# Jimi Hendrix at the RNC?! **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 2, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706 "2004-09-02T03:00:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/1 "2004-09-02T03:00:33Z")
It’s 11:00 p.m., I’m watching the Republican National Convention, Cheney just finished his speech, and now they’re playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” The Jimi Hendrix version! What, if anything, does this signify about our modern political culture? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/2 "2004-09-02T03:24:31Z")
What do you think it tells us? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/3 "2004-09-02T03:30:03Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > What do you think it tells us? That they’re trying to co-opt “hip.” As with the Bush Twins’ speech. But it’s still some major cognitive dissonance – I mean, supposedly the modern Republican Party is committed to destroying everything the '60s counterculture stood for. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/4 "2004-09-02T03:30:11Z")
> [@Captain Amazing](#): > > What do you think it tells us? “It tells me that goose-stepping morons like yourselves should try [listening to records] instead of [smashing] them.” - Henry Jones, paraphrased It tells me that Jimi Hendrix is dead. ---
**Author:** ![Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/8edcca/32.png) [@Hentor\_the\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hentor_the_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/5 "2004-09-02T03:31:50Z")
Sorry, I meant to have a smilie after the quote to indicate its status as a joke. And of course, I forgot the honorific “Dr.” for Dr. Jones. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 4:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/6 "2004-09-02T04:47:05Z")
Not possible. Not _the_ Hendrix anthem, not the one that made my hair stand on end when I heard it in the movie _Woodstock_. Not the one with the planes shrieking down, strafing and bombing, women and children screaming in terror, fleeing for their lives… Not possible. Of course, they _did_ do a cover of Spencer Davis’ _Gimmee Some Lovin’_ (“so glad we made it!..so glad we made it!..”) And they did yusta play Springsteen’s _Born in the USA_ like it was some sort of anthem for jingoistic meatheads (’’…to go kill the yellow man…") Is an absolute immunity to irony part of the Republican’s genetic makeup? Nah, forget it. Not possible. Nobody could listen to Hendrix’s anthem and not get it. Nobody. Nobody. ---
**Author:** ![foolsguinea](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foolsguinea/32/14751_2.png) [@foolsguinea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/foolsguinea)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 5:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/7 "2004-09-02T05:04:41Z")
Actually, I’m from a GOP stronghold. The strafing & bombing is expected, & seen as patriotic. In fact, it never registered to _me_ as anything but sound effects. What irony? There are people who quote that line from _Conan_, “true happiness is to see your enemies flee before you & hear the lamentation of their women,” with no irony. And they may think you’re “feminized” because you don’t have the basic emotional makeup of a brutal adolescent chimpanzee. You think Hitler was ironic? ---
**Author:** ![wolf\_meister](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolf_meister/32/15202_2.png) [@wolf\_meister](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolf_meister)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 5:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/8 "2004-09-02T05:14:25Z")
Jimi Hendix’s “National Anthem” must have brought back some haunting memories to the Repubicans. Dubya Bush asking Dad to get him in “The Guard”, Dick Cheney pursuing his “other priorities”, John Ashcroft valiantly defying death during the Tet Offensive by teaching business at Missouri State… ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/9 "2004-09-02T12:40:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It’s 11:00 p.m., I’m watching the Republican National Convention, Cheney just finished his speech, and now they’re playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” The Jimi Hendrix version! What, if anything, does this signify about our modern political culture? For one thing, it demonstrates that Republicans are a few steps ahead of Democrats. As [Michael Moore has said](http://msnbc.msn.com/id/5239322/), the Democrats have built a “weak-kneed, wimpy party that hasn’t stood up to the Republicans”. It [used to be the Democrats](http://www.cs.umb.edu/jfklib/j010260.htm) who championed things like freedom, moral values, and American goodness and vitality: > [@](#): > > The Presidency is the most powerful office in the Free World. Through its leadership can come a more vital life for our people. In it are centered the hopes of the globe around us for freedom and a more secure life. For it is in the Executive Branch that the most crucial decisions of this century must be made in the next four years–how to end or alter the burdensome arms race, where Soviet gains already threaten our very existence–how to maintain freedom and order in the newly emerging nations–how to rebuild the stature of American science and education–how to prevent the collapse of our farm economy and the decay of our cities–how to achieve, without further inflation or unemployment, expanded economic growth benefiting all Americans–and how to give direction to our traditional moral purpose, awakening every American to the dangers and opportunities that confront us. Republicans have stolen their thunder and have herded them into Republican-defined pens, where the Democrats snarl about how Republicans [pronounce words](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=258126&highlight=nuclear), second-guess [the minutiae](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=270550&highlight=nuclear) of their behavior in crisis, mock [their children](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274218), and marvel at their [choice of music](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=274214). Republicans have set America on fire and have given the Democrats fiddles. Democrats pluck the fiddles they’re given, and complain only that the fire gives them insufficient light. They seem to believe that this election is about the skills of grammarians and documentarians. Democrats have made themselves into a party perceived as a gaggle of far-flung and petty special interests, each demanding something from the pie baked by others. Its mantra today is entitlement, enshrined by promises to [take things away from people](http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2004/06/28/politics2039EDT0165.DTL&type=printable) simply because they are successful. It is a party of wealth envy that rewards sloth, demanding a “level playing field” when life is composed of mountainous struggle. It presumes that the equality with which we are born marks us as drones of the State whose lives must be merged by a central Politburo into a lowest common denominator. It has lost its understanding that free people are not equal, and equal people are not free. Democrats have lost their courage. If Democrats will pause to [rediscover their roots](http://www.mises.org/liberal.asp), the Democratic Party will take the nation by storm and win back the offices it has lost. They have forgotten what it is that stirs the hearts of [people who rebel against kings](http://www.constitution.org/usdeclar.htm): > [@](#): > > We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 12:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/10 "2004-09-02T12:47:11Z")
Golly, that’s a lot of meaning in one song selection! I thought it was just done to wake people up after Cheney’s speech. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 1:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/11 "2004-09-02T13:05:55Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Golly, that’s a lot of meaning in one song selection! I thought it was just done to wake people up after Cheney’s speech. Can you play [Sweet Sunny South](http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?afcreed:1:./temp/~ammem_hT6s::)? ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/12 "2004-09-02T13:10:22Z")
[Bryon York in National Review](http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200402270811.asp) sneering at John Kerry’s retro taste in music: > [@](#): > > Is Kerry’s the only campaign to play Jimi Hendrix — specifically, “Fire” from the 1967 album Are You Experienced? — at rallies? There’s a “Purple Haze”/purple hearts joke in there somewhere… ---
**Author:** ![Kid\_A\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Kid\_A\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kid_A_1)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/13 "2004-09-02T13:19:59Z")
Oh my God, the dead have risen and are voting Republican! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ZeroGyro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e47774/32.png) [@ZeroGyro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ZeroGyro)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 4:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/14 "2004-09-02T16:13:00Z")
Just wanted to point out that Jimi actually made some rather hawkish statements about the Vietnam War. According to Electric Gypsy by Harry Shapiro and Caesar Glebbeek, in early 1967 Jimi said to reporters: > [@](#): > > After China takes over the whole world, then the whole world will know why America is in Vietnam. Another time he said: > [@](#): > > The Americans are fighting in Vietnam for a completely free world. For that matter the yellow danger [China] should not be underestimated. Of course, war is horrible, but at present it’s still the only guarantee of peace. Of course, I highly doubt the Republicans know this about him and didn’t select his music because of these views. And Jimi of course went on to write the classic “Machine Gun” which seems pretty anti-war. Also Jimi wasn’t very socially conservative, what with all the pro-civil rights, pro-drugs, and pro-free love views. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/15 "2004-09-02T16:25:52Z")
Hendrix had enlisted in the army, had volunteered for service in Vietnam, and was a paratrooper with the 101st. He was honorably discharged after breaking his ankle. But over time, he became as disenchanted with the war as everyone else. Regarding his Star Spangled Banner, people can judge for themselves: [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi\_Hendrix](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimi_Hendrix) ---
**Author:** ![Chefguy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chefguy/32/138_2.png) [@Chefguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chefguy)\ **Post date:** [September 2, 2004, 4:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/16 "2004-09-02T16:52:51Z")
The real fun in the evening was seeing the confused looks on the faces of Bush, Sr. and others whenever soul music was played. It was sort of like watching Steve Martin in “The Jerk” trying to keep time. I have to say that I agree with **Liberal** on most of his points. The Dems are pissing me off more each year with their wimpy responses to egregious insults. I’m thinking Green Party next time around. ---
**Author:** ![astorian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ad7895/32.png) [@astorian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astorian)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/17 "2004-09-03T00:24:09Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > It’s 11:00 p.m., I’m watching the Republican National Convention, Cheney just finished his speech, and now they’re playing “The Star Spangled Banner.” The Jimi Hendrix version! What, if anything, does this signify about our modern political culture? What does it “signify”? Nothing, except that rock music has now been around a looooong time, that 50 and 60-something Republicans grew up listening to “classic rock” too, and that it’s been ages since a fondness for shrieking guitars correlated neatly with any political ideology. To be sure, there are rock songs that would be ridiculously inappropriate at a GOP convention (practically anything by Springsteen or CCR, for example)… but Jimi Hendrix was never a very political artist. His rendition of the national anthem didn’t seem out of place. ---
**Author:** ![alaricthegoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/4bbf92/32.png) [@alaricthegoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alaricthegoth)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/18 "2004-09-03T03:31:34Z")
It signifies that Karl Rove did NOT see Monterey Pop. When Jimi comes lighter fluid on that Strat, you just know he’s not a repub. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [September 3, 2004, 6:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/19 "2004-09-03T18:10:55Z")
> [@Kid\_A](#): > > Oh my God, the dead have risen and are voting Republican! 😃 Actually, The Dead have been vocally campaigning for Kerry. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [September 4, 2004, 3:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jimi-hendrix-at-the-rnc/262706/20 "2004-09-04T03:42:51Z")
In another 35 years they’ll be playing re-runs of Gay Eye For a Straight Guy during the convention.