Over at Political Animal, Christina Larson posts an anthropological note on The National Review’s determination to give Republican meaning to the odd pop lyric:

“Courtesy of The National Review, John J. Miller has sifted through NRO readers’ suggestions for “The 50 Greatest Conservative Rock Songs” and picked some winners. “

These evidently include such RNC-stoppers as Aerosmith’s “Janie’s Got A Gun”.

This is pure hokum. Reactionary cool? Please. The real conservative theme song sounds more like “Tomorrow Belongs To Me” (”You still think you can control them?”). Rock should be revolutionary on at least some level, and no one ever fit that bill better than The Fugs. And few songs match the zeitgeist of this sorry age like my favorite Fugs’ song, “Wide Wide River”.

Roll on and weep:

“River of shit
River of shit
Flow on, flow on, river of shit
Right from my toes
On up to my nose
Flow on, flow on, river of shit
I’ve been swimming in this river of shit
More than 20 years And I’m getting tired of it
Don’t like swimming Hope it’ll run dry
Got to go on swimming Cause I don’t want to die.
(Spoken:)
Oh I can feel another 1000 years Of the flapjacks of Sorrow! Unless!
Unless we make 2000 A.D.!
2000 A.D. Our glorious deadline
A glorious deadline to make the World a better place!
Or else the flapjacks of sorrow are going to slide down our throats
Slide down our throats for another millenium of pain and war and oppression
And all our children’s children’s children’s children’s children children
Shall have to wade and to swim
In the same grim river in which we now swim
Sing along with us
Sing sing sing sing sing sing sing sing!

(Repeat first verse, or, as it was originally done on the album:)

River of shit, river of shit
Flow on, flow on, river of shit
Right from my toes
On up to my nose
Flow on on, flow on, river of shit
I’ve been swimming in this river of shit
More than 20 years and I’m gettin’ tired of it
Don’t like swimming, hope it’ll soon run dry
Got to keep swimming, ‘cuz I don’t want to die
(Spoken:)
Who dealt this mess, anyway?
Yeah, that’s an old card player’s term,
But sometimes you can use the old switch-a-roo
And it can be applied to frontal politics.
What I mean is, who was it that set up a system,
Supposedly a democratic system, where you end up
Always votin’ for the lesser o’ two evils?
I mean, was George Washington the lesser of two evils?
Sometimes I wonder.
Ya got some guy that says,
“For god’s sake we got to stop havin’ violence in this country”,
While he’s spendin’ sixteen thousand dollars a second… snuffin’ gooks.
(Sing:)
River of shit, river of shit
River of shit, river of shit
(Big brown river!)
Flow on, flow on, river of shit
(Yeah! Bigger than hell! And wealth and prosperity to every
man woman and child)
River of shit
Flow on”

No more slavery!