Wow, kind of amazing how a rap song that says what you already think got you to think the thoughts that were already in your head.
deep man.
puffs and passes
And Peart has said, “For a start, the extent of my influence by the writings of Ayn Rand should not be overestimated. I am no one’s disciple.”
And Geddy has introduced “Red Barchetta” as a song about a car.
The song “Anthem” is not a direct retelling of any story. You must not be familiar with it. Your statement about “The Trees” is correct. Your statement about “Free Will” is not. I don’t know where you’re getting your ideas about the content of these songs.
And yeah, if Rush’s lyrics were driven by a hamfisted effort to push a right-wing political philolosphy, I would not be a fan. I just don’t want you to get the idea that you can pretend that Rush’s popularity equates to any endorsement of right-wing philosophy within their lyrics. That’s what’s so what.
No, just that lefties can always fold their arms and insist “that’s not funny”. Or engage in the kind of RO we see on a daily basis in the Pit (towards anything not aimed at Bush).
Confirmation bias, obviously - if you refuse to accept that anything aimed at the Left is funny, then you can say silly things like this.
Oh, absolutely, which is why it is informative to compare Rush Limbaugh and his jokes about Algore with Air America and its jokes about - well, whatever they used to think was funny before they crashed and burned.
That explains much of the tendency towards speech codes and legislation aimed at trying to silence talk radio - the left cannot succeed in an un-coerced market to nearly the extent that conservatives can.
I hear talk often about how the Daily Show is an equal opportunity mocker, but oddly enough jokes about the lefties never seem to get nearly as much traction on the SDMB as the jokes about the GOP.
Funny how your sense of humor breaks down so neatly. It’s almost as if it mattered whose sacred cows are being gored.
Regards,
Shodan
They did? I coulda swore I was just listening to a Stephanie Miller fart joke, not ten minutes ago! Wow, that was fast! Or maybe “crashed and burned” means something different in Shodanese…
Peart is like a lot of Ayn Rand followers. He WAS a ‘disciple’ when he was young, then he grew up and expanded his views. At the point they were making ‘2112’ the fact that he dedicated the entire album to her ‘genius’ should make it pretty clear where he stood at that time.
A car, and a country with a ‘motor law’ that made the car illegal, and the exhilaration of the narrator as he ‘commits his weekly crime’ by flouting the law and expressing his freedom…
Sorry, I mixed up ‘Anthem’ with the title of Rand’s book. It was the entire 2112 album that revolves around that story. That’s why it was dedicated to Rand. The whole album follows the plot of the book. The “Priests of the Temples of Syrinx” were the World Council of Scholars from Rand’s book, and the protagonist’s music is the equivalent of the invention that Rand’s character presents to the WCS. There’s not much controversy in saying this - this is the accepted interpretation of that album by pretty much every rock critic I’ve read. It’s not exactly subtle.
As for whether it had an anti-socialist theme… From the lyrics:
We’ve taken care of everything
The words you hear, the songs you sing
The pictures that give pleasure to your eyes
It’s one for all, all for one
We work together, common sons
Never need to wonder how or why
…
Look around this world we made
Equality our stock in trade
Come and join the brotherhood of man
Oh what a wide contented world
Let the banners be unfurled
Hold the red star proudly high in hand
The lyrics were spoken by the villians of the story, not the good guys. If that isn’t a shot directly across the bow of socialists and communists, I don’t know what is.
The song ‘Anthem’ itself has probably the most explicit Objectivist statement ever put to music:
*Live for yourself – there’s no one else
More worth living for
Begging hands and bleeding hearts will
Only cry out for more
Well, I know they’ve always told you
Selfishness was wrong
Yet it was for me, not you, i
Came to write this song*
*You can choose a ready guide
In some celestial voice
If you choose not to decide
You still have made a choice
You can choose from phantom fears
And kindness that can kill
I will choose a path thats clear
I will choose free will*
Again the themes of athiesm, reason, self-determination, and a shot against altruism or socialism (“kindness that can kill”). The song goes on to say that you have free will and can make your own way in the world, and it castigates those who think that they have no power or control simply because they were dealt a lousy hand at birth. This was Neal Peart the full-on Objectivist writing this.
A certain amount of Rush’s popularity has to do with their being icons of rock amongst Libertarians and Objectivists. But only a small part. I’m sure that the vast majority of Rush fans like them because of the music, and not the message. But there’s no doubt that at least in the first half of Rush’s career they wrote music with libertarian/Objectivist themes.
Then there’s “Witch Hunt” from Moving Pictures:
*They say there are strangers who threaten us,
Our immigrants and infidels.
They say there is strangeness to danger us
In our theatres and bookstore shelves,
That those who know what’s best for us
Must rise and save us from ourselves.
Quick to judge,
Quick to anger,
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear walk hand in hand.*
“Those who know what’s best for us must rise and save us from ourselves” was not meant to be a flattering portrayal of socialists OR social conservatives. The theme of the song is that people are told to be afraid so that others can gain power with the promise to keep them safe. That politicians prey on people’s ignorance and prejudice to control them.
Rush had a whole ‘Fear Cycle’ of songs of the same theme - others using fear to control people.
A lot of it is not overt preaching - the message is in the subject matter and the tone. For instance, “The Camera Eye” celebrates the city - the buildings, the purposeful stridess of the inhabitants, the ‘sense of possibilities’. It’s basically an anti-luddite message very much in the Randian tradition.
By the way, Rush’s own ‘logo’, the man set against a red five-pointed star (seen here), is supposed to represent the struggle of the individual against the forces of collectivism, by Neal Peart’s own admission. The use of a red star to represent collectivism is not accidental.
What you’re describing is invariably true of college-age and twenty-something pseudo-Objectivists . . . who latch onto a few of Rand’s ideas and customize them to fit their own particular neuroses. After a certain age they tend to be either no longer Objectivists or no longer neurotic. Usually the former.
The Ayn Rand Bookstore has an audio book by Tara Smith, entitled “Virtues or Vices? Kindness, Generosity, Charity.” It’s very enlightening . . . and yes, they are Objectivist “virtues.”
Eh? I mean there’s two possibilities in play here. One: everyone is so hyper-partisan over here that they can’t appreciate the value of right-wing media. Two: there’s very little right-wing media of appreciable value.
I lean towards the latter explanation, and it seems that Sam Stone does too. Both could be true of course, but two should be pretty easy to disprove.
The creative class leans left. Probably it’s because there’s other demographic variables in play–they tend to be younger; perhaps also not as wealthy. But I think to ignore that and indict the Leftist Mob on the SDMB again is a little played out, right?
Although I wasn’t previously aware of the libertarian bent of Rush. Which was interesting to learn.
Wait, I got one. The Beatles wrote a song called “Taxman” which was actually about high taxation under the Labour government. I love Taxman. I sing it all the time.
I mean: oh those right-wing talentless good-for-nothings!
Bever mind
Sam, I love that you are quoting Rush lyrics to me and explaining song lyrics to me that I spent adolescent nights reading and re-reading and singing and playing trivia games with friends about. I chose my handle because of my affinity for Rush.
Right – but to say he “expanded” his views is to put a fairly dramatic spin on things. Seems to me that, like a lot of people, he grew up and moved away from a Randian mentality as he became aware that it’s not a functional philosophy.
A lot of what you’ve written is accurate, and I haven’t contended that he never was influenced by Rand. In fact, I specifically mentioned Anthem and 2112, and here you are bringing these up as if they were novel observations that I’ve somehow disagreed with.
Nope. One side of the album. A Passage to Bankok, Tears, Twilight Zone, and Something for Nothing are completely separate. Where are you getting your info? You’re Canadian – aren’t you all fans of Rush?
And “Free Will” is rightie only if you think that rejecting religion and praising free will are the province of the right. I don’t. In fact, isn’t an atheistic orientation expressly rejected by the political right? Similarly, it’s not particularly right wing to reject a witch hunt mentality, and the censorship of art and expression to me is emblematic of a conservative and politically rightwing rather than leftie orientation, as in “Witch Hunt.” I’d say, at least in America, that it is the right that is more likely to fear the “strangeness” in our “theaters and bookstore shelves.”
Wrong again. While “The Weapon” is manifestly about how one’s fears can be used as a weapon by others, “The Enemy Within” isn’t about other people using fear to control you – the name should give the meaning away. Similarly, “Freeze” is about how people respond to fears. This is more trying to see a bunny rabbit in the clouds, and the discussion of fear in the fear “trilogy” has about as much to do with right-wing political orientation as “Emotion Detector” does.
Enjoying the awe-inspiring impact of the buildings and the pace of the people in New York City is now a right-wing message? What do you make of a song like “Tai Shan” then, or of “Mystic Rhythms”, which are both about appreciating the opposite of the pulse and purposeful strides of the city? What about another album-side venture, “Hemispheres”, which suggests that human rationality and city building cannot survive without emotion and interconnectivity?
It’s Neil, not Neal.
And for every stanza that you think celebrates an independent attitude towards society, there’s at least one that mourns a disconnection from society, such as:
Or
or
or
Or
What do you make of songs that recognize that people cannot be entirely self-made, and are subject to the effects of their environment, such as:
or
Finally, a whole host of Rush songs specifically decry corporate and business influence on art and humanity like “The Big Money,” “Spirit of Radio,” “Natural Sciences,” and “Closer to the Heart”? Is a rejection of corporatism and the corrupting influence of moneyed interests a particularly right-wing kind of thing?
That post is sad for so many reasons
None of which you are apparently willing to describe.
In truth there are only two, but I broke them up into subcategories.
But you still won’t say what they are.
that’s right, I refuse to.
There are three separate ways in which your post demonstrates your intention of collaborating with the Lizard People in their control of Earth. I will not, of course, actually say what those ways are.
I won’t be dragged down to your level.
And what level would that be?
“Well, you can stake that claim –
Good work is the key to good fortune
Winners take that praise
Losers seldom take that blame”
Rush, Roll the Bones
“We draw our own designs, but fortune has to make that frame.”
Rush, Roll the Bones
I’m intrigued by this. Many of the lyrics being cited endorse a belief that people have free will but are subject to fortune and circumstance as well. This is my belief, and I don’t see it as inconsistent with being a liberal whatsoever.
The question I have for you all is this: Do you actually think that liberals believe otherwise? Is this confusion just another example of conservatives believing a very cartoonish construction of others rather than understanding what others actually believe? In my opinion, very few liberals would actually differ with the idea of personal responsibility while also recognizing that some are born into good fortune and some are born into very crappy circumstances.
As to this particular song, it questions the existence of god. “Roll the bones” refers to life as a crapshoot. Again, I would point out that atheism is not consistent with the right-wing. From elsewhere in the song:
“Faith is cold as ice –
Why are little ones born only to suffer
For the want of immunity
Or a bowl of rice?”
So, I read the section of lyrics that msmith537 quoted in regards to “winners” in the same fashion as the famous line about George W. Bush being born on third base and believing that he hit a triple. You either see it that way or you have to believe that Peart is actually calling “innocent children” losers. It’s quite similar to “The Larger Bowl,” which I quoted above.