We don't stand a chance. It has nothing to do with our little world and the four year shot we try to take at these kids. Half-assed is the way. Slop it together and present it. I'm watching the Jets. I'm sure I'm not alone. I love NY. I love my country. I remember 9/11. I love little kids. All that good stuff. What I DON'T get is....
Why are school children serenading 9/11 first responders with a song that has lyrics about "selling rock", one's mother being like a bus route because "everyone rides" her, and fifty thousand instances of the N word?
Wait, wait, I actually know the answer: It also says "New York" so it's obviously appropriate for anything having anything to do with NYC.
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ReplyDeletePart of me wants to say that the ad company can't POSSIBLY have not known what those other lyrics say.
ReplyDeleteAnother part of me remembers when a jeans company (Lee? Levi? Wrangler?) used CCR's "Fortunate Son" as an all-American rah-rah anthem in one of their commercials.
I too noticed the use of that song in this situation--with children honoring Fire Fighters on9/11. Yet as Allison suggests, this type of ignorant misappropriation is not new. Didn't a GOP candidate try to use Bruce Springsteen's bitter satire "Born in the USA!" as a rallying campaign song? Reagan in 1984? The year, not the novel?
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ReplyDeleteYes, the gipper's twonk re-election staffers tried to use "Born in the USA"; I think Springsteen shot them down after using the song for a bit.
Al Franken has a story about how the Dukakis people used a Neil Diamond song ("Coming to America"*) and how at one campaign stop they didn't have the song cued up, so the crowd had to listen to more than the chorus. Pop music and American politics never really work together; it usually sounds like a cheap ploy, and I think Americans are getting tired of it.
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* To emphasize that Dukakis was the son of recent Greek immigrants and thus a common person, unlike the Ivy educated Bush I.
It was Reagan.
ReplyDeleteIf I'm remembering correctly, Obama used "Born in the USA" recently, but to comic effect: at one of the dinners-with-the-press (either Gridiron or White House Correspondents', I'm not sure), he had the Marine band play it instead of "Hail to the Chief," to emphasize an obvious point that somehow remains controversial in some circles. I think it may have been soon after he decided that the birther thing had gone on long enough, and dispatched a lawyer to Hawaii to get a copy of his long form birth certificate (which, of course, said the same thing the short form did).
ReplyDeleteYo, could someone tell me what song that was being sung by babes the other day? I missed it and am not catching the allusions...and I may want to use it in a few weeks in class. kthxbai.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.jsonline.com/blogs/entertainment/129659508.html
ReplyDeleteYea I'm out that Brooklyn, now I'm down in TriBeCa
right next to Deniro, but I'll be hood forever
I'm the new Sinatra, and... since I made it here
I can make it anywhere, yea, they love me everywhere
I used to cop in Harlem, all of my Dominicano's
right there up on Broadway, pull me back to that McDonald's
Took it to my stashbox, 560 State St.
catch me in the kitchen like a Simmons with them Pastry's
Cruisin' down 8th St., off white Lexus
drivin' so slow, but BK is from Texas
Me, I'm out that Bed-Stuy, home of that boy Biggie
now I live on Billboard and I brought my boys with me
Say what's up to Ty-Ty, still sippin' mai tai's
sittin' courtside, Knicks & Nets give me high five
Nigga I be Spike'd out, I could trip a referee
Tell by my attitude that I'm most definitely from....
New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of
There's nothin' you can't do
Now you're in New York
These streets will make you feel brand new
Big lights will inspire you
Let's hear it for New York, New York,
New York
Catch me at the X with OG at a Yankee game
Shit, I made the Yankee hat more famous then a Yankee can
You should know I bleed blue, but I ain't a Crip though
but I got a gang of niggas walkin' with my clique though
Welcome to the melting pot, corners where we sellin' rock
Afrika Bambataa shit, home of the hip-hop
Yellow cab, gypsy cab, dollar cab, holla back
for foreigners it ain't for, they act like they forgot how to act
8 million stories, out there in it naked
City, it's a pity, half of y'all won't make it
Me, I got a plug, Special Ed "I Got It Made"
If Jeezy's payin' LeBron, I'm payin' Dwyane Wade
Three dice cee-lo, three Card Monty
Labor Day Parade, rest in peace Bob Marley
Statue of Liberty, long live the World Trade
Long live the King yo, I'm from the Empire State that's
Lights is blinding, girls need blinders
so they can step out of bounds quick, the sidelines is
lined with casualties, who sip to life casually
then gradually become worse, don't bite the apple eve
Caught up in the in-crowd, now you're in style
Anna Wintour gets cold, in Vogue with your skin out
City of sin, it's a pity on the wind
Good girls gone bad, the city's filled with them
Mami took a bus trip, now she got her bust out
Everybody ride her, just like a bus route
Hail Mary to the city, you're a virgin
And Jesus can't save you, life starts when the church end
Came here for school, graduated to the high life
Ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight
MDMA got you feelin' like a champion
The city never sleeps, better slip you an Ambien
One hand in the air for the big city
Street lights, big dreams, all lookin' pretty
No place in the world that could compare
Put your lighters in the air
Everybody say "yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah"
Whew. What an anthem.
ReplyDeleteIn sorta the same vein, do the guys at baseball games who stand up and make the letters in YMCA know that the song and the band were about gay sex?
@Eskarina, I'm guessing they know and they celebrate it. ;o)
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