Jesus Was A Democrat
A rock star is not someone who takes the temperature, who gauges the marketplace before he creates his "art". A rock star is someone who needs to create and is willing to tolerate the haters along with the fans. He’s someone who incites controversy just by existing. That’s what we lost in the dash for cash. Unique voices. I’m not saying we haven’t ended up with some pleasant music, but it just hasn’t hit you in the gut, it’s the aural equivalent of Splenda, it might do the trick, but it’s not the real thing. The real thing grabs your attention, drives down deep into your heart and lodges itself there. A rock star doesn’t follow conventions, doesn’t go disco or add drum machines just because everybody else does. A rock star exists in his own unique space, and if you met him you probably wouldn’t like him. Because he tends to be self-focused to the point of being narcissistic. Because he cares. He needs to get his message out.
We’re angry, that’s what pisses us most off about this financial crisis. That the fat cats took all this money and hosed the economy simultaneously. They’re sitting on piles of cash while we’re struggling. And now we’ve got to bail them out, we’ve got to insure the credit markets in order to get the economy moving. And America is pissed.
America is pissed about so much. And feels too often that politicians don’t care about them. And there’s scads of ignorance, purveyed by biased talk show hosts and bloviating, supposedly neutral, TV talking heads. And everybody’s afraid. You get people saying Sarah Palin won the Vice Presidential debate and you wonder if you watched the same show. When I didn’t answer the questions in school, I flunked. And suddenly, by going to school, working damn hard, studying to get good grades to get into a good college, I’m an elitist, my opinion is to be discounted. I shouldn’t have gone to public school, I should have gone to a parochial institution, to be indoctrinated in viewpoints that don’t square with reality. Worse yet, be home schooled. That’s code for "Christian Right Education".
Hate me all you want. Tell me you can get infections hanging with the underprivileged in regular high schools, that you can teach your kids better than those underpaid teachers. But what about socialization, what about opposing viewpoints? How can there be a dialogue when there’s not another side?
And that’s what we have in America today, only one side. Everybody’s on his own side, only speaking to himself, like-minded people. Who’s going to change the equation? Certainly not politicians, elected officials. Obama’s got to say he’s for drilling to get elected, because the person paying four bucks a gallon doesn’t know that it’ll take eons for said oil to reach the pump. We’ve got the businessmen raping and pillaging, the politicians lying, at best being expedient, and the only people we can count on to speak the truth have abdicated their power, their duty, their role. That’s what the job of the artist is. To question authority, challenge convention, speak the unpopular, if it’s the truth. And that’s what Art Alexakis and Everclear have done in "Jesus Was A Democrat".
Jesus Christ didn’t have blue eyes or blond hair
He looked just like all those people that you want to kill
Spin your hell into a heaven you can sell
Make it look like California with a bible belt
Jesus didn’t look like the boy next door
Unless you live in Palestine
I wonder what you mean by the golden rule
I think it is a scary play on words
I wonder what they taught you back in Sunday school
Them’s fighting words. But Art Alexakis doesn’t care.
look, if this song offends you….then dont listen to it
if you think i am wrong in my convictions…..and this upsets you
then please dont come to the page
if you do not believe that everclear is the proper forum for political opinons,
then you havent been paying attention
That’s what he says on his MySpace page.
Music like this isn’t going to be played on Top Forty radio. MTV doesn’t even air any videos. You’ve got to give music like this away for free. Which is exactly what Everclear is doing.
Go to: Everclear
You don’t have to cough up your e-mail address. You don’t have to wade through a shitload of Flash. This is the promise of the Internet. Creating in a vacuum, without undue financial influence, and then going straight to the public.
If you like what you hear, tell others. Not because I’ve got a financial interest, but because this is the only way we’re going to beat the traditional infrastructure, the only way we’re going to combat the profiteers who tell us we must make pop tunes so bland they can sell everything from toothpaste to movies. If you believe this, you’re not an artist, but a businessman. Nothing wrong with that, but people don’t believe in businessmen, they don’t want to see them ten years down the road, they use up their products like they’re deodorant and move on. People get excited about ARTISTS! People are loyal to ARTISTS! People pledge fealty to ARTISTS!
