Song #57: In the Backs of American Cars

I’ve heard reasonable arguments from smart people on either side of the “should we bail out the autos” debate, and I unfortunately suffer from the affliction of being heavily influenced by the last person to leave the room, so my jury’s out.

That said, the way the autos are treating their crisis, compared to the high finance folks of two months ago, is a stunning display of a difference of opinion on what tone to take when asking for billions of dollars. When it turned out that most of our money wasn’t really money, banking collectively had its tail between its legs, as it should have. Their irresponsibility had caught up with them, they knew it, and at least to a degree they admitted it. The honesty of a child caught with his hand in the cookie jar isn’t the best kind of honesty, but it’s better than what we’re getting from the auto companies, who are blaming most of this on the credit crunch and their labor contracts, despite years of getting consistently outsold by Honda and Toyota’s line of better and more fuel-efficient small cars. It’s just not the proper ‘tude for someone asking for this much money.

Furthermore, I can’t imagine what popular support for this bailout would look like if we removed the myth of the American car from the equation — a myth that frankly anyone my age and under is only familiar with via Brett Michaels from Poison singing about getting dirty talk at the drive-in in the old man’s Ford. (If you want to know how ridiculous the fetishization of the American car sounds to anyone who never lived it, check out “’92 Subaru” by Fountains of Wayne and observe how silly it the myth sounds with Japanese cars. And that is NOT a reason to support the bailout, BTW.)

Anyways, we wanted to make a song describing our thoughts and unease on the auto bailout’s inseparability from our inflated notion of American glory associated with our automotive industry in the very style of the 70’s power-pop songs that helped create the notion itself. Enjoy “In the Backs of American Cars”.

In the Backs of American Cars

In the backs of American cars, under the seatbelts and under the stars
The Michigan steel grows a grey hair, and catches a break on its bus fare
In the backs of most of our minds, some things are worth saving, or leaving behind
On American roads that they took here, on the fetishization of last year

The old rusty gears were rotting for years but they only bring it in when it breaks
It’ll move right along, driving straight on, ignoring the squeals and the sputters and shakes
When the mouth of the mitten opens up for a hand and it draws it’s penultimate breath
In the backs of American cars lurching forward to death

I’ve never been at the drive-in in the old man’s Ford, or flown in a Phantom with suicide doors
But the radio says that it’s lovely, I can’t foot the bill on the memory
So if old dying dogs won’t learn new tricks, it might that’s pointless to fix
From an era no longer golden, tarnished by interests to which it’s beholden
The rims keep on rolling

The old rusty gears were rotting for years but they only bring it in when it breaks
It’ll move right along, driving straight on, ignoring the squeals and the sputters and shakes
When the mouth of the mitten opens up for a hand and it draws it’s penultimate breath
In the backs of American cars lurching forward to death

In the backs of American cars, they’re asking if we’ve got any left
In the backs of American cars, slowly lurching forward to death

Advertisement

New song – The Cavalry In Cuffs

What can I say about our victory the other night that hasn’t yet been said? Very little, except to rehammer the point that with unity and reconciliation must come justice, and we don’t think that investigating and prosecuting the crimes of the current administration is a novel or fringe idea at all. Enjoy “The Cavalry In Cuffs”.

(Put the mouse over, a player appears)
The Cavalry in Cuffs

A flick of a fingernail clawed away and broke the seal
Split the loop from hoop to hoop on the jumprope anthem of bad ideas
It’s incomplete ’cause repudiation’s fine and good
It comes up wanting if it don’t pack the punishment that we know it should

Sweet retribution won’t you come and wipe away
All the derelictions of the last two thousand yesterdays
Sweet absolution, I’m afraid that won’t come up
No, not ’til the cavalry gets carried off in cuffs
An indictment, it will never be enough

Is it a lot to ask to just say thank you and move right on
Turn one eye blind to countless crimes and let those bygones be bygones
And let them rejoice and rejoin the company of magistrates
They’re angling for faces on coins, they should be printing license plates

Sweet retribution won’t you come and wipe away
All the derelictions of the last two thousand yesterdays
Sweet absolution, I’m afraid that won’t come up
No, not ’til the cavalry gets carried off in cuffs
An indictment, it will never be enough

Max Cleland Vengeance Fund

Crossposted at Huffington Post

In 2002, Saxby Chambliss won his Georgia Senate seat against incumbent Democrat Max Cleland, a triple-amputee Vietnam Vet. He deployed tactics that would make Lee Atwater wince — a barrage of ads against him pairing him with images of Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, and questioning his commitment to a safe America. In one of the last accurate statements John McCain would make for many years, he called this ad “worse than disgraceful”:

Thanks to Georgia law that requires 50% of the vote for the win, Chambliss’s race against Democratic challenger is going to a runoff (Chambliss is at 49.9). There are a lot of reasons to help Jim Martin: his call for lower taxes on the middle class, his support of bringing troops home from Iraq, support for health care for every American, and an expansion of Veterans benefits to National Guard and Reserve soldiers whose current benefits are dwarfed by the huge burden they are currently bearing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Yes, those are all perfectly good reasons, but I’m appealing to your worse angels today. Please help Jim Martin defeat Saxby Chambliss in the name of sweet, sweet retribution for the scare campaign that painted a Max Cleland as unconcerned with the safety of our country.

He’s going to need help to win. Please chip in — for Max.

Now the real work begins

Well, we did it. We kicked the Republicans out of the white house. I’m more proud than ever to be a Democrat.

Here in California, my state sadly shamefully voted to write discrimination into its constitution and cease to recognize gay marriage. It’s a sad footnote to a happy day.

Anyways, now the real work begins on undoing the damage we’ve done to our country and to the world for the past 8 years. Cheers to chipping in.

Marginography is updated

I updated the Marginography (the ever growing zip file of all our songs) for the first time in ages. It has 55 songs, including the never-downloadable-before acoustic track “Antiseptic”, which I recorded in 100 degree heat in the van in Tulsa, OK.

Click here to download it, and if you can please donate. Thanks!

Proposition Hate

We wrote “Proposition Hate” because the effort to deny same-sex couples the right to marry in our home state of California deserves a fast, loud and angry song. Enjoy.

You can “buy” the song by making a contribution to defeat Proposition 8 at our Punk Rock vs. Prop 8 ActBlue page.

Proposition Hate

They come out in buses, out in droves
With pictures of children, shove them in front of your nose
The threat, is it real in their eyes?
With focus group language couched within
Loving the sinner, hating what they say is sin
A divisive disgrace by design

Writing checks out for millions
To ward off a love that not dare speak its name
Fighting the future if only to suit your distaste
Propositioning me for Proposition Hate

They’ve got nothing at stake in this little war
Those good Utah values brought over to Pacific shores
But fairness and justice — oh, God forbid
Coded in cadence, pithy and glib
Venom and malice dressed up as concern for the kids
Dress it up how you want, that’s all it is

Scrawled in resentment on clipboards at grocery chains
Fighting the future if only to suit your distaste
Propositioning me for Proposition Hate

So don’t talk to me about preservation
Because you can’t for a second suggest
That the view is idyllic from the wrong side of righteousness
So I won’t take yes for an answer
’cause I’m afraid I might see the day
When I’m ashamed to admit that I live in this place
That I live, that I live in this place

Song #53: Hounds

We’re a little late to the party on calling McCain/Palin out on all their hard work firing up the ugliest tendencies in their supporters, but this venture into dub reggae territory is our contribution.

The song “Hounds” is about how when the United States is engaged in a global fight to find and kill terrorists, and McCain and Palin say that Barack Obama hangs around with them, they are tied to any fallout that comes from it.  We all know that there could be consequences much worse from igniting those fires than having one of your batshit supporters carve a backwards B into her face and say she was a attacked by a black man determined to “make a Barack supporter out of her”, and no amount of retraction (not that there has been) would absolve them. Enjoy the song and clip.

Hounds

We’re saying what we’re saying, do what you’re going to do with it
A slur or a slaying, we’ve got nothing to do with it
You can phone in contrition, Hollywood Listerine
Wash you mouth with detergent, your hands will never get that clean

‘Cause when they call out the hounds there’s no calling them back
Without blood on their mouths or a corpse on their backs
And I can hear all the howls for miles around
But it still takes a caller to call out the hounds

Derringers, Berettas, old movie Tommy guns
To finish up a vendetta that you’re going to leave undone
No court would convict you, I’ll hold you responsible
For an uptick in tension or worse, something far more demonstrable

‘Cause when they call out the hounds there’s no calling them back
Without blood on their mouths or a corpse on their backs
And I can hear all the howls for miles around
But it still takes a caller to call out the hounds

‘Cause when they call out the hounds there’s no calling them back
So duck your head out of bounds and brace for attack
Long after it’s over, the odor will still stick around
In a faint ugly echo from when you called out the hounds

Inside McCain’s old, withered body

Last week we posted a song here about McCain’s medical records called To Your Health. Our good friend made a very silly video for it where we go inside his body a la Innerspace to find out what’s really going on only to get mauled by Sarah Palin spiders. Enjoy!

Song #52: To Your Health — time for McCain to release his medical records

Our 52nd weekly song marks a year of Max and the Marginalized rock and roll op-ed!

Is it irresponsible to speculate wildly about what diseases or medical problems John McCain without a hint of evidence that’s no better than Bill Frist’s Terri Schiavo diagnosis? Absolutely… but so running for president at 72 years old with four cancers under your belt andrefusing to release your health records, as John McCain has done. Choosing a nitwit who doesn’t know the meaning of the phrase Achilles Heel is just icing on the cake.

We engage in some baseless speculation in our plea for McCain to release his medical records, or for one of his doctors to lose his license for the good of the country and tell us if there’s anything we ought to know.

(Mouseover = player)
To Your Health

Tell us doctor, what are they trying to hide
Is it black melanoma or lipsarcoma inside
A heartbeat that sniffles and squeaks
Or cancer’s fourth curtain call
I raise my glass in a toast to your health and say a prayer for the health of us all

Some red inflammations from illicit relations back then
I’ve got no information so it’s wild speculation, my friends
‘Cause I can see the gears start to grab out for facts you can’t quite recall
I raise my glass in a toast to your health and say a prayer for the health of us all

How can the things we don’t know not hurt is
Once you get hurt by the things we don’t know?

Is there a growth slowly growing deep in the depth of your file
I’ve got know way of knowing, disclosure just isn’t your style
But don’t worry, you’ve put your trust
In this helpless and overexposed country girl
So I raise my glass in a toast to your health and say a prayer for the health of the world
So I raise my glass in a toast to your health and say a prayer for the rest of the world
So I raise my glass in a toast to your health and say a prayer for the rest of the world

Song #51: Your Money or Your Life

I’m going to keep it short here. McCain in the debate last week tried to cede the economy to the Democrats and scare Americans into voting for him, asking them to choose between their money and their lives.

MySpace Music = epic fail. The huge launch that would revolutionize the music industry… but uploads are broken.

(mouseover makes the player appear. right click and save to download.)
Your Money or Your Life

Hello phantoms of yesteryear, it’s surely been a while
Since you all were trotted out just like pinch hitters sent to give the world the jitters
Impressive actors, impressive lines
Rehashing the robbery of a horror movie show
Complete with the soundtrack of ghost story voices, the fakest of choices
So decide, pick a side:

Your money or your life, tonight
I guess that’s the chance they’re taking
Your money or your life, tonight
At least ’til the news stops breaking
Try as though they might, they might
That isn’t really the choice we’re making
No it isn’t quite, it isn’t quite

Make the sound of explosions, scare them half to death
Yes this is our very best, just better broke than bleeding
Petrified and freezing, hellbent on believing

Your money or your life, tonight
They’re must be some kind of mix-up
Your money or your life, tonight
It’s a decision, no not a stickup
Try as though you might, you might
But a freakout isn’t a fix-up
No it isn’t quite, it isn’t quite

Making cynics out of believers
just quiet down for decency’s sake
I don’t trust you to do much with either
That’s not a choice we have to make
Scare them senseless into submission
Watch them crawl down to your side
I’ve got no patience for false decisions
‘Cause none of that is on the line