Pete Townshend responds to National Review writer John J. Miller’s putting “Won’t Get Fooled Again” at the top of his list of “conservative rock songs.”

My take on Miller’s list is that some of the songs he lists are libertarian, most are apolitical, and some are anti-authoritarian. But few are explicitly or solely conservative (perhaps “Swee Home Alabama”). You could argue that there are still some things conservatives and libertarians have in common. So Miller gets a pass on anti-tax, anti-bureaucracy tunes like the Kinks’ “20th Century Man,” or the Beatles’ “Taxman.”

But it stretches credibility to say that, for example, Ben Folds’ “Brick” is “conservative” simply because it’s an uncheery song about abortion. Folds in fact is rathery devoutly pro-abortion rights. And some of MIller’s picks are just bizarre. Iron Maiden? A thrash metal ban named for a medeival torture device? Miller oughtta’ have a look at some of Maiden’s album art.

As for anti-authoritarianism, if there’s one thing the last six years have taught us, it’s that conservatism and authoritarianism are more than compatible — hey go hand in hand, so long as the authoritarians themselves are sufficiently conservative. Sorry. But Miller can’t claim anti-authoritarian anthems like “Won’t Get Fooled Again” or “Cult of Personality” (is there a better recent of Corey Glover’s warnings about ceaseless devotion to political power than the right’s bizarre allegiance to President Bush, despite his record?).

Of course, there’s also something humorously desperate about trying to compile a list of songs from a style of music whose very existence defies the fundamental tenets of conservatism, and claim them for conservatism. Everything about rock n’ roll, from its roots to its composition to its rise, was in defiance of the “tradition” conservatives hold sacred.

“Hey, look! We’re hip! We’re cool! Not stodgy! Honest!”

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 30th, 2006 at 1:53 am by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.