Embarrassing political songs by acts that naturally weren't political

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This thread got started in my head after listening to the Jackson Five song The Young Folks, which is about the late-60s generation; activism and the like. Incredibly dated and odd coming from the Jacksons, it isn't unlike the Beach Boys' Student Demonstration Time. This got me thinking that there are probably all sorts of examples of bubblegum and generally wholesome acts trying to make a "political song" to speak for what was going on at the time. I tried to think of some more examples and I thought I'd lower this bucket down to the collective ILM Well of Knowledge and see what came up. I'm not necessarily looking for general rock acts being political necessarily, (That is really broad and I'm sure there is probably another thread for that anyway) but I'm looking for usually "fun" pop groups, probably being put up to it by their producer or someone higher up, doing incredibly dated and embarrassing songs that were trying to "make a statement" on what was going on at the time.

I'm sure there is a lot to be found during Vietnam and the War on Drugs. I'm also sure there are probably some really bad songs about protecting the environment out there as well. Help me think of some of these!

― Cunga (Cunga), Thursday, 27 July 2006 05:31 (twenty years ago)

What about elephants?

― It's Rodney, currently unemployed! (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:11 (twenty years ago)

Three Dog Night, though "Family of Man" and "Black and White" ain't bad.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:15 (twenty years ago)

"Punks like that just get in the way when they try to be serious."
-- Hunter S. Thompson on Lennon's "Power to the People"

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:16 (twenty years ago)

Student Demonstration Time gets me every time. What about 16 Military Wives by the Decemberists?

― Keith White (tkeithwhite), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:17 (twenty years ago)

Michael Jackson is really the king of these, isn't he?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:19 (twenty years ago)

But what about elephants, Tuomas?

― It's Rodney, currently unemployed! (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:21 (twenty years ago)

Oh, how about the answer song to "Eve of Destruction": "Dawn of Correction" by the Spokesmen.

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 27 July 2006 06:55 (twenty years ago)

Oh, that reminds me, Jan Berry's (Of Jan and Dean fame) The Universal Coward.

― Cunga (Cunga), Thursday, 27 July 2006 07:02 (twenty years ago)

Oh, yeah, Bob Seger had an early pro-Vietnam single called "Ballad of the Yellow Beret." Very embarrassing, but superseded by the killer 180-degree turn of "2 + 2 = ?"

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 27 July 2006 08:53 (twenty years ago)

Has the elephant had any water?
Has the elephant had any water?
Life is short and it's always getting shorter
so Talk to the elephant and see what he thinks.
Think about the elephant and get him a drink!"

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 27 July 2006 09:07 (twenty years ago)

"pro-Vietnam War," that is. Ahem. xpost

― Rickey Wright (Rrrickey), Thursday, 27 July 2006 09:17 (twenty years ago)

''Teenage Rampage'' by The Sweet is a classic example of 'political' bubblegum. The lyrics are outstandingly demented, but I seem to remember other Glam outfits pursuing similar themes.

― Soukesian (Soukesian), Thursday, 27 July 2006 09:23 (twenty years ago)

Say It Loud - I'm Black and I'm Proud, by James Brown. The chorus is belted out by a choir of mostly white children.

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Thursday, 27 July 2006 09:51 (twenty years ago)

How you know dat?

Oh, also, James never actually says the words "I'm Black and I'm Proud"

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 27 July 2006 09:54 (twenty years ago)

Phil Collins speaking for the homeless in Another Day In Paradise

― Ben Dot (1977), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:11 (twenty years ago)

That Joe South track where he tries to 'phone up Nixon to tell him that We Hippies appreciate his efforts to end the war in Vietnam.

― Marcello Carlin (nostudium), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:13 (twenty years ago)

given that the lyrics to "the lebanon" by the human league have just been posted on another thread, i'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:33 (twenty years ago)

"And where there used to be some shops..."

XPOSTOMGWTF

― Venga (Venga), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:34 (twenty years ago)

I believe the ur-example of this is paul mccartney's insightful and compassionate treatise on The Troubles In The North... "give ireland back to the irish"

― andrew shillito (andyroo), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:36 (twenty years ago)

we are the world etc

― jhoshea (scoopsnoodle), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:38 (twenty years ago)

How you know dat?

Liner notes to Star Time.

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:45 (twenty years ago)

Can we include pop country acts (ex. Rascal Flatts) who do pro-school prayer songs?

― ramon fernandez (ramon fernandez), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:50 (twenty years ago)

See also Wikipedia:
Incidentally, as the song was recorded in a Los Angeles area suburb, most of the children that Brown was able to recruit in the area to record the song were actually White and Asian children, with only a few Black children included in the ensemble.

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:51 (twenty years ago)

Can we include pop country acts (ex. Rascal Flatts) who do pro-school prayer songs?

I'd be most amused by "prayer songs" promoting school, please.

― Shoes say, yeah, no hands clap your good bra. (goodbra), Thursday, 27 July 2006 10:53 (twenty years ago)

Through The Barricades - Spandau Ballet.

Close thread please.

― Venga (Venga), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:03 (twenty years ago)

"There Won't Be No Country Music (etc.)" - C.W. McCall
"Time Bomb High School" - The Reigning Sound
"Bring the Boys Back Home" - Pink Floyd (though never exactly a "fun" band, this song is certainly sufficiently cringe-inducing for inclusion)
"Fuck Addict" - Torche (ex-Floor, reprehensibly stupid)
"The World In Which We Live" - Wang Chung
"Crazy World" - Redd Kross (almost certainly a joke, but it's delivered with such a straight face...)
"A World Without Heros" - Kiss

― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:15 (twenty years ago)

Grand Funk Railroad - "People, Let's Stop The War" and "Save The Land"

― pdf (Phil Freeman), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:25 (twenty years ago)

On second thought, I guess most of mine are "socially conscious" and embarassing, rather than genuinely political. Not that it matters...

― fuckfuckingfuckedfucker (fuckfuckingfuckedfucker), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:38 (twenty years ago)

What's in your head, Zombie?

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:49 (twenty years ago)

sonic youth's "swimsuit issue" and "youth against fascism". they meant well, but the songs are embarrassingly one-dimensional and clumsy. actually, so was the rest of dirty, but that's another thread...

― Lawrence the Looter (Lawrence the Looter), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:52 (twenty years ago)

"Wind of Change", anyone?

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Thursday, 27 July 2006 11:59 (twenty years ago)

"Russians" by Sting

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:01 (twenty years ago)

That one Eternal did about not having any bread.

― Dom Passantino (Dom Passantino), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:05 (twenty years ago)

Is American Idiot embarrassing?

― Jacobo Rock (jacobo rock), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:14 (twenty years ago)

War war is stupid
And people are stupid
And love means nothing
In some strange quarters

― latebloomer looks like your lesbian ex-best-friend (latebloomer), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:18 (twenty years ago)

That Cranberries one, Zombie..
with your guns and your bombs/ with your bombs and your guns...

― sonofstan (sonofstan), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:18 (twenty years ago)

Reaganism, tackled head-on!

Prince - "Ronnie Talk To Russia"

Frankie Knuckles/Jamie Principle - "Baby Wants To Ride"
("Ronnie wants to ride me, becuase he thinks he's king, but it's hard to ride, when you're living in a fascist dream")

― hank (hank s), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:35 (twenty years ago)

Public Image Limited: Religion

― kornrulez6969 (TCBeing), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:40 (twenty years ago)

What's in your head, Zombie?

-- Onimo (gerry.wat...), July 27th, 2006 1:49 PM. (GerryNemo) (later)

That Cranberries one, Zombie..
with your guns and your bombs/ with your bombs and your guns...

-- sonofstan (stanerraugh...), July 27th, 2006 2:18 PM. (sonofstan) (later)

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Thursday, 27 July 2006 12:50 (twenty years ago)

more anti-Reagan rhetoric:

Fishbone - "Ugly"

― hank (hank s), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:04 (twenty years ago)

and so the thread drifts, and names every political song ever...

― mark grout (mark grout), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:19 (twenty years ago)

threads drift until they are locked...much like people...

― hank (hank s), Thursday, 27 July 2006 13:42 (twenty years ago)

I was just thinking the other day how much I love "Swimsuit Issue" but even besides that it's not really a political song, is it? More social critique. And funny too!

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 27 July 2006 14:50 (twenty years ago)

I mean if we're going to call "Swimsuit Issue" and "Youth Against Fascism" political songs then Sonic Youth have always been a political bands FFS...

― Eppy (Eppy), Thursday, 27 July 2006 14:51 (twenty years ago)

in what universe is "time bomb high school" a)political or b) embarrassing?

― hot car fuckin' fuckfest (teenagequiet), Thursday, 27 July 2006 17:39 (twenty years ago)

THAT JADAKISS SONG! How did I not think of that the second I saw this thread?

― It's Rodney, currently unemployed! (R. J. Greene), Thursday, 27 July 2006 20:31 (twenty years ago)

If we expand "political" to mean "socially conscious" as others have done, then the Cowsills, "Newspaper Blanket," another cry for the homeless.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Thursday, 27 July 2006 20:35 (twenty years ago)

Steve Mason (feat. Topcat) - CIAM15

― Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Thursday, 27 July 2006 20:37 (twenty years ago)

All self-announcing "political songs" in the history of pop music to thread.

― unnamedroffler (xave), Saturday, 29 July 2006 18:37 (twenty years ago)

The Shangri-Las single was "Take the Time," a pro-Vietnam War song. Mary Weiss (the lead singer, fool) said of it, "I never wanted to record that song, I was completely against the Vietnam War and I protested accordingly."

― O-Keigh (O-Keigh), Saturday, 29 July 2006 20:21 (twenty years ago)

Can we include pop country acts (ex. Rascal Flatts) who do pro-school prayer songs?

Woah! I'd really like to hear some of these!! Names, please!!

― Mr. Snrub (Mr. Snrub), Saturday, 29 July 2006 20:52 (twenty years ago)

while not exactly embarrassing, Cure's "Killing An Arab" always feels atypical and uncomfortably specific.

― Kim (Kim), Saturday, 29 July 2006 22:17 (twenty years ago)

how is Killing An Arab a political song?

― splates (splates), Sunday, 30 July 2006 00:07 (twenty years ago)

i know it wasn't intended as one, but has been taken as such often enough that i figured it was worth a mention.

― Kim (Kim), Sunday, 30 July 2006 00:22 (twenty years ago)

shoeboy - you are a tool. Just because "Say it loud" was sung by white kids -- does not make it embarassing. It is a goddamn soul classic.

Now Leonard Nimoy's version of "If I had a hammer" isn't exactly embarassing -- but it is hilarious.

The NOFX anti bush song was pretty lame. You'd think they could have done it a sophmoric, snotty fashion like all their other songs. But they had to get serious on us.

― Uncle Tom (Uncle Tom), Sunday, 30 July 2006 00:26 (twenty years ago)

"It ain't coca cola... it's rice."

That one line in Straight to Hell makes me cringe like no other line I know. But I don't reall cringe at the other Clash songs, you kind of get in the spirit or something. But I think punk should be exempted. There's too much..

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Sunday, 30 July 2006 00:38 (twenty years ago)

Oh fuck me, erase that, forgot the acts that naturally weren't polical bit altogether

― Major Alfonso (Major Alfonso), Sunday, 30 July 2006 00:40 (twenty years ago)

Erm, I'm not really looking to defend the Cranberries here - especially considering "I Just Shot John Lennon" or whatever the fuck it was called, surely some of the worst lyrics ever written - but a lot of their songs were quasi-political, thus excluding them from this thread. I recall Dolores taking a lot of shit for her pro-life song "The Icicle Melts" and I remember hearing her on a call in show at the time defending herself, and she ably tore all the screeching pro-choicers new assholes, FWIW.

― Summertime Summertime Sum Sum Sumertime (Roger Fidelity), Sunday, 30 July 2006 02:43 (twenty years ago)

Seals & Crofts, "Unborn Child" - yikes.

And didn't someone post a few months ago about Nick Cannon recording an anti-abortion song?

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Sunday, 30 July 2006 03:10 (twenty years ago)

And didn't someone post a few months ago about Nick Cannon recording an anti-abortion song?

Yes, and I remember him saying on the Tonight Show that it was uniting people "on all sides of the issue." For his next trick I assume he will record a rap song that makes both Jews and Arabs want to dance together (which is the Holy Grail of Politically Aware Pop Music and is something Bono has been writing in secret for over twenty-five years!).

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 30 July 2006 04:11 (twenty years ago)

bep - "where is the love"

― Amateur(ist) (Amateur(ist)), Sunday, 30 July 2006 08:52 (twenty years ago)

she ably tore all the screeching pro-choicers new assholes

Way to go, misogynist nutjob.

― Annie Get Your Gin (noodle vague), Sunday, 30 July 2006 09:04 (twenty years ago)

given that the lyrics to "the lebanon" by the human league have just been posted on another thread, i'm surprised nobody's mentioned it yet.

IT DOESNT BELONG IN THIS THREAD

― ESTEBAN BUTTEZ The Unstoppable Troll Machine (ESTEBAN BUTTEZ~!!!), Sunday, 30 July 2006 10:53 (twenty years ago)

how no?

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 30 July 2006 22:03 (twenty years ago)

i mean, i love it. it rocks bells. but "where there used to be some shops" is ... ew.

― grimly fiendish (grimlord), Sunday, 30 July 2006 22:04 (twenty years ago)

XTC's 'Living Through Another Cuba' is a rare example of a one-off overtly political song that really worked.

― Louis Jagger (Haberdager), Sunday, 30 July 2006 22:18 (twenty years ago)

But I think punk should be exempted. There's too much..

haha I agree with this exemption. I tended to overlook the Clash's political stances completely when I first heard them. It always seemed to be such obvious posturing that it almost ended up being unnoticeable to my ears.

― Cunga (Cunga), Sunday, 30 July 2006 22:49 (twenty years ago)

And I wonder - can a woman even BE a misogynist? Or would she be called something else?

― Playstation 2 (Roger Fidelity), Monday, 31 July 2006 04:30 (twenty years ago)

I always thought Straight to Hell was intended ironically. Or, "hoped." Not "thought."

― max (maxreax), Monday, 31 July 2006 04:52 (twenty years ago)

can a woman even BE a misogynist? Or would she be called something else?

She'd be called a misterogynist.

― Joseph McCombs (Joseph McCombs), Monday, 31 July 2006 16:55 (twenty years ago)

Apart from "We Are The World", "Heal The World", "Earth Song" and "Do They Know It's Christmas", has there ever been a more stupid "political" song than "Where Is The Love" by Black Eyed Peas?

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Monday, 31 July 2006 22:58 (twenty years ago)

Perhaps. That is, if Having My Baby can be called political. I think there were a lot of people who took it that way, though. Released around the time of Roe v Wade, Anka alludes...

Could have swept it from your life
but you wouldn't do it
wouldn't put you through it

...or somethinorother.

― jim wentworth (wench), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 02:51 (twenty years ago)

I deal with the truth, and build with the youth
And teach my son as he kneels on the stoop
Son, life is a pool of sin, corrupted wth foolish men
and women with wicked minds, who build picket signs
to legalize abortion, the evil eye distortion

GZA: "B.I.B.L.E."

― Tuomas (Tuomas), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 03:02 (twenty years ago)

Right on, GZA.

― Satan Enoying A Frozen Banana, Laughing At The Nearby Fire Hydrant Soaking Flatb, Tuesday, 1 August 2006 04:53 (twenty years ago)

Oh, yeah, Bob Seger had an early pro-Vietnam single called "Ballad of the Yellow Beret." Very embarrassing, but superseded by the killer 180-degree turn of "2 + 2 = ?"
-- Rickey Wright

I don't think it was necessarily pro-Nam as much as it was a chance to make fun of draft dodgers - a "protest against protestors" like he says right at the top of the song. Kind of a MAD Magazine let's-make-fun-of-everybody tone in there, methinks.

[Incidentally, was that one of the first songs ever to explicitly use the term "gay" in no uncertain terms? I'm sure it's the earliest usage that I've ever encountered, anyway.]

― Monty Von Byonga (Monty Von Byonga), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 09:54 (twenty years ago)

GZA: "B.I.B.L.E."

(Hint: That's Killa Priest) And Geir OTM.

― It's Rodney, assume the position! (R. J. Greene), Tuesday, 1 August 2006 21:02 (twenty years ago)

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