Blows against the nursing home...
Posted on 09/26/2005 4:23:05 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
Tens of thousands marched on Washington last Saturday to protest George Bush's war in Iraq. The crowd included college-age activists, veterans of Vietnam War protests, entire families united against the war, and parents whose children have been killed in Iraq.
It was the largest protest yet against this war. Larger ones will almost surely follow.
If there had been a soundtrack to Saturday's march past the White House, you couldn't pick a much more appropriate song to kick it off than Jefferson Airplane's "Volunteers."
Released in 1969 by one of the most politically acute bands of the era, "Volunteers" was a scorching anthem for America's activist youth:
Look what's happening out in the streets
Got a revolution
Got a revolution. . . .
One generation got old
One generation got soul
This generation got no destination to hold, pick up the cry!
Come on now we're marching to the sea
Got a revolution
Got a revolution
Who will take it from you
We will and who are we?
We're volunteers of America
Volunteers of America
Volunteers of America. . . .
I was just a kid when "Volunteers" was playing on alternative radio, but years later, I remember the passion in a college teacher's voice as he projected the lyrics on a giant screen and talked about the power of rock music to galvanize a movement and to reflect the times.
More than 35 years later, it's a different war and a different time, but the American voice of dissent is still strong -- and sure enough, I did hear "Volunteers" last Saturday as that protest was under way.
However, it wasn't blaring from a loudspeaker in Washington. It was on my television, during a break from a college football game, and it was the anthem for a Tommy Hilfiger commercial, with lots of beautiful people undulating around in the name of . . . fashion.
Of course, this sort of thing is nothing new. For years, I've talked about rock songs of protest and anger that have been turned into ads for luxury cars or themes for conservative politicians.
But this has to be one of the worst. "Volunteers" for Tommy Hilfiger? How do the writers for "Saturday Night Live" come up with parody commercials these days, when the real things are so often so ridiculous?
mailto:rroeper@suntimes.com
Good grief! Is that really Grace Slick?
No wonder children cry when I enter the room.
"It's guys like you who had the intellectual honesty to see the light who really deserve the credit."
It's nice of you to say so, but, as I tell my kids (over and over again, as they roll their eyes toward the ceiling) any moron can learn from his own mistakes.
Smart people avoid making mistakes by learning from the mistakes of those who have gone before.
By that standard, the only thing to say about me is, "duh."
That is sick. Shows what clean living will do for you.
I'm just glad you're on our side!
Yeah, the conservative movement needs ditch-diggers, too.
Yes it really is, from about 2001, I believe
Big deal. The leftists are shallow, so their anthems may just as well be used in shallow ways.
Gah-rosssse.
Jefferson Airplane lyrics in ads must be more relevant than Volunteers. I personally think Jefferson Starship's Ride The Tiger would do better:
Look to the summer of '75
All the world is gonna come alive
Do you want to ride the tiger?
NOW THAT'S relevant music for a commercial (sarcasm)... You know it's like tears in the hands of a western man that tells you about salt, carbon, and water...(hehe)
AHHHHHHHHH!
Grace Slick morphed into Dolph Lungren and Rosie O'Donnell's love child
Quite right, Slick.
Shake the geezer tree, and down we come.
It was this kind of virulent anti-Americanism from the lefties that caused so many of us would-be liberals to embark on the long march to the right back in the late 60s and 70s.
Yes, and it continues today. Thankfully, although progress is always painfully slow.
I wonder if Townshend still wants to die before he "gets old"?
Pete Townsend. Speaking of geezers...
I knew this was all a joke when the "Woodstock brought to you by Pepsi" event happened.
The original Woodstock was probably the most bogus event of our generation.
Blows against the nursing home...
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