Music that Am Music

Well old man, It looks like you are ‘bout to split a seam.  What’s you bitchin about now?

Well Ida Red, I still got my mind on music.  Way back music when you could understand the lyrics and the members of the band, yep, they were called a band not a group, could actually play musical instruments. If you went to a live performance no one on the stage had an earring or clothes that looked like they came from the Goodwill second hand store.  There was no lasers or clouds of odious smoke and the only thing you might smell in the audience was some guy’s Luck Strike. Glenn Miller, Tommy Dorsey,  and the other big bands were easy listening.  Close harmony from such as the Andrews Sisters and the Chordettes made for a pleasant listening experience.  Female vocalists such as Patti Paige and Jo Stafford sang with the big bands and were superb. Back then what is now called Country Music was called Hillbilly.  Hillbilly and Redneck go together like whitewash on a fence.  Western swing from bands like Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys could fill a stadium the size of, well, Texas.  Pay attention Ida Red, here is Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys and your theme song.

Patriotism, where are you today?

Say there old man, why you so deep in thought?

Well, Ida Red I’m thinking about the past.  Way back past.  Mostly about music and movies and wars.  There was a time when the popular music of the time supported our efforts and men that were fighting in some places that most of us couldn’t even pronounce. Looking at the lyrics of some of these songs sure define the difference between then and now.  The tune “Smoke on the Water” actually referred to the enemy as heathens. Look at these lines:

           

There'll be smoke on the water, on the land and the sea

When our army and navy overtakes the enemy

There'll be smoke on the mountains where the heathen gods stay

And the sun that is risin' will go down on that day

Other Lines spelled out exactly what most of us were thinking:

Hirohito, 'long with Hitler, will be ridin' on a rail

Mussolini'll beg for mercy; as a leader he has failed

There'll be no time for pity when the screamin' eagles flies

It will be the end of Axis, they must answer with their lives

For there is a great destroyer made of fire and flesh and steel

Rollin' towards the foes of freedom; they'll go down beneath its

wheels

There'll be nothin' left but vultures to inhabit all that land

When our modern ships and bombers make a graveyard of Japan

Fast forward to today and we have a president apologizing because some Marines pissed on their kill and some clean up people burned a few books.  Where in the hell did we go wrong?

Back then even Hollyweired made patriotic movies:

Dive Bomber (1941), A Yank in the R.A.F. (1941), Wake Island (1942), Guadalcanal Diary (1943), Bataan (1943), Winged Victory (1944), Objective, Burma! (1945), Sergeant York (1941), Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (1944)

Now what we get from the left coast is just crap and trashing the troops at every opportunity.

Damn, I think I’ll go listen to some Glenn Miller for awhile.