Posted on 07/22/2002 8:39:11 AM PDT by Gurn
'U.S. Taliban' Inspires Controversial Ballad
Mon Jul 22,11:00 AM ET
By Aly Sujo
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (Reuters) - A new country-rock song that compares American Taliban John Walker Lindh to Jesus Christ is drawing both raves and howls of indignation just days after the 21-year-old pleaded guilty to aiding the former Afghan regime.
Recorded in Nashville by the maverick Grammy-nominated singer-songwriter Steve Earle, "John Walker's Blues" is a stately ballad punctuated by the sound of Arabic prayers, and makes reference to Lindh's interest in music videos, boy bands, and religious fanaticism.
Over a layered backdrop of electric guitars recorded backward, the song serves as a kind of nightmarish funhouse-mirror version of Fess Parker's classic "Ballad of Davy Crockett" of the 1950s:
"We came to fight the jihad, our hearts were pure and strong.
We filled the air with our prayers and we prayed for our martyrdom.
Allah has some other plans, a secret not revealed.
Now they're dragging me back with my head in the sack to the land of the infidel.
If I should die, I'll rise up to the sky like Jesus."
The song is featured on Earle's forthcoming album "Jerusalem," which touches on a number of political and social issues including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
It offers a rare sympathetic view of Lindh, the Californian dubbed the "American Taliban" after he was captured fighting alongside troops of Afghanistan ( news - web sites)'s fundamentalist Muslim rulers in November.
UNPATRIOTIC ANTHEM
Some Nashville commentators quickly labeled the song unpatriotic -- par for the course, they say, for an alternative country singer who has long challenged the down-home platitudes of mainstream country music.
"This puts him in the same category as Jane Fonda and John Walker and all those people who hate America," says Nashville talk show host Steve Gill.
"We'll give it airplay once and then it's going into the dustbin of history, where it belongs. I'm not surprised that Steve's singing about that traitor. I'm going to play it just once, and then we'll rip the shred out of it. This is not gonna be a big hit for Steve."
"I'm just an American boy, raised on MTV,
And I've seen all the kids in the soda pop bands,
But none of them look like me.
So I started looking round, and I heard the word of God.
And the first thing I heard that made sense was the word
of Allah, Peace be upon him."
MARXIST COUNTRY STAR
Earle has joked that he's thinking about leaving the country once the CD is released in September, and he told an audience at the Mariposa Folk Festival in Ontario earlier this month: "This song just may get me ... deported."
Earle was in Europe on July 15, when Lindh pleaded guilty to two counts of assisting the Taliban and carrying explosives, and could not be reached for comment.
In a plea deal which scrapped the government's more serious terrorism charges, Lindh agreed to serve 20 years in prison.
The ruckus over the Lindh song marks a return to the political spotlight for Earle, who irritated the Nashville establishment for years, calling himself a Marxist and joining the movement to abolish the death penalty as well as the campaign against land mines.
Earle's supporters say the outspoken singer -- who received his eighth Grammy nomination for his 2001 album "Transcendental Blues" and has won many other accolades -- will welcome controversy.
"He's a big guy," says Grant Alden, publisher of the magazine No Depression, which specializes in alternative country music. "He can take care of himself if anyone confronts him on the issue."
CHALK ONE UP FOR THE OUTLAW
Bill De Main, a Nashville-based music writer and lead singer for the band Swan Dive, says Earle's political leanings "probably finished him off in mainstream country."
Earle became an outlaw country rock star in the 1980s with "Guitar Town" and "Copperhead Road," but his heroin addiction nearly cost him his career.
He got sober after he was arrested for drug possession and spent three weeks in jail, and launched a successful comeback with his own Warner Brothers-distributed record label.
The new album's political agenda, which comes at a time of corporate conservatism, was encouraged by Artemis Records' outspoken chief Danny Goldberg, who once tussled with then-Sen. Al Gore ( news - web sites)'s wife Tipper over rock lyrics and censorship.
Earle has said that the new material serves as his response to the more reactionary elements of post-Sept. 11 politics.
A smattering of like-minded New Yorkers who heard an advance copy of the Lindh song said they were enthusiastic.
"Steve Earle is standing up against the new patriotism, the 'You're with us or you're against us' mentality," said Joan Hirsch, manager of Revolution Bookstore, which stocks anti-war pamphlets and leftist literature.
"(The song) speaks of the U.S. demonization of anyone who would go against the traditional American way," Hirsch said. "It's important for people to come to the defense of artists who are speaking out."
But Martha Bayles, author of "Hole in Our Soul: The Loss of Beauty and Meaning in American Popular Music" and a literature professor at Claremont McKenna College in California, said Earle's apparent identification with Lindh reflected "a psychological need to repeat the good old days of the radical 60s, just like Mom and Dad."
"Never mind whether the cause makes any sense -- the point is to march in the streets and get on TV. It sounds as if Earle is singing to this crowd," Bayles said.
LOL. Well, he's not using heroin anymore, and is doing his best work since he got clean in '95. We'll just have to agree to disagree on the "no-talent" part. Listen to "Tom Ames' Prayer" or "Ben McCulloch", then tell me he has no talent.
I just got "Steve Earle, Townes Van Zandt, and Guy Clark - Live at the Bluebird Cafe."
It's a GREAT album. Earle's rendition of "My Old Friend the Blues" is breathtaking.
I'm scared to ask what you would consider good music.
Sounds like he shouldn't have come down Copperhead Road that last time......
Earle getting 'deported' wouldn't hardly rate any ink in "The Tennessean" - at least as for as this Alabama Native now livin' near Nashivlle is concerned - - - -
Used to listen to him a lot on country alternative program on PBS station in Houston when I lived there. Don't hear anything from him here in Louisiana though. Shame, he does some good music.
You're entitled to your opinion, but if Earle is the yardstick for songwriting, the bar is really low.
Song and story writers once used a device known as "point of view."
Perhaps the "point of view" in this song is Taliban John's, and perhaps he, Taliban John, is likening himself to Jesus. Perhaps, in other words, it's not Earle himself equating Taliban John to Jesus.
Just a theory.
True. And that says volumes more, IMO, about losers who think "Achey Breaky Heart" and "Indian Outlaw" actually qualify as country music, than it does about Earle himself.
Point taken, as it is a subjective analysis. Out of curiosity, whom do you consider great songwriters?
I saw him open for Dylan almost ten years ago (right after Guitar Town was starting to get noticed), and he blew Robert right off that stage.
peaceloveandharmonydude....
I'm just aware that he was THE phenom of the 90s.
Eeeek! A pox on you for causing me to remember those two horrid "songs". Those two rank right up there with "Bubba shot the jukebox"! It's like having an icepick shoved through my ears.
On a better note, have you picked up on Reckless Kelly and Cross Canadian Ragweed yet? CCR reminds me a little of early Earle, the guy is nowhere in Steve's league as far as songwriting yet, but I think he could grow into it.
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