Politics
Bill O'Reilly's Gone Too God Damn Far
"Liberal Church" Threatened by IRS
How Can You Justify This As Christian?
Peace Out, Scooter!
DeLay Mugshot
Cheney, Rove, etc. In Deep Trouble
9 Senators Vote To Support Torture
THE $21 MILLION BOOTY CALL
DOWN COMES THE HAMMER
Georgia Holds True to Roots with a Tribute to Poll Tax
GOLDEN CANS
The Ultimate Iraq Mixtape
The Ultimate Iraq Mixtape
I have a friend who just signed up for two extra months in Iraq. He had been in the Army back in the 1990s. Like many disillusioned ex-military, he abandoned the service for the Left; after the 2000 election he got involved with local Green politics in Charlotte, fighting NBA boondoggles and the like. But unlike most insiders who’ve gotten burned by the system, he actually returned to the military and is now working on a war he deeply opposes. All the hemorrhages and hiccups of the post-9/11 world have touched him in one way or the other. Once Al Qaeda became the Jaws of the friendly skies, cuts at the nation’s apoplectic airlines cost him his job. The recession brought a stint of tent life in various local backyards, which convinced him that it was time to give the only growth industry in America another try.
He has sent periodic dispatches from an air traffic control tower in Baghdad, including his poetry and photography of the local landscape. However, a military bedeviled by the subversive power of the digital camera and the Internet – see Abu Ghraib – has gotten understandably worried about the flow of information out of Iraq. “They may start restricting access to free internet email here on base,” he wrote in a farewell to his friends list. However, a few weeks ago he did send out this request: “The only thing I really need is good music for my heart and ears… I was not planning on this extended stay prior to arrival and therefore did not pack enough good tunes. Other than that, I have everything I need.”
As such, I’ve put together two mix CDs for the headphones at Baghdad International Airport. One is “The Persian Gulf War” and the other is “The War in Iraq,” to honor our double-bill of imperial antics in the region. Not all the choices were made to be explicitly appropriate or timely; the CDs could have played like “War, what is good for, ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!” and “Uncle Sam’s got himself in a terrible jam, way over yonder in Vietnam,” but they don’t. My main objective is to give our erstwhile leftist soldier a listen into the contemporary American music he probably cannot access. Some songs do serve the double purpose of being fresh and salient. There are orphans and oligarchs, and dolor and decay in the lyrics. “Misinformation followed us like a plague,” Paul Simon says. And so on and on. So here you go:
The Persian Gulf War
Man Bites Man…..............................Dogs Die in Hot Cars
Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)..............The Arcade Fire
Shoulder…......................................Enon
Circa 1762…...................................Pavement
Make Up Your Mind….......................The Heptones
Mason City…...................................The Fiery Furnaces
Lonely Old Lies….............................Neko Case
Tired of Being Alone…......................Al Green
The Horseshoe Wreath in Bloom….....American Music Club
I’m Gonna Run….............................The Fiery Furnaces
Tame…...........................................The Pixies
Your Fucking Sunny Day…................Lambchop
Red Morning Light….........................Kings of Leon
Born on the Floor…..........................The Make-Up
Add It Up….....................................The Violent Femmes
Droppin’ Science…...........................Craig G y Funkmaster Flex
Another 100 Years of Solitude….......Concrete Blonde y Los Illegals
Los Angeles, I’m Yours…..................The Decemberists
The Night of the Hunter…..................Young People
The War in Iraq
Huriyet….........................................The Ex
We Both Have a Feeling That You Still Want Me….One Ring Zero
Lola…..............................................The Raincoats
Sideshow by the Seashore…..............Luna
The Bottle….....................................Gil Scott Heron
1985….............................................The French Kicks
I May Hate You Sometimes….............The Posies
Here….............................................Pavement
Peace Like a River….........................Paul Simon
Redondo Beach….............................Patti Smith
Letter/Doctor….................................Pacific Ocean
Don’t Sing – Think…..........................Omerta
Broken Language…...........................The Natural History
Scottish Rite Temple Stomp….............Ninian Hawick
I Hate Everyone….............................New Bad Things
That’s How I Escaped My Certain Fate…. Mission of Burma
Tiny Cities Made of Ashes…................Modest Mouse
Captain…..........................................Mayday
I Don’t Really Love You Anymore….....The Magnetic Fields
Mining Town…...................................Whiskeytown
A Good Man Is Easy to Kill…...............Beulah
Get Off the Internet…........................Le Tigre
I tell you all of this to share one weird little window into the mess we’re currently in. I wonder how many mix CDs pass through US security in Iraq. There may be a great many. Fahrenheit 9/11 would have us think the American Invasion was all macho pyrotechnics (“Burn the motherfucker down!”), the craven patriotism peddling of Three Doors Down, or Christian metal dramas of struggle and salvation. The first song US troops played over military radio during the 1991 war was “Rock the Casbah,” believing that the Clash also wanted to blow up Muslims. Given some of Joe Strummer’s political statements before his death, I can’t be sure that they were wrong. A last word from my friend: “For the record, I still do not agree with our government’s current foreign, economic, or social policies. Just in case any of you may have thought I turned coat. If you want to know why… I have gone mad.”
