F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!
(Am I coming through loud and clear?)
2 or 3 lines usually spends its September presenting the newest members of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” HIT SINGLES HALL OF FAME, while October is devoted to the newest class of the 2 OR 3 LINES “GOLDEN DECADE” ALBUM TRACKS HALL OF FAME.
But not this year. (2 or 3 lines is nothing if not unpredictable!)
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Those of you who get up early enough to watch CBS’s Sunday Morning program know that program polled dozens of notable Americans earlier this year to create a list of what they’re calling the 250 most essential American songs.
Click here to see that list.
A lot of the allegedly “notable” Americans who were polled are notable mostly for their high degree of cluelessness. While some of the songs that made the CBS list do belong there, the vast majority don’t.
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To show CBS how it should have been done, 2 or 3 lines has sifted through hundreds of songs and picked the 13 that exemplify quintessential American attributes. Each of my upcoming September and October posts this year will feature one of those songs – and trust me, my choices for the 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK pone the mostly sucky choices of those dumbasses that CBS talked to.
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A Supreme Court justice once admitted that he couldn’t intelligibly define exactly what constituted hard-core pornography, but that he knew it when he saw it.
Like that justice, I know quintessentially American character traits when I see them.
First and foremost, Americans are independent to the point of orneriness – we don’t like to be told what to do! When we’re kids, we resist doing what our parents and teachers tell us to do. And when we’re adults, we resist doing what the government tells us to do.
(I have a friend who keeps telling me that when I say “the government,” what I’m really saying is “us” – that the American government is nothing more than the American people. I beg to differ.)
The 13 colonies didn’t like the British monarchy telling them what they could and couldn’t do, so they went to war in 1775 to achieve their independence.
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| King George III |
The Americans who settled in Texas didn’t like the Mexican government telling them what they could and couldn’t do, so they revolted in 1835 to achieve their independence.
And the Southern states didn’t like the Northern states telling them what they could and couldn’t do, so they seceded from the Union in 1861 and started the Civil War to achieve their independence.
Hey, I didn’t say that every time Americans revolted against the government, it was a good thing. I’m just saying that Americans don’t like being told what to do.
* * * * *
No song better demonstrates this quintessentially American character trait than Rage Against the Machine’s “Killing in the Name,” which was released in 1992 on the band’s eponymous debut album.
It’s such a perfect choice that I can’t believe that the singer/songwriter Jelly Roll was the only one of the 90 actors, athletes, authors, businesspeople, comedians, filmmakers, journalists, musicians, and politicians that CBS surveyed picked “Killing in the Name” as one of their choices. (We’ll have more to say about Jelly Roll in the next 2 or 3 lines.)
Rage Against the Machine frontman Zack de la Rocha sings “F*ck you, I won’t do what you tell me!” 16 consecutive times on the record (which is why I typed that line 16 times at the beginning of this post). If I had to pick one line from a song that captured the quintessence of what it means to be an American, that’s the line I would pick.
Given that, you might wonder why I’m featuring “Killing in the Name” in the first of my series 2 OR 3 LINES QUINTESSENTIAL AMERICAN SONGBOOK posts. I don’t believe in saving the best for last, boys and girls – I believe in getting down to it right off the bat.
If you tell me that I should have done things differently, you can probably guess what my reply to you would be:
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Click here to listen to “Killing in the Name.”
Click here to buy “Killing n the Name” from Amazon.
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