Indepenence day wasn’t really misunderstood, right? Like, there’s not even any undertone or wordplay in that one, it’s literally just ‘momma burned down the house with daddy in it because he was an abusive asshole.’ No tongue-in-cheek, no sly wink with the emphasized word… how the fuck did that one sneak past anyone?
I can kind of see some of the others, since in true good artist fashion there’s a lot of words to the song that people wouldn’t even catch, but independence day is one of those really easy, every word is heard songs.
To be fair, yeah … it really does. And it’s not just limited to conservatives.
My girlfriend and her whole family were listening (and singing along with!) “Pumped Up Kicks” and they were still shocked when I pointed out to them that it’s a song about doing a school shooting.
There are a lot of people out there who really do just turn their brains completely off when listening to music.
(I don’t know how to do that. Which is probably why I greatly prefer music without lyrics, or music in a foreign language I don’t understand.)
Would you call fortunate son ‘subtle’ in its criticism? It still strikes me as bizarre how Trump and his guys could have ever thought of using this song.
Not really subtle, but it’s different, right? With fortunate son, there’s this weirder dynamic where you have to actually string the entire thing together to gather the meaning. I would say unless you went and asked someone to repeat the lines to you after the song is over and tell you what they meant, they would never really ‘get’ what the song is saying.
I was going to reply to the uwu pawb about that, but it’s really difficult to put it into words. There’s something about a really catchy song with really good flow and rhythm and melody and composition that does sort of turn your brain off. It ‘bypasses’ the logical language part of your brain’s comprehension and just gets you grooving. If I were a bettor, I would put money on it being the same reason that people with stutters can often sing without issue: it’s the same part of the brain (Broca’s area, if you want to pull out my neuroscientist days) that issues the commands to the muscles of the mouth and tongue and such, but the area that is directing Broca’s area is different (there’s an area called Wernicke’s area that is really heavily involved in the comprehension of language; it’s on the left side of the brain, while a great deal of your musical appreciation bits are in the right side of the brain [and I’m definitely getting far out of my knowledge base here, it’s been a great while since I did brain and specific tasks]). If you just listen/sing to the music, and never pull it up out of the memory banks and into your ‘logical’ part of the brain, you’ll never really engage with the meaning of the music/song.
Anyway. I don’t know quite how to describe it, but like nicki said, if you just sing the chorus of independence day, you’d probably not get the song’s imagery, but the verses are more straightforward and easy to comprehend in mcbride’s song than in creedence’s. I’m just more surprised about it being misunderstood than fortunate son, I guess, more than I’m totally surprised.
Other songs about America that conservatives have grotesquely misunderstood:
“Born in the USA” Bruce Springsteen “American Woman” The Guess Who “Pink Houses” John Mellencamp “Independence Day” Martina McBride
“Fortunate Son” as well
“Killing in the Name Of” by Rage Against The Machine.
Conservatives be like: “I don’t understand what the problem is. Killing people in the name of Christ is one of my favorite things to do.”
Not a song, but I always loved how some conservatives thought “The Colbert Report” was an anti-progressive show.
Indepenence day wasn’t really misunderstood, right? Like, there’s not even any undertone or wordplay in that one, it’s literally just ‘momma burned down the house with daddy in it because he was an abusive asshole.’ No tongue-in-cheek, no sly wink with the emphasized word… how the fuck did that one sneak past anyone?
I can kind of see some of the others, since in true good artist fashion there’s a lot of words to the song that people wouldn’t even catch, but independence day is one of those really easy, every word is heard songs.
That would require listening to more than just the chorus, which appears to be a bar too high for at least half of the population.
To be fair, yeah … it really does. And it’s not just limited to conservatives.
My girlfriend and her whole family were listening (and singing along with!) “Pumped Up Kicks” and they were still shocked when I pointed out to them that it’s a song about doing a school shooting.
There are a lot of people out there who really do just turn their brains completely off when listening to music.
(I don’t know how to do that. Which is probably why I greatly prefer music without lyrics, or music in a foreign language I don’t understand.)
Would you call fortunate son ‘subtle’ in its criticism? It still strikes me as bizarre how Trump and his guys could have ever thought of using this song.
Not really subtle, but it’s different, right? With fortunate son, there’s this weirder dynamic where you have to actually string the entire thing together to gather the meaning. I would say unless you went and asked someone to repeat the lines to you after the song is over and tell you what they meant, they would never really ‘get’ what the song is saying.
I was going to reply to the uwu pawb about that, but it’s really difficult to put it into words. There’s something about a really catchy song with really good flow and rhythm and melody and composition that does sort of turn your brain off. It ‘bypasses’ the logical language part of your brain’s comprehension and just gets you grooving. If I were a bettor, I would put money on it being the same reason that people with stutters can often sing without issue: it’s the same part of the brain (Broca’s area, if you want to pull out my neuroscientist days) that issues the commands to the muscles of the mouth and tongue and such, but the area that is directing Broca’s area is different (there’s an area called Wernicke’s area that is really heavily involved in the comprehension of language; it’s on the left side of the brain, while a great deal of your musical appreciation bits are in the right side of the brain [and I’m definitely getting far out of my knowledge base here, it’s been a great while since I did brain and specific tasks]). If you just listen/sing to the music, and never pull it up out of the memory banks and into your ‘logical’ part of the brain, you’ll never really engage with the meaning of the music/song.
Anyway. I don’t know quite how to describe it, but like nicki said, if you just sing the chorus of independence day, you’d probably not get the song’s imagery, but the verses are more straightforward and easy to comprehend in mcbride’s song than in creedence’s. I’m just more surprised about it being misunderstood than fortunate son, I guess, more than I’m totally surprised.
Conservatives just going off of vibes thinking songs about hating conservatives mirror their feelings of hatred towards minorities.