Standing Up
May 28th, 2005 at 6:59 am by Susie
I wish more bands were like this:
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The rock band Nine Inch Nails said on Friday it canceled plans to appear on next week’s MTV Movie Awards after the network questioned the band’s plans to perform in front of an image of President Bush.The band was slated to perform “The Hand That Feeds,” the first single from its latest album.
A Los Angeles Times review called the song “a warning against blind acceptance of authority, including that of a president leading his nation to war.”
“We were set to perform ‘The Hand That Feeds’ with an unmolested, straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me,” Nine Inch Nails’ leader Trent Reznor said in a statement posted on the band’s Web site.
MTV said in a statement: “While we respect Nine Inch Nails’ point of view, we were uncomfortable with their performance being built around a partisan political statement. When we discussed our discomfort with the band, their choice was to unfortunately pull out of the Movie Awards.”
Remember when rock music was an important political force? Now they’re just supposed to sit down and shut up.
….and now what are the odds that, with the help of MoveOn and others, the MTV show is boycotted?…..that would be rapid response!
I played Phil Ochs for my daughter (22). She was amazed that people once recorded songs like that.
Of course, I don’t think MTV would have liked Phil much, either…
Listen to your Steppenwolf catalog. It’s soooooo appropriate for today.
EMPTY V is CBS/Viacom, right? W’s new news buddies–friendlier, less confrontational.
Phil Ochs is such a bittersweet memory for me. I was introduced to his music in a class at college, then came home and heard on the radio that he had died that very afternoon. What a great spirit he had. Ditto rock music. Also long dead.
Marvin Gaye What goin on? Today no Grammy for him
Apparently MTV never checked out the lyrics to “The Hand That Feeds”. I’m pretty sure the message is clear with or without the Bush backdrop.
What if this whole crusade’s
A charade
And behind it all there’s a price to be paid
For the blood
On which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divine
Good for them. Remember Bob Dylan walked off the Ed Sullivan Show in 1963 because CBS decided at the last minute that he couldn’t sing his “Talkin’ John Birch Society Blues.”
Old Ed had some classics, including no hip shots of Elvis and no “get much higher” from Morrison. It would be great to know what Jim said to Ed before he walked out there and sung it anyway.
It’s still there. You just have to look past what is played on corporate radio. Hell, Bright Eyes played this on Leno last month.
When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women’s’ rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?
When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto’s broke
No, they’re lazy, George, I say we don’t
Just give ‘em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That’s what God recommends
When the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to God
When the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he’s not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?
I doubt it