Saturday, May 3, 2014

Political song

Bright Eyes - "When the President Talks to God" 
I first heard this song when I was a teenager. I didn't know much about politics then or read into the lyrics too much, but I could tell even then it was really angst-y. Looking over the lyrics today with (slightly) better political knowledge, I can recognize more easily that it's about issues like abortion, the war with Iraq (which was a recent issue when the song was written nine or ten years ago), and foreign oil.  Political cynicism is certainly evident here. Negative face is as well: Conor Oberst (Bright Eyes frontman) is clearly a liberal and was not happy with the choices Bush made during his presidency. Instead of grounding the rightness of his claims with sound evidence, Oberst attempts to discredit Bush by making a personal attack - insulting his southern drawl and his religion and calling his policy "bullshit".

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