Does music have a revolutionary responsibility?
Is music in its foundation,
In its purest form,
In the nature of existence and reality,
A revolutionary act?
A power chord!
A high pitched scream!
Or studied lyrics across a tv screen.
Does music make the revolution,
Or does the revolution make music?
And why did the silence of people in the music community/industry
Feel in a way like the biggest betrayal?
Bigger in ways than even the doctors?
Because we allow music into our hearts,
And we allow those that bring it to us,
Into our psychological families.
Bruce Springsteen is not only many peoples favorite songwriter
I’m sure across America for many he is a kind of spiritual uncle or even brother.
Pictures of old concerts on their wall,
A kind of religious figure even (not that they would frame it that way, but that’s the way it is)
This is the power of song.
It’s soul blood
And when people envelope their lives
In another’s soul excavation
They form an invisible bond
A trust you might say.
2
With great power comes great responsibility.
And all of our collective human energy
Has more weight on it
When the satanic tyrannical spirit reaches for our throat.
I believe serious artists then have a serious responsibility that comes with the spirit of their songs. (Whether they like it or not)
If songwriters are soul doctors,
And in many ways they are,
Then what is their responsibility in times of revolution?
And how deep is the betrayal if they remain silent or worse?
What happens if they back the forces of tyranny with the spirit and power of their songs?
Is there silence no big deal?
Is there no fall out from making an audience get experimental and untested injections to come see them play?
Even writing that seems insane
But that is in fact what happened (unfortunately)
And it seems a pertinent discussion to be had
A discussion that needs to be had, like something still hanging over all of our heads.
We are after all a rather sensitive collective,
Who really can’t pretend that we don’t remember what happened.
Joy Division is playing on my stereo right now
Ian Curtis singing how love will tear us apart again
And it certainly will. Maybe that’s what’s good about love and music, that it will tear us apart again.
Do artists have any responsibility at all?
As far as I can tell no artist that demanded medical experiments to see them play has come back and said
“Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea”
I lived through those times
So I get that there was a lot of pressure on everyone
But the fact that mistakes were made (big Lebowski)
Underlines the importance of the discussion,
What is the responsibility of artists in times of revolution?
3
The nature of rock n roll is rebellion
Rebellion to society’s norms
Rebellion against mom and dad
Rebellion of a life in servitude to a cause you don’t believe in,
Rebellion against the status quo
Rebellion against war
And rebellion against tyranny.
At least I believe that’s what many of us if not most assumed was the case (at least before the last few years)
This conversation is again becoming relevant as the next roll out of injections recommended for children as young as six months is before us.
(I hear you say and halfway feel myself….”leave those old rockers alone Joe! They were just going along to get along, and who can blame them really? Just guys out to make a living and give people a good time! Stop picking on them!”
And you might have a point except the next round of injections are being prepared for six month year olds. So there’s still nothing casual about their influence or their silence)
Will the rock n rollers at the top of the music industry’s food chain remain silent again?
Or even become complicit again?
Will they not amend their position to align with sanity in relationship to the disaster we all know those injections to have been?
And to again ask the bigger question
Is there not some kind of responsibility that artists should assume for all of society?
Many roles come with responsibilities built in
Doctors
Teachers
Even lawyers
Why not artists?
They deal with issues of the heart and soul
Deep layers of trust in the human psyche
For so many of us
What Bruce Springsteen has to say on an issue
Matters more than what Anderson Cooper says.
Or it certainly did.
4
I suppose I’m a freedom absolutest
So I appreciate an approach that Bob Dylan often takes around the hot button issues of our times
His refusal to speak out politically
Even when he was urged to do just that.
He kept himself neutral and allowed his music to speak
And for our interpretations of that music to do the speaking for him.
I appreciate that approach and so before big pharma’s intrusion into our lives,
My personal belief would be that an artist had no responsibility whatsoever to make a statement outside of their art,
However after big pharma got their claws around an entire industry
That equation shifted dramatically and over night.
When an artist makes an injection a prerequisite to hear them play
Then it just seems basic that some form of public explanation is called for.
And when the results of that injection
Are what they have become
Silence in the face of that becomes rather aggressive
Especially when considering the next roll out is underway
I’m not the baddie for pointing this out
When you shake hands with the devil
There are stakes and consequences that come with that.
What’s the responsibility of artists in our day?
It’s changed and we should acknowledge that.
5
From my point of view
The roll out of Covid 2.0
And a new series of experimental injections
Provides an opportunity for anyone that went all in on belief in the most corrupt institutions
We’ve ever know
Big Pharma and the government
To shift reality from the mistakes of the past,
To simply say
“You know what, I got it wrong and I’m sorry about that,
Everyone should be free to make their own decisions,
But I should never have been an instrument of coercion
And for that I’m sorry.”
That would be huge in terms of waking up the still sleeping masses
And go a long way to undoing the sins of the past.
Do artists have responsibility in times of revolution?
Yes they do in my opinion
And it’s a responsibility on the level of the soul.
The heart. The minds
And the dreams of young dreamers
The world over.
I believe big pharma knew this
And knows this,
And I believe we all know this well.
Pictures of our favorites hanging like icons
On the walls across America.