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Volume CXXXII, Number 20 |
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One voice heard above the mob
JAY KANG
COLUMNIST
Steve Earle's latest LP: five stars out of five
"Lately, I feel like the loneliest man in America. Frankly, I've never worn red, white, and blue that well. I grew up in the sixties, and grew to associate the slogan 'AMERICA, TAKE IT OR LEAVE IT' with every appearance of that flag. Back then, as now, it was suggested by some that second-guessing our leaders in a time of crisis was unpatriotic if not downright treasonous. We sent 55,000 of our sons to die far from home in the belief that if we didn't arrest what we perceived as an 'evil empire' abroad that the last domino would ultimately fall at our doorstep…Well, we survived that and I believe we will survive this.
"It's always best to keep it in mind that every tower ever built tumbles no matter how strong no matter how tall." -Steve Earle
Steve Earle, in his thirteenth album Jerusalem, asks tough questions and does not care if you agree with him. A self-proclaimed patriot, eighth-grade dropout and Tennessee rebel, Earle has always existed as country music's burly, troubled son-a man who refuses to let go of the gritty, quarrelsome style of his heroes-Johnny Cash and Merle Haggard. Earle's agenda has always been to take the humanizing tradition of those men and place it within today's current political climate. Therefore, his songs cannot only be about lonely men in Folsom Prison or gakked-out cocaine addicts who kill their wives, but must stretch further to embrace global-era issues like the Israeli/Palestininian conflict, the attacks on the World Trade Center, and the capture of American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh.
This is a difficult task-one that takes an incredible amount of thought and sensitivity, while walking the difficult political tightrope between bland party lines and senseless, reactionary rhetoric. Steve Earle does not want to be Zach de la Rocha any more than he wants to be Toby Keith. He wants to be his own man with his own opinions and in Jerusalem, he pulls off a rare feat of originality and political iconoclasm in music where the image of the man is overshadowed by the strength of his convictions.
By far, the iconic song on Jerusalem, and the one that caused the largest controversy is the track titled "John Walker's Blues"-an ode to the Marin county boy who left America to go fight with the Taliban. In interviews he has explained his motivations for writing the song by saying, "he's a 20 year-old kid. My son Justin is almost exactly Walker's age. Would I be upset if he suddenly turned up fighting for the Islamic Jihad? Sure, absolutely…but there are circumstances. . .He didn't just sit on the couch and watch the box, get depressed and complain. He was a smart kid, he graduated from high school early, the culture here didn't impress him, so he went out looking for something to believe in." This sentiment is reflected in the song's lyrics which attempt to humanize Lindh as an angry, confused teenager from the suburbs led too far astray:
"I'm just an American boy-raised on MTV/ and I've seen all those kids in the soda pop ads but none of them looked like me./ So I started lookin' around for a light out of the dim/ and the first thing I heard that made sense was the word of Mohammed, peace be unto him."
Earle's compassion for a "boy who could be anyone's son" shows his allegiance to a type of American that sadly seems to be dying out-that fierce patriot who is willing to ask tough questions of his country while maintaining compassion for his fellow citizens. It's a tougher position to take than to join in all of the flag waving or the picket-sign waving, but it's completely necessary to serve as a model for an open-minded, democratic, compassionate citizen who is uneffected both by the nightly news or by the charge that comes with the cheap politicized anger that comes with the rejection of so-called American values.
Isn't it fantastic and so predictable that the only important political song released in our generation comes not from a pink-haired lesbian with black fingernails or from the Beastie Boys or from some dreadlocked rap-rocker, but from a middle-aged, bearded fat man who wears flannel shirts and spent a good portion of the past ten years shooting heroin and listening to Dr. Dre's The Chronic? I suppose it proves that thoughtful protest takes maturity and the necessary time to grow out of the self-indulgent days of the mean reds.
The man who stands alone always has the biggest balls and his iconoclasm should define what people are proud of when they say the word "American." It's a difficult concept to grasp, especially in times of great emotional upheaval and political divisiveness when the inclination is always to follow one's convictions till they turn into indignation. Indignation always has its bandwagons and we see them today in many forms. We either love or hate the songs of Toby Keith, "Freedom Fries," the Bowdoin Student Coalition Against Pre-emptive Military Action in Iraq, musicians against the war, Michael Moore's Oscar speech, or the backlash and back-backlash against Hootie Johnson's little golf club in Georgia. The amassing of people behind causes has its practical purposes-very few people take one man's protest seriously, especially when he dares to ask those tough questions both sides skirt over-but sometimes a unified voice lacks the authority that a truly original one might have.
The Bowdoin Coalition Against Pre-emptive Action in Iraq: zero stars out of five
When all hundred and fifty of you were stacked on top of one another, literally breathing down the necks of the Student Government, you ensured that there was to be no fair, open discussion on the topic of war on Iraq. When you clapped too loudly for any sort of recycled '60s sentiment and turned and whispered fiercely whenever an opposing opinion came up, you all knew what you were doing, but didn't seem to care. It must be nice to be in a club with so many members.
I would call it a mob. When the only real reason you can come up with when asked why it even matters that the Student Government of Bowdoin passes this resolution is that you're tired of an apathetic campus full of Republicans, well you pretty much sealed your fate with me. Who supports indignation for indignation's sake alone?
Most of you are smart and even more of you are articulate. You can't wait to tee off on any stumbling kid who might have a differing opinon because your rhetoric is so much more polished and well-structured. You've practiced the argument in your head and your vanquishing of the poor kid's ego is your real agenda. You had 950 signatures and all those videoclips from Woodstock and the streets of San Francisco egging you on.
And it's not that that bothers me. It's the eye-rolling, it's the closed-mided dismissal of any opinon that might stand outside of whatever you've rehearsed in front of the mirror at night, it's the abandonment of those very principles of free speech and dissent that you so champion when its your turn to speak, but then turn around and absolutely abuse when anyone else has an opinion.
Your whispering, chastising and ridiculous indignation has its costs and free speech and open discussion on this campus has been sacrificed and I can't help but think that it's all of your faults. What happened in that Student Government meeting was pure bullying and when one officer had the balls to object, you all turned and hated him for expressing himself-the Student Government officer who was objecting to how you were all trying to run his meeting with your own agendas. Well, congratulations, your mob had their day and you've filled your quota for "college indignation."
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