March 25, 2003

Clint Black's "I Raq and I Roll" is the best pro-war song I've heard. I rarely listen to country but this song has a blues bent I like.

On the anti-war side, I've listened to the Beastie Boys' "In a World Gone Mad..." and Zack de la Rocha's "March of Death." The Beasties go off on President Bush's supposed past cocaine habit and the tired claim that the war's all about oil. At one point they rap, "Lose the weapons of mass destruction and the hate." The Beasties are talking about both Bush and Saddam. They're too naive to realize when everyone agrees to disarm only those who are honest and decent will actually disarm. Nasty thugs like Saddam only see it as an opportunity to get an advantage. For three guys who claim they're not pro-Bush or pro-Saddam, I heard not one criticism of the Butcher of Baghdad, but plenty of the President.

De la Rocha and DJ Shadow take a sonically harsher path, and there's also the petty insults to President Bush ("Who let the cowboy on the saddle? He don't know a missle from a gavel"). De la Rocha also thinks Bush is the bad guy rather than Saddam ("This man child, ruthless and wild /who gonna chain this beast back on the leash?"). And he tosses in the requisite "war for oil" claim (why don't we invade Canada, then?).

I'm still looking for a pro-war song. Hell, I'm almost at the point where I'll take a Ted Nugent track.

"Clint Black's Groovy Warmongering"