14. "No Control" by Bad Religion (1989)

AAAAAAARRRRRRGH !!!!

Dammit.

I told my daughter Emily that I would give these guys a listen. I'm not really a punk fan but she thought I would like it. I like it ok -- I think if I listen to it a little more it will grow on me. Now that these guys are on my radar screen I am anxious to give a listen to the album that came after this, "Against the Grain." But that's not why I'm aggravated. The thrashy guitars with the intellectual lyrics just kind of fits in with my frustration.

There's no vestige of a beginning, no prospect of an end
When we all disintegrate it will all happen again, yeah.
If you came to conquer, you'll be king for a day,
But you too will deteriorate and quickly fade away.
And believe these words you hear when you think your path is clear...
We have no control. We have no control.
We have no control, we do not understand.

OK, so I get the junk emails all the time, which I mostly delete. But the ones that get me going are the ones that talk about President Obama's citizenship (that he wasn't born in America) or his religion (that he's a Muslim). From a political standpoint I'm kind of on the fence about him -- he hasn't convinced me yet that he's little more than a bunch of empty promises -- but that's beside the point. The point is that defaming somebody and spreading falsehoods doesn't help your case and doesn't do anything to make things right. If Obama is a bad president, then let's hear a critique of his policies: making up stuff doesn't convince people, it just makes the maker-upper look stupid and ignorant.

What does this have to do with Bad Religion and punk rock? Because it's all about DIALOGUE, man. I've been writing about music for two whole weeks now (wow, I know) and the one thing I've learned is that everybody has something to say. Some say it better than others (i.e. "Books are Burning" by XTC). Some use a different medium and style to emphasize their point, like these guys, who raise a lot of good questions on this little disk, which, incidentally, is only about 25 minutes long even though it contains 15 songs -- most of them are less than 2 minutes each. Short, punctuated, and to the point. I haven't quite digested their message yet, but let me say it was refreshing to hear a different, thoughtful point of view. You may not like the message or the delivery, but you have to respect their part of the dialogue -- they have something to add.

People who try to get you to accept a truth at face value are probably lying to you. They want to limit the dialogue only to their point of view, only to their truth.

That's the way I feel about junk emails.

cds