Debunking the "50 greatest conservative songs", part 9

19. “Kicks” – Paul Revere & The Raiders

NRO Take: An anti-drug song that is also anti-utopian: “Well, you think you’re gonna find yourself a little piece of paradise / But it ain’t happened yet, so girl you better think twice.”

DL Take: It is a sort of anti-drug song (“Before you find out it’s too late, girl you better get straight”) but it isn’t an anti-utopian song. The verse that Miller mentions still refers to the drugs. “Find yourself a piece of paradise” is like trying to find a place in your mind that makes you feel pleasure. Of all people, I would think that Miller knows that happy place since he lives there all the time.

34. “Godzilla” – Blue Öyster Cult

NRO Take: A 1977 classic about a big green monster — and more: “History shows again and again / How nature points up the folly of men.”

DL Take: What do conservatives hate about big green monsters? Is it because they are green which makes them different? Are they going to propose legislation to ban green monster marriages?

Does anyone understand what he means by, “and more?” I mean, the entire song is about Godzilla destroying Tokyo and throwing buses. Maybe there is a hidden message in the verses that are in Japanese and Miller has exceeded our expectations and can read them. But, if that is true, wouldn’t he have told us? So we are to believe that the last line of this song has a different meaning than the rest of the song. He is reeaallly stretching it now.

42. “Everybody’s A Victim” – The Proclaimers

NRO Take: Best known for their smash hit “I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles),” this Scottish band also recorded a catchy song about the problem of suspending moral judgment: “It doesn’t matter what I do / You have to say it’s all right . . . Everybody’s a victim / We’re becoming like the USA.”

DL Take: To me it seems to be a knock against the United States not from suspending moral judgment, but just from the problems that people face from drug abuse, drinking, and even AIDS. Take these lines:

Wear a ribbon for this
Hug a stranger for that
Light a candle to the dead
And soon you'll forget
That you ever had
A brain inside our head
We value everything the same
We turn it into farce
So we don't know a crisis
'Till it kicks us up the arse

Of course the conservatives call it moral decline. You have to blame drug abuse, alcoholism, and AIDS on something. It’s people losing their religion that is causing those kinds of problems. When is the last time you heard of a very religious person getting arrested for anything like this? Okay, you have, but how often do you hear about them? Okay stop. No, no, you can stop now.