A Break from the usual: Culture and Dreams

A very 80s Album, still timely

 

 

This morning I had a dream where I was listening to the radio, some pop station.  I thought to myself, "Hey, this sounds a lot like a song from 30 years ago, but I know it's not."  So I started singing the words to this song:

 

Welcome to the truth custom made
Come in and have some lemonade
Reality will readjust while we evade
The issues that are pressing us
And getting so depressing but
Undressing and unstressing
Makes them go away

We're tired of solid ground
We're wired up for sound
From any fool who'll keep us
Cool with all his lies
Cool with all his lies

Ba-ba-ba-ba
Ba-ba-ba-ba
We believe, we believe
Cuz we felt it burning in our hearts
Ba-ba-ba-ba
Ba-ba-ba-ba
And it's true, yes it's true
If it gets us all thru the night
For the rest of our lives

If there's a master race, we're one
And if by chance they drop the bomb
The heat will never find us
Cuz we've learned to run
No absolutes to spoil our time
So we won't have to change our minds
Just hope that we won't die
While we're still in our prime

 

(Please, click the link to hear some good old 80's music you probably have never heard unless you were into "CCM" at the time.)

 

In the dream, I was amazed how the timing of the song was perfectly aligned with these lyrics...as a good hipster, I was recognizing the irony of pop music not evolving for 30 years past the formulaic constructions of a satirical Christian band.  (Although the 77s, Daniel Amos, Randy Stonehill, Mark Heard and others of that era were pretty innovative, IMO--especially lyrically.  Even when Terry Taylor was channeling the Beach Boys and the Beatles.)

 

It goes along well with Randy Stonehill's "Die Young" of the same era...and frankly, the criticism implicit in both songs is more appropriate than ever.  The ever-elusive promise of fulfillment through absolute freedom ends the same way, every time.  A happy nihilism is still nihilism...and happy nihilists often just turn into grumpy old men who can't stand anyone having any hope or suggesting that there's something more than being born, having fun, then being eaten by worms.