In which I do a song-by-song breakdown of the National Review’s list of the top fifty conservative rock songs of all time, ten songs at a time.

I’ll start with the writer’s own introduction:

Rockin’ the Right
by JOHN J. MILLER of National Review

On first glance, rock ‘n’ roll music isn’t very conservative. It doesn’t fare much better on second or third glance (or listen), either. Neil Young has a new song called “Let’s Impeach the President.” Last year, the Rolling Stones made news with “Sweet Neo Con,” another anti-Bush ditty. For conservatives who enjoy rock, it isn’t hard to agree with the opinion Johnny Cash expressed in “The One on the Right Is on the Left”: “Don’t go mixin’ politics with the folk songs of our land / Just work on harmony and diction / Play your banjo well / And if you have political convictions, keep them to yourself.” In other words: Shut up and sing.

Nobody but rock stars have ever mixed politics with art. Any kind of art should have no meaning or message whatsoever, but should just sort of have words, a tune, or general imagery. Subjects like admiring shoelaces, putting hats on hooks, sleeping and bananas are preferred, as long as metaphoric use is avoided.

Also, if this is how you feel, then why politicize rock songs with very stretched interpretations to fit with a conservative message? But whatever.

But some rock songs really are conservative — and there are more of them than you might think. Last year, I asked readers of National Review Online to nominate conservative rock songs. Hundreds of suggestions poured in. I’ve sifted through them all, downloaded scores of mp3s, and puzzled over a lot of lyrics. What follows is a list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs of all time, as determined by me and a few others. The result is of course arbitrary, though we did apply a handful of criteria.

I guess some rock songs really are conservative, for very small values of “some”. Though, I suppose if Charlie Manson can interpret that an entire Beatles album was a message directed at him from angels, anyone can interpret lyrics as supporting any viewpoint or message. …You win this round, Mr. Miller.

What makes a great conservative rock song? The lyrics must convey a conservative idea or sentiment, such as skepticism of government or support for traditional values. And, to be sure, it must be a great rock song. We’re biased in favor of songs that are already popular, but have tossed in a few little-known gems. In several cases, the musicians are outspoken liberals. Others are notorious libertines. For the purposes of this list, however, we don’t hold any of this against them. Finally, it would have been easy to include half a dozen songs by both the Kinks and Rush, but we’ve made an effort to cast a wide net. Who ever said diversity isn’t a conservative principle?

Who ever said? The National Review did, actually, back when it opposed the Civil Rights movement.

Right, because liberals aren’t at all skeptical of the government, especially over the last six years. Good thing we have these conservatives around to champion the idea of questioning authority!

So here are NR’s top 50 conservative rock songs of all time. Go ahead and quibble with the rankings, complain about what we put on, and send us outraged letters and e-mails about what we left off. In the end, though, we hope you’ll admit that it’s a pretty cool playlist for your iPod.

1. “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” by The Who.

The conservative movement is full of disillusioned revolutionaries; this could be their theme song, an oath that swears off naive idealism once and for all. “There’s nothing in the streets / Looks any different to me / And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye. . . . Meet the new boss / Same as the old boss.” The instantly recognizable synthesizer intro, Pete Townshend’s ringing guitar, Keith Moon’s pounding drums, and Roger Daltrey’s wailing vocals make this one of the most explosive rock anthems ever recorded — the best number by a big band, and a classic for conservatives.

Are you kidding me? If anything, this is an anthem against politics in general, addressing how whichever party is in power, they’re all politicians and not much ever really changes. I also like how he uses a “. . .” to skip right over the line: “And the parting on the left / Is now parting on the right”.

“[S]wears off naive idealism”, pfft. Which perspective is it, again, that thinks that all it takes to get teenagers to stop fucking is to tell them “don’t have sex”? Which perspective thinks that laws banning gay marriage will stop anal sex? Which perspective–conservative or liberal–wants to make laws that are based on the premise that humans are capable of perfect emotional and physiological self-control? This isn’t even “idealism”, it’s just completely out of touch with reality.

In any event, it takes about as much cognitive dissonance as the human mind is capable of producing to consider this song in any way “conservative”.

2. “Taxman,” by The Beatles.

A George Harrison masterpiece with a famous guitar riff (which was actually played by Paul McCartney): “If you drive a car, I’ll tax the street / If you try to sit, I’ll tax your seat / If you get too cold, I’ll tax the heat / If you take a walk, I’ll tax your feet.” The song closes with a humorous jab at death taxes: “Now my advice for those who die / Declare the pennies on your eyes.”

This one’s probably the biggest surprise on this list. Conservatives! Hating taxes! Well, I’ll be! And it’s number two on the list? Certainly there must have been a mistake!

Nobody likes taxes, but some of us are capable of coming to terms with notion of social responsibility. A lot of things in life suck, and if the worst you’ve got to whine about is taxes, consider yourself lucky. I wonder what the world would be like if conservatives turned their massive anti-tax attention and energy toward the multitude of things in this world that are far, far worse than taxes.

And, oh, yes, the “death tax” is such a horrible, horrible thing, because–gasp–heaven fuckin’ forbid we try to prevent the perpetuation of a permanent aristocracy! Why, it’s a direct affront to Paris Hilton (Long Live Paris Hilton) and Ivanka Trump (Long Live Ivanka Trump)!

3. “Sympathy for the Devil,” by The Rolling Stones.

Don’t be misled by the title; this song is The Screwtape Letters of rock. The devil is a tempter who leans hard on moral relativism — he will try to make you think that “every cop is a criminal / And all the sinners saints.” What’s more, he is the sinister inspiration for the cruelties of Bolshevism: “I stuck around St. Petersburg / When I saw it was a time for a change / Killed the czar and his ministers / Anastasia screamed in vain.”

Yeah, ’cause the Rolling Stones are totally a conservative band.

So what he’s saying is… we ought to filter the world into black and white moral absolutes, and questioning authority in any way is to be avoided. Got it. And, of course, the typical conservative brand of moral absolutism doesn’t really adopt a utilitarian perspective of harm and benefit; “moral” is “whatever makes me feel like the world is right”, and “immoral” is “anything I think is icky or bad”. So, for instance, it’s “moral” to cut taxes in the middle of a war, resulting in (among many other things) lack of funding for equipment for our troops, but it’s “immoral” for a man to fall in love with another man, even though it’s not hurting anyone else, let alone resulting in the exacerbation of injury of hundreds or thousands of soldiers.

It must be so, so easy to just walk through life knowing exactly what’s bad and exactly what’s good. Gosh… I wish I could have such a firm grasp of the difference between good and evil!

4. “Sweet Home Alabama,” by Lynyrd Skynyrd.

A tribute to the region of America that liberals love to loathe, taking a shot at Neil Young’s Canadian arrogance along the way: “A Southern man don’t need him around anyhow.”

I’ll let the Rude Pundit handle this one. When you politicize this song, it sure is a great one if you’re a racist! Other than that, it’s okay.

5. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice,” by The Beach Boys.
Pro-abstinence and pro-marriage: “Maybe if we think and wish and hope and pray it might come true / Baby then there wouldn’t be a single thing we couldn’t do / We could be married / And then we’d be happy.”

Meh. I’m not sure if one could really consider “pro-marriage” to be a “conservative” ideal. There are plenty of married liberals. In fact, there’d be a lot more if gay marriage were legal. In fact, I’d say that there are quite a number of liberals who are pro-marriage.

With regard to abstinence: Wouldn’t it be nice if kids emotions / weren’t addled by floods of hormones / and wouldn’t it be nice if everybody / didn’t have impulses of their own

Talk about idealism. Yeah, wouldn’t it be nice? Wouldn’t it be nice if we didn’t have teen pregnancies? Wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t mammals and were, thus, unaffected by sexual desires? Wouldn’t it be nice if we weren’t comprised of meat and chemicals and electricity and could think logically without all the weird organic interactions? Wouldn’t it be nice if candy and blowjobs grew on houseplants, and people shat rainbows that smelled like chocolate and raspberry? Wouldn’t it be nice if people could get the same sensations and pleasures from not having sex?

6. “Gloria,” by U2.

Just because a rock song is about faith doesn’t mean that it’s conservative. But what about a rock song that’s about faith and whose chorus is in Latin? That’s beautifully reactionary: “Gloria / In te domine / Gloria / Exultate.”

Them damned lib’rul elitists certainly don’t know or appreciate Latin, that’s for damned sure!

As secular as I try to be, I have a profound appreciation for religious music. And, uh, by the way, there are plenty of liberals who believe in God. They just believe in the kind and loving version of Jesus–the one who cared about the poor–and not the vindictive one who hated gays.

7. “Revolution,” by The Beatles.

“You say you want a revolution / Well you know / We all want to change the world . . . Don’t you know you can count me out?” What’s more, Communism isn’t even cool: “If you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao / You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow.” (Someone tell the Che Guevara crowd.)

Change is bad, and is to be avoided at all costs.

No, John, fascism isn’t cool. The ideals of Communism as a philosophy aspire toward the same utopian goals as any other political or economic philosophy. Anything can become corrupted. Put Capitalism into the same hands and you’ll have the same result. Communism just happens to be more prone to corruption. But it’s the corruption that’s the problem.

The problem with the conservative perspective on Communism is that atrocities committed by fascist regimes in countries that claim to employ a “Communist” economic policy are conflated with Communism itself. It’s not the economic philosophy that’s causing the murders and executions–and I defy anyone to find instructions for these things in the Communist Manifesto–it’s the fascist regime itself. One could just as easily establish a country with a Capitalist economic philosophy and murder people en masse.

If you can’t tell the difference, stay the fuck out of political discourse.

8. “Bodies,” by The Sex Pistols.

Violent and vulgar, but also a searing anti-abortion anthem by the quintessential punk band: “It’s not an animal / It’s an abortion.”

Nobody likes abortion. It’s a difficult decision, and people are often haunted by The Baby That Might Have Been. But sometimes people have no other choice.

Conservatives are too focused on the notion that women have abortions, and completely ignore why women have abortions. From the studies I’ve seen, it’s usually due to financial unsurety. Even going through a pregnancy can be enough to impoverish a family. Sometimes it’s done “for the greater good”, for lack of a better term. You’d think that people so willing to send troops into a war overseas would understand that.

9. “Don’t Tread on Me,” by Metallica.
A head-banging tribute to the doctrine of peace through strength, written in response to the first Gulf War: “So be it / Threaten no more / To secure peace is to prepare for war.”

Oh, yes, Metallica: Champions of liberty and justice for all, and warriors for the working man. Which is why Lars has to sue his fans–families deep in credit card debt with two incomes who can barely afford to eat and pay the bills, let alone spend twenty bucks on a CD, but still want to be able to listen to music to try to escape the crushing feeling that has become living–so that he can gold-plate his swimming pool and so the group’s record company’s executives can hoard even more money they don’t deserve that they’ve milked from the people who actually have talent. But I digress.

I’m not really sure if I’d call the line “to secure peace is to prepare for war” a tribute to the doctrine of peace through strength. But whatever. Hooray for nationalism, or something.

10. “20th Century Man,” by The Kinks.

“You keep all your smart modern writers / Give me William Shakespeare / You keep all your smart modern painters / I’ll take Rembrandt, Titian, da Vinci, and Gainsborough. . . . I was born in a welfare state / Ruled by bureaucracy / Controlled by civil servants / And people dressed in grey / Got no privacy got no liberty / ’Cause the 20th-century people / Took it all away from me.”

Wait, this is supposed to be a conservative song? “Got no privacy got no liberty”? Um, NSA wiretaps? Trying to criminalize butt-sex? An FBI task force to try to get rid of “obscene” material from the Internet? Fuck, people can’t even enjoy TV shows in the privacy of their own homes because of conservative fundamentalists protesting and calling the networks. Who cares if there was anyone who enjoyed, say, “The Book of Daniel”? They don’t get to! They don’t have that right, because it makes ME mad that such a show exists! Even though I don’t actually watch it and would never have heard about it unless someone else told me to be outraged!

Yet, right, these are all crimes of the liberals, out to take away everyone’s freedom and privacy! This song isn’t a criticism of government and bureaucracy in general at all!

(Some of the other lyrics: “Don’t wanna get myself shot down / By some trigger happy policeman” (I thought in one of the songs mentioned above that it was wrong to question authority); “The wonderful world of technology, Napalm hydrogen bombs biological warfare”.)

And no liberals–especially none-a them damned college-goin’ or book-learnin’ elitists–have any appreciation for Rembrandt or Shakespeare or daVinci.

This whole endeavor smacks of a desperate attempt to seem cool, when the fact is that most music–specifically rock–just isn’t conservative. Most art isn’t conservative. And trying to twist interpretations to make it seem otherwise just seems pathetic and artificial, and a little desperate.

Ten more songs in a future update. Stay tuned.

Jabberwock