07.08.11
Stranglehold
The mainstream media can’t be trusted to cover even the simplest matters.
Take a piece minted a few hours ago — from USA Today — on classic rockers enjoining Michele Bachmann from playing their songs.
The particulars are now old but the stupidity compounds.
From USA Today, this graph on Ted Nugent, who cannily realized he had an angle on this:
Nugent, a supporter of GOP candidates and critic of Obama, told The Arizona Republic recently that “politics are extremely personal” as he defended [Tom Petty’s] right to ask Bachmann to stop playing American Girl.
Nugent happens to think Bachmann is a “great American,” and told The Republic she can use one of his songs. But Nugent is waiting for Texas Gov. Rick Perry to jump into the race and says Stranglehold would be appropriate for Perry because it’s “the ultimate soundtrack of defiance.”
In the mind of Americans, “Born to be Wild” probably rates higher on the defiance song list.
Anyway, it’s selective news. Nugent is presented as reasonable.
And he never is, this just another example where some noxious tar baby is repackaged as a voice of experience and reason.
And the story edits out that Nugent offered Bachmann “Wang Dang Sweet Poontang,” a subject for some tittering in newspaper music blogs, which he conceded was utterly unusable.
Also edited out, the lyrics of Stranglehold, which are — yes — defiant. Great homicidal-leaning stuff for teenage boys in the Seventies.
But the song has more to do with getting revenge on a lady:
YOU REMEMBER THE NIGHT THAT YOU LEFT ME
YOU PUT ME IN MY PLACE
GOT YOU IN A STRANGLEHOLD NOW BABY
GONNA CRUSH YOUR FACE
The last two lines are a pretty accurate representation of what national GOP policy is. But since they’re blunt and frightening to old white people when they come blaring out of the loudspeakers at somewhere over 90 db, the song’s unusable.
But none of this is important in a national newspaper for a story that gets reprinted in lots of little and medium-sized ‘burg rags.
The title — Stranglehold — is a bit of a tip-off. But things have gotten so dense nationwide, the soft touch doesn’t work. Only spelling it out in detail does.
This is still a fine campaign song. Would look and sound great on television news or a comedy show.
This is great, too.