Conservative Rock Songs, Deconstructed (Is there such thing as conservative rock music?)

If you seek proof that liberal-arts scholarship is mostly a stinking heap of rubbish, behold the Journal of Popular Culture. Here are three recent examples of articles that have appeared in its dispensable pages:

“Queer Dress and Biased Eyes: The Japanese Doll on the Western Toyshelf,” by Judy Shoaf (February 2010);

“SpongeBob SquarePants: Pop Culture Tsunami or More?” by Jonah Lee Rice (December 2009); and

“‘There’s Genderqueers on the Starboard Bow’: The Pregnant Male in Star Trek,” by Stephen Kerry (August 2009).

Yet the ultimate testimony to the journal’s shining irrelevance appears in its current issue:

“Rockin’ the Right-Wing Blogosphere: John J. Miller’s Conservative Song Lists and Popular Culture after 9/11,” by Michael T. Spencer.

Yes, it’s about me.

I guess I should be flattered. Spencer, who is a Ph.D. candidate in American studies at Michigan State University, thinks that my three-page article from a four-year-old issue of National Review is worth a 22-page response in an academic publication. And it isn’t just any old 22-page response. It’s a 22-page response that accuses me of “investing meaning in rock music through a dialectical process of negotiated use.”

This guy has my number. That’s exactly how I pitched the story to my editor.

Here’s a little background. Many moons ago, I came up with the idea of publishing a list of great rock songs, such as “Taxman” by the Beatles, whose lyrics express right-of-center sentiments. I asked NRO readers to submit nominations. The result was my article: a ranked list of 50 conservative rock songs, published in the June 5, 2006, issue of NR. On the interwebs, we posted the original article plus a sequel.

I knew the article would generate interest and controversy. It wound up going as close to “viral” as anything I’ve ever written. It’s not my best article, my most important article, my most influential article, or my favorite article, but it’s probably my most talked-about article. The New York Times covered it. Stephen Colbert joked about it. Even Pete Townshend had something to say.

Unfortunately, Spencer doesn’t add much to the conversation. Here’s one of his major points, a profound insight that he has uncovered through his scholarly investigation: “The motivation in constructing such a list is fervently political.”

Thanks, Captain Obvious! Perhaps at some point in the not-too-distant future, a college or university will smile upon this contribution to the sum of human knowledge and grant tenure.

At least this claim of Spencer’s is correct. The list of conservative rock songs really did have a political motivation. His other notions are textbook examples of moonbattery. Did you know that post-9/11 America — the one that elected a black president — has suffered “a resurgence of racism”?

Ho-hum. When does class end?

Spencer describes my article as yearning for “a Gingrichian return to the so-called stability of the previous era: the 1950s.” This statement is bizarre on several levels. For starters, it’s hard to square with the actual contents of the list, which has only two songs from the 1950s (“I Fought the Law” and “Wake Up Little Susie”). That’s a whopping 4 percent of the total, as Prof. Archimedes Derbyshire is preparing to demonstrate in a forthcoming issue of the Journal of Mathematical Analysis and Applications. If the list were really trying to transport us back to the 1950s, it would have had more Pat Boone and less Sex Pistols.

Then there’s this business about “a Gingrichian return.” A Ph.D. candidate in American studies who wants to drop such words as “Gingrichian” perhaps should try to gain a passing familiarity with the collected utterances of Newt Gingrich. Much can be said of them, but if the word “Gingrichian” means anything, it suggests a future-shocky optimism about markets and technology — not a stern-faced call for going back to the Old Ways of Doing Things.

In Spencer’s hands, of course, “Gingrichian” isn’t a descriptive adjective as much as an in-group putdown. Good liberals are supposed to recoil from it. When they hear it whispered in the faculty lounges of Michigan State University, liberal-arts professors lead their grad-school lackeys in a 1984-style Two Minutes Hate. At least that’s what sources tell me.

I could go on ad nauseam, in the spirit of a 22-page response to a three-page magazine article, but enough is enough.

Allow me a final point, gentle reader. Mark Bauerlein of Emory University has written persuasively on the problem of a professoriate that produces too many dissertations, books, essays, reviews, and 22-page journal articles. In just one broad field, languages and literature, the number of academic publications has exploded. They’ve gone from about 13,000 in the good old Gingrichian 1950s to 72,000 in the Spencerian now.

This creates a terrible conundrum for young academics. In a quest to say something new amid so much scholarly babbling, they’ve burrowed into to niche topics and proposed outlandish theories. Their need for original content is so desperate that one of them now has resorted to my list of conservative rock songs — a subject more suited to boozy dorm-room discussions than serious academic consideration.

Dude, we’re talking about the lyrics of Metallica songs.

Students pay a price for this. It may be fun to debate rock songs, but the boom in academic publishing also correlates with boredom in the lecture halls. As Bauerlein shows, college students are increasingly disconnected from the intellectual lives of their professors. They spend less time on homework, less time with their professors outside the classroom, and so on. These are the sad consequences of an academic class that values jargon, hyperspecialization, and the phony cerebralization of pop culture.

If you don’t like my list of conservative rock songs, that’s fine with me. But next time, just make your own playlist.

— John J. Miller is NR’s national correspondent

Eagles - Get Over It...

“Get Over It”

I turn on the tube and what do I see
A whole lotta people cryin’ “Don’t blame me”
They point their crooked little fingers ar everybody else
Spend all their time feelin’ sorry for themselves
Victim of this, victim of that
Your momma’s too thin; your daddy’s too fat

Get over it
Get over it
All this whinin’ and cryin’ and pitchin’ a fit
Get over it, get over it

You say you haven’t been the same since you had your little crash
But you might feel better if I gave you some cash
The more I think about it, Old Billy was right
Let’s kill all the lawyers, kill ‘em tonight
You don’t want to work, you want to live like a king
But the big, bad world doesn’t owe you a thing

Get over it
Get over it
If you don’t want to play, then you might as well split
Get over it, Get over it

It’s like going to confession every time I hear you speak
You’re makin’ the most of your losin’ streak
Some call it sick, but I call it weak

You drag it around like a ball and chain
You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin’ everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I’d like to find your inner child and kick its little ass

Get over it
Get over it
All this bitchin’ and moanin’ and pitchin’ a fit
Get over it, get over it

Get over it
Get over it
It’s gotta stop sometime, so why don’t you quit
Get over it, get over it

ADVICE TO JOE

There’s a Communist ambition now to rule or wreck us all
With atomic ammunition they would like to see us fall
Peaceful men of every nation would become as common slaves
We’ll prevent that situation better we shall fill our graves

Refrain: You will see the lightnin’ flashin’ hear atomic thunders roll
When Moscow lies in ashes God have you mercy on your soul
Here’s a question Mr. Stalin and it’s you who must decide
When atomic bombs start falling do you have a place to hide?

Uncle Sam will still be living when the smoke of battle’s o’er
He will make a noose to fit you God will close up Heaven’s door
You’ll come face to face with Satan see the loved ones who have died
So be sure that when bombs start falling that you have a place to hide

Refrain

Just remember Mr. Stalin how we both fought side by side
When Hitler and Mussolini had you whipped and how you cried
Uncle Sammy came to help you gave you strength, we gave you all
And now your great ambition is to see our nation fall

Roy Acuff
Columbia Records #20 858-4
1951

"Get Over It" by the Eagles

I turn on the tube and what do I see

A whole lotta people cryin' don't blame me

They point their crooked little fingers ar everybody else

Spend all their time feelin' sorry for themselves

Victim of this, victim of that

Your momma's too thin; your daddy's too fat

Get over it

All this whinin' and cryin' and pitchin' a fit

Get over it, get over it

You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash

But you might feel better if I gave you some cash

The more I think about it, old billy was right

Let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight

You don't want to work, you want to live like a king

But the big, bad world doesn't owe you a thing

Get over it

If you don't want to play, then you might as well split

Get over it, get over it

It's like going to confession every time I hear you speak

You're makin' the most of your losin' streak

Some call it sick, but I call it weak

You drag it around like a ball and chain

You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain

You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown

Got your mind in the gutter, bringin' everybody down

Complain about the present and blame it on the past

I'd like to find your inner child and kick it's little ass

Get over it

All this bitchin' and moanin' and pitchin' a fit

Get over it, get over it

Get over it

It's gotta stop sometime, so why don't you quit

Get over it, get over it

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