...Not sure if "episode/issue" works for reviewing a musical single, but I reckon it fits closest.
I first encountered "Ain't I Right?" in a joke, Sesame Street-themed bundle of fan-made superevents for The New Order Last Days Of Europe. I tell you this so that you can understand that one of them was literally a Klu Klux Klan recruiting song, and it was more loathesome than that. At least "Stand Up and Be Counted!" had the good grace to pretend being in the KKK was something it wasn't!
But, I've buried the lede enough. Musically, "Ain't I Right?" is a catchy song, performed well by Robbins, which makes its subject matter all the more unfortunate. In the song, Robbins asserts, in order, that:
Everyone trying to argue for human rights in the American south in the 60's was just doing it to stir up trouble and make people feel bad.
None of them actually cared about the suffering and misery of the downtrodden and oppressed.
All of them were communists.
Communism is everywhere, all around you, and needs to be rooted out.
Literally all left-wing politics (by which he means left of himself) are communism and there's no point in trying to differentiate them because they're all the same.
Communism has infiltrated every sector of American society, including religion, teaching, and politics, because all such sectors of American society express concern for the downtrodden and oppressed.
Caring about the people who get hurt by unjust systems of power makes our country weak.
We should start killing everyone we think are crypto-communists in brutal acts of mass mob violence, especially said politicians, teachers, and insufficiently-conservative religious figures, so as to "purify" America of both weakness and communism.
Also the chorus is literally him shouting "Ain't I right?" over and over, which is pretty annoying after a while when he's wrong on both the facts and the morality of what he's spitting.
...So, on the one hand, at least this shows me that the modern right's overwhelming persecution complex predates the Nixon presidency, and stretches at least back to Goldwater. But on the other hand... literally everything about the song's content!
The label rightly buried it, but he released it under a pseudonym and I can't imagine it was hard to recognize his distinctive voice. I eventually managed it, and my ear for that kind of thing is awful.
Todd in the Shadows once described "Warm Sentiments" on Zingalamaduni as the kind of song that really changes how you view an artist, in his case the rapper Speech. Well... this is the kind of song that makes you question whether or not the artist would literally want you dead, and he doesn't even get grandfathered in on the pre-industrial clause. Kind of sours my enthusiasm for "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs," to say the least.
I guess I don't recommend it? Or at least, not if you don't want to ruin a great country singer for yourself.
Ain't I Right?: One of the most loathesome songs ever released by the American right, and think of the ground that covers.
...Not sure if "episode/issue" works for reviewing a musical single, but I reckon it fits closest.
I first encountered "Ain't I Right?" in a joke, Sesame Street-themed bundle of fan-made superevents for The New Order Last Days Of Europe. I tell you this so that you can understand that one of them was literally a Klu Klux Klan recruiting song, and it was more loathesome than that. At least "Stand Up and Be Counted!" had the good grace to pretend being in the KKK was something it wasn't!
But, I've buried the lede enough. Musically, "Ain't I Right?" is a catchy song, performed well by Robbins, which makes its subject matter all the more unfortunate. In the song, Robbins asserts, in order, that:
Also the chorus is literally him shouting "Ain't I right?" over and over, which is pretty annoying after a while when he's wrong on both the facts and the morality of what he's spitting.
...So, on the one hand, at least this shows me that the modern right's overwhelming persecution complex predates the Nixon presidency, and stretches at least back to Goldwater. But on the other hand... literally everything about the song's content!
The label rightly buried it, but he released it under a pseudonym and I can't imagine it was hard to recognize his distinctive voice. I eventually managed it, and my ear for that kind of thing is awful.
Todd in the Shadows once described "Warm Sentiments" on Zingalamaduni as the kind of song that really changes how you view an artist, in his case the rapper Speech. Well... this is the kind of song that makes you question whether or not the artist would literally want you dead, and he doesn't even get grandfathered in on the pre-industrial clause. Kind of sours my enthusiasm for "Gunfighter Ballads and Trail Songs," to say the least.
I guess I don't recommend it? Or at least, not if you don't want to ruin a great country singer for yourself.