sit there and have a picnic together for all I care, but I need to go!