15th
I like America and America likes Lightning Bolt
«<»>«<»»«<»>««<»»««<»»>«««»»>««»»>«««<»»««»»>««»»«<»>
November is in 3 months. I’ve been thinking a lot about that, mostly about how this will be my first presidential election in which I get to vote. I’m so excited—I love elections. They are so filled with energy, with the promise of something better and more perfect, with the awe-inspiring images of millions of people across the country going to rallies, volunteering at campaign offices, and staying up into wee hours to find out the winner. It’s so cute, this democracy in action. 
More than the metaphors, more than the rhetoric, I love the music at election time. I mean, really, when else has “Born in the U.S.A.” ever sounded so good? Blasting out of a 1984 Tacoma? Forget it. Blasting out of a massive campaign bus is more like it, greeting the presidential candidate as he steps out and delivers a winning smile. Or bouncing off the walls at a packed national convention auditorium, that’s really more like it. The radios all have something vaguely patriotic playing, iTunes promotes its “Americana” and “Election Night” playlists, lots of people over the age of 9 actually sincerely listen to “America the Beautiful”. There’s more intensity to all of the music, too. Rather than, say, July 4th, whose purpose is fireworks, cookouts, and, oh yeah, getting wasted, election time is serious business. No jokes, no irony, no Boyz2Men concerts. Just some good, old-fashioned men making promises and kissing babies. Real professional-like.
One of my three favorite songs of all time is “Dead Cowboy” by Lightning Bolt, which also happens to be one of the most patriotic medleys I’ve ever heard. It’s not just a song about America, or how great this country is thanks to the pilgrims and founding fathers, or how awesome we are at doing things. It’s pure religious ecstasy, rallying the populace to mutiny, bathing them in the traditional melodies of peasants. Examine the lyrics:
Take George Bush to Afghanistan
He’s gonna bathe in a river of blood
He wants to party till the wheels fall off
Six feet under ground
What the world needs
Is another dead cowboy
Take George Bush to Afghanistan
Throw him in an oil pit, six feet deep, six feet wide
We’re gonna cook him till his ears fall off
What the world needs
Is another dead cowboy
Right, that’s all of them.
First, an ambiguous protagonist (W. or H.?) is whisked off to a country where he hasn’t done anything right. But he isn’t showered with love and candy, he suddenly becomes the Pharaoh of Exodus, who is forced to bathe in blood after refusing to let the Jews go. But he doesn’t want that power, or that heady symbolism. He just wants to party like his boys in “The Next Episode”: what a motherfucking gangster. He’ll do it, too, until everything is rendered completely immobile and then he’s really fucked everything up until it can’t be fixed, until he’s dug himself a grave. The verse straddles something between fantasy and reality. The initial line is an imperative statement, as if the act is something that could actually be accomplished. There is an omitted “if you” at the very beginning of the phrase, thus making the entire scenario seem less fictional than it actually is. The rest of the lines seem to follow in some weird sequential logic—do this, and then this and this and this will happen. The first stanza isn’t worded as an “if-then” statement, therefore, it comes across as more story-like than pure unadulterated fantasy.
Then, THEN, a nod to Burt Bacharach’s/Jackie DeShannon’s classic 60s cocktail party tune, but what the world needs this time isn’t love, it’s another dead cowboy. John Wayne, Chuck Heston, the Marlboro Man aren’t enough—let’s take Texas down as well. It’s an invocation of necessity, both completely uplifting in its possibility and disturbing in its sincerity. Tell us, Brian Chippendale, what we should do: you are wiser than we are, and we will follow you anywhere.
The second (and last) verse begins in the same way as the first—as an imperative declaration rather than an “if” possibility. This verse is decidedly more violent and mutinous than the first, though—Pharaoh is not just uncomfortable, he is now dying at the hand of his own mistakes. The final line is a brutal assertion, referencing the previous “till the wheels fall off” line, as well as the vicious, hippo-eating cannibals in Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, meanwhile kicking Rousseau’s romanticized noble savage to the curb. Take that, George Bush. We’re going to kill you.
But, really, when it comes down to it, the lyrics are almost unrecognizable in the thunderstorm that is Lightning Bolt’s music. Er, rather, it’s almost unrecognizable that there are any lyrics at all—that those sounds aren’t just coming from some pedal—much less what it is that Brian Chippendale says. It is their heavy, spastic, drum-and-bass combo that controls the narrative of the song and puts it at pure genius. Here’s the short version of the story: midway through the song (approximately 3 minutes and 30 seconds in, to be more precise), Brian Gibson pulled just the right sequence of notes to make his bass transform into a laser, which he then used to blow a hole in heaven so large that it kills God. We feel triumphant but are briefly saddened by the loss of our God before replacing it with a new God made only of rock.
The song begins, clouded in a distorted mist of sludgy bass. At 1:30, we hear the first of Gibson’s bass warming up, and at 1:50, we hear his first attempt to turn his bass into a laser. Alas, he is unsuccessful, and the rhythm kicks back in, returning the song to a comfort zone. We don’t need a revolution just yet. Let the people settle down, quench some of their demands, and refocus their attention elsewhere. But a minute later, at 2:56, the people are fed up again. Here it comes, the moment that everyone from Marx to Tzara to Heath Ledger have fetishized: down with the standard controlled order of things! Up with the proletariat, with revolt, with chaos! At 3:07 we are hit with it: a bomb of reverb, the transformation of the working man’s tool (his shovel, his hands) into a means of revolution. Everything is anarchy, everything is confusion, we listen in terror and in rapture to the person with the loudest voice: in this case, it is Gibson and his weapon. Even Chippendale is silenced, waiting attentively for the necessary moment. At 3:20 he reenters the revolt, egging Gibson on. At 3:30 Gibson’s bass is transformed into a laser, he holds it steadily and points it at the clouds. At 4 minutes, he is shooting God. He has done it: he has completely upturned the entire system of normalcy, imbuing the people with their own sovereignty. At 4:10 God is falling down, down through the clouds, down through the safe comfort of everyone’s superficial established order of the universe. Forcing people to accept and embrace their own sovereignty is as terrifying as it is liberating, which is why at 4:20 the music is a confused mix of happiness and fear. The people are freaking out. They don’t know what to do—they just watched one of themselves kill God. This. Is. Huge. 
There’s terror and fear that ripples through the populace, but it is only momentary. At 5 minutes, everyone realizes the awesomeness of the situation. They begin to rejoice, holding hands in a circle in the town square, dancing and skipping and kissing each other. Flowers are streaming from balconies, maidens are wrapping ribbons around the pole in the center of the town square. All the farmers have come in from the fields—today, there is no more work. There is only the communal ecstasy at the new possibility, the new self-goverened order, the new potential. At 5:30, Gibson’s bass echoes itself, as if whispers and shouts are moving through the town in a storm. Everyone is running to each other, saying “Did you hear? Did you see?” The echoes on the bass become more powerful and noticable, as if giving itself omnipotent knowledge and self-imposed authority. By 6:30, the issue has been decided: Gibson’s bass is the new God, a God of rock and roll. Everyone is ready to follow because, in reality, everyone’s a follower. You can’t actually give everyone their own sovereignty, as individual leaders. You just have to make them think that they are in control of their own destiny. However, order must be reestablished for the culture to sustain. Hierarchy is necessary. Therefore, the new God is no less controlling or powerful than the old one: it’s just more awesome. The end of the song is tribal, recalling the cannibalistic imperatives from before. The people will follow the new God without question. This is the new system.
As I said before, the song is the ultimate American anthem. The song runs the gamut of all things U.S.A.: filling the people with hope, presenting democratic understanding and unity (whereas, in fact, everything is oligarchy), religious ecstasy and rejoicing, and the peoples’ ability to change the administration, clear allegories to cocktail lounges and Long Beach rap, and some Biblical references without stepping on that church-state division too much. It’s also got some Lord of the Flies vibes mixed in as well. The song is the triumph of the common folk, manifesting its own destiny of raucous noise music. It’s the perfect bedtime story for a 6 year old: the old country, the time before worshipping rock and roll, a time of starvation, depravity, and Wagner.
«<»>«<»»«<»>««<»»««<»»>«««»»>««»»>«««<»»««»»>««»»«<»>
