Video: Times Square Obama Afghanistan Protest Arrests
New Photo Brings Flying Overweight Debate Back
AA's "Fat Flier" Got Whole Row
State Sen. Savino Gets Noticed For Impassioned Gay Marriage Speech
Teen Gets Two Years For Killing Kitten
Robert Hillburn of the L.A. Times finds the phenomenon of people latching onto songs as anthems (when the songs were never meant to be that in the first place) fascinating, the current example being Outkast's Bombs Over Baghdad.
"OutKast's Big Boi was more than a little surprised when tennis pro Jennifer Capriati requested recently that "Bombs" be played as a sign of support for the troops in Iraq as she took the court for a match...The problem is Big Boi was strongly opposed to the U.S. invading Iraq without United Nations support and he never intended the song as a pro-war exercise." However, Big Boi does say:
We explain a song when people ask, but we can't control how they feel about it. In our case, fans know where we stand pretty much. I talk to them in the street all the time. I really think Bush should have gone through the United Nations before going over there. But once the fighting starts, everything changes. You have guys over there with families here, and you have to support the troops and pray for them. So, if the song helps them keep their spirits up, I don't have a problem with that.
Nicely said, Big Boi. Gothamist prefers Bombs Over Baghdad over the crappy pro-war songs that are being churned out by country music. Check out the BOB lyrics. Even the Beastie Boys anti-war (maybe it's really pro-peace) is only okay.
Other songs Hillburn discusses: Woody Guthrie's This Land is Your Land, Bruce Springsteen's Born in the U.S.A. , U2's One, and Bob Dylan's Masters of War.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
How about Queen's music as sports anthems? Hilburn is about 75, you know.
I actually do like the Dixie Chicks song, Traveling Soldier. It's about a boy who goes to Vietnam. The whole anti-Natalie Maines sentiment is crazy, by the way, as she's probably pro-peace and getting the boys out of there...I think lots of people are "ashamed of Bush."
Lyrics to Traveling Soldier
And there's that Lenny Kravitz song with the stupidest "War is no dancer/love is the answer"-type lyrics EVER.
It's funny, i was thinking of this at the US OPEN yesterday...the songs people chose as anthems at sporting events. An Argentian contigent sitting at the top of the stadium sang a medley of their own songs to route their countryman on (against Andy Roddick.) Some of the crowd coopted one of them -- a singsong chant of "ole, ole, ole, ole, David, David" (the name of their player) -- to sing to route Andy on, whenever he pulled ahead, to get back at the Argentinians. But others sang "America, the Beautiful," a song I hardly ever hear. It did sound similar to one of the other Argentinian songs though; I gave them credit for originality.
Makes me kinda nervous though, showing patriotism at international sporting events. Live and let live, I say.