POLL OF CONFUSION

Mod Clothes?

I dunno..

The feeling of humiliation is nothing but the feeling of being an object.

So IIRC the conventional wisdom about this song, on ILX and elsewhere, is that it's coasting on vicarious protest-song-ism, listing a bunch of contemporary things but not really saying anything specific about them... sort of a prototype for "We Didn't Start The Fire" or at least the way that song has usually been critiqued. I think that's mostly fair but I also think it's kind of interesting that people would want to rush out and buy such a song - if it's not like "Ohio" where buying it signals a very specific political alignment to yourself and others, does it still convey something? Did people really just feel so strongly that all these things added up were so confusing? Or does that just lead us into the abyss of Nixonian withdrawal from turmoil? I dunno just thinking out loud, maybe this song really captured the way some felt, aside from being a pretty rocking recording.

Also - apparently Tina Turner's 1982 version hit #5 in Norway though Wiki doesn't elsewhere even list it as a single. What was going on in Norway in 1982?

i like this version by Red Rockers from '83. it has a chugging gated reverb roborock vibe like "mama" by genesis, really captures the dystopic paranoia of the lyrics well

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyOPqGWc3kw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6XlAgDqP6g

Tina Turner's "Ball of confusion" was a single but for BEF.

https://www.discogs.com/BEF-Featuring-Tina-Turner-Ball-Of-Confusion/release/825846

So IIRC the conventional wisdom about this song, on ILX and elsewhere, is that it's coasting on vicarious protest-song-ism, listing a bunch of contemporary things but not really saying anything specific about them... sort of a prototype for "We Didn't Start The Fire" or at least the way that song has usually been critiqued. I think that's mostly fair but I also think it's kind of interesting that people would want to rush out and buy such a song - if it's not like "Ohio" where buying it signals a very specific political alignment to yourself and others, does it still convey something? Did people really just feel so strongly that all these things added up were so confusing? Or does that just lead us into the abyss of Nixonian withdrawal from turmoil? I dunno just thinking out loud, maybe this song really captured the way some felt, aside from being a pretty rocking recording.

The lyrics seem dated on close examination but the song itself and production still sound fresh, probably from not hearing it overplayed on oldies stations and then later on classic rock radio. Compare to "War" which has been played into oblivion. It also doesn't have some of the cheesier production choices of, say, Papa Was a Rolling Stone.

Even the lyrics are so general that it's easier not to think of this track as referring to a specific era.

is that it's coasting on vicarious protest-song-ism, listing a bunch of contemporary things but not really saying anything specific about them.

Seems to me like the collective weight of all the problems mentioned is what the song is actually about. It's called Ball of Confusion, not Ball of Specific Plans for Collective Action

kornrulez OTM

@ Mark G - aha, thanks, that makes sense.

Huh, that Red Rockers version is neat! Not where I would have taken the song but kinda cool.

I think the thing about the "collective weight" interpretation that doesn't quite land with me is that several of the items mentioned don't really seem like problems: music that's "a gas," popular mod clothes, evolution - and some others are at least ambiguous, like the space program. And are segregation and integration really equally confusing? So it feels less like "every time you turn on the TV it's more bad news" and more like "every time you turn on the TV it's more ... news." Which is maybe why I brought up Nixon, not that I think the song actually goes that direction... just you could imagine a Nixon voter listener nodding appreciatively - it's true, there's all this stuff going on, when did the world get so confusing?

It's like a photo-negative angsty version of Sonny & Cher's "The Beat Goes On," emphasizing fractures instead of continuities

Kinda depressing that it's no longer safe to live on an Indian reservation

"The Long & Winding Road" really wasn't much of a gas at all.

Maybe they were confused by people *asserting* that the Beatles' new record was a gas.

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Thirty-five votes! Neat!

And... actually, yeah, the grouping of everything that got votes (except maybe the Beatles and "Eve of Destruction") does kinda resonate as a picture of the present-day. That's kind of a bummer tbh but I knew that already.

i have no memory of creating this poll, feels much longer ago than 2017.