The 50 greatest conservative rock songs

The National Review has compiled a list of the 50 most conservative rock tunes.

Rockin' the Right - National Review

1. “Won’t Get Fooled Again” by The Who
2. “Taxman” by The Beatles
3. “Sympathy for the Devil” by The Rolling Stones
4. “Sweet Home Alabama” by Lynyrd Skynyrd
5. “Wouldn’t It Be Nice” by The Beach Boys
6. “Gloria” by U2
7. “Revolution” by The Beatles
8. “Bodies” by The Sex Pistols
9. “Don’t Tread on Me” by Metallica
10. “20th Century Man” by The Kinks
11. “The Trees” by Rush
12. “Neighborhood Bully” by Bob Dylan
13. “My City Was Gone” by The Pretenders
14. “Right Here, Right Now” by Jesus Jones
15. “I Fought the Law” by The Crickets
16. “Get Over It” by The Eagles
17. “Stay Together for the Kids” by Blink 182
18. “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour
19. “Kicks” by Paul Revere and the Raiders
20. “Rock the Casbah” by The Clash
21. “Heroes” by David Bowie
22. “Red Barchetta” by Rush
23. “Brick” by Ben Folds Five
24. “Der Kommissar” by After the Fire
25. “The Battle of Evermore” by Led Zeppelin
26. “Capitalism” by Oingo Boingo
27. “Obvious Song” by Joe Jackson
28. “Janie’s Got a Gun” by Aerosmith
29. “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” by Iron Maiden
30. “You Can’t Be Too Strong” by Graham Parker
31. “Small Town” by John Mellencamp
32. “Keep Your Hands to Yourself” by The Georgia Satellites
33. “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by The Rolling Stones
34. “Godzilla” by Blue öyster Cult
35. “Who’ll Stop the Rain” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
36. “Government Cheese” by The Rainmakers
37. “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by The Band
38. “I Can’t Drive 55” by Sammy Hagar
39. “Property Line” by The Marshall Tucker Band
40. “Wake Up Little Susie” by The Everly Brothers
41. “The Icicle Melts” by The Cranberries
42. “Everybody’s a Victim” by The Proclaimers
43. “Wonderful” by Everclear
44. “Two Sisters” by The Kinks
45. “Taxman, Mr. Thief” by Cheap Trick
46. “Wind of Change” by The Scorpions
47. “One” by Creed
48. “Why Don’t You Get a Job” by The Offspring
49. “Abortion” by Kid Rock
50. “Stand By Your Man” by Tammy Wynette

(The link explains why these choices were made with lyric quotes.)

“Gloria,” by U2. U2 - Under a Blood Red Sky - Gloria ; buy CD on Amazon.com
Just because a rock song is about faith doesn’t mean that it’s conservative. But what about a rock song that’s about faith and whose chorus is in Latin? That’s beautifully reactionary: “Gloria / In te domine / Gloria / Exultate.”

Latin = "beautifully reactionary"? Is this deep thought, conservative-style?

I heard a bit about this over the weekend, and all I can say is that their "reasoning" for commandeering most of these songs as somehow "conservative" is hysterical.

They missed, or couldn't find a song for



Ian Curtis, one of the great songwriters of the rock era,and a known Thatcher voter.

Pointless, since almost none of the artists listed would consider themselves "conservative" in the way that the word's been hijacked by the Republican rightists.

Try getting Mick Jones to speak at the next AEI gathering.

This has got to be a big put-on. Do they even look at the lyrics? The song they have as #1 is the least conservitive song ever. Even the title itself is a joke in this post-Iraq invasion world. In fact, most of the entries stretch the lyrics and conservative values beyond the breaking point. In fact, lots them are contradictory - you can't be both against the "nanny state" and against "reproductive freedom".

Hmm, I listened to the #1 song on their list (well, not the last couple of lines) just before I went out and voted for John Kerry in 2004.

They hit the nail on the head with this one.

Totally conservative.

In fact, there's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again.

Top Ten "Conservative" Songs If The So-Called Conservatives Were Being Honest With Themselves (And If Their Total Lack of Irony Remained Intact)

1. "Ignorance Is Bliss", The Ramones
2. "Political Science", Randy Newman
3. "Money (That's What I Want)", The Beatles
4. "Talkin' John Birch Paranoid Blues", Bob Dylan
5. "My War", Black Flag
6. "Lola", The Kinks
7. "Killing An Arab", The Cure
8. "Traitor", Bjork
9. "Lawyers, Guns and Money", Warren Zevon
10. "Kill The Messenger", John Wesley Harding

This was clearly done with the writer's tongue half-way in his cheek, because the bar was set way too low for any of these songs to be considered genuinely conservative.

Then again, the list has Creed. Maybe they're not kidding.

I wonder if Ted Nugent's feelings were hurt.

I don't know, but these young ladies certainly deserve to be included.

"Spirit in the Sky"? Or was the National Review irritated at Norman Greenbaum ripping off Canned Heat?

I've got approximately 20 Dylan albums, and not only do I not own this song, I've never heard of it. What album?

It was a Canned Heat ripoff? This is news, please elaborate.

I don't understand why Godzilla would be considered political, it's just a joke song about godzilla movies. And Rime of the Ancient Mariner???

I would have chosen "Only a Lad" by Oingo Boing, Elfman was a truly conservative songwriter (exceedingly rare, too).

I guess Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" had a little to much grass-smoking and pill-popping to be conservative.

Infidels

He's never played it live.

Yeah. The main riff was off "Fried Boogie," or - crap, let me take the two seconds to look it up.

"Fried Hockey Boogie." Which is, like, long and jammy and uber-tedious. Probably the riff was stolen from someone else before Canned Heat got it; they weren't what you'd call super-original themselves.

"DittoHead" Slayer

I can't believe Lets Have A War by Fear was not on the list or even [url="http://www.lyricstime.com/fear-i-don-t-care-about-you-lyrics.html]I Don't Care About You[/url].

Look, the Shins hate liberals! NOW that's what I call conservative!

Yeah, I think that every other song by Canned Heat had that same basic chord progression

I remember that song, I used to have that album "Boogie with Canned Heat"

Long jams by good musicians, like Cream, were tedious enough. But long jams by lousy musicians, like those in Canned Heat, were unlistenable. The recent re-issue of the Woodstock movie has added a performance by Canned Heat, and it's obvious why it was left out of the original. Jefferson Airplane, too.

Anybody should be able to rip off Canned Heat with impunity since most of their songs were direct ripoffs of old blues songs. Going Up the Country is nearly exactly lifted from Bulldoze Blues and they gave themselves song writing credit for it.

Since a lot of this list is actually BS, it makes me wonder what a list of genuinely "conservative" songs would look like.

Scanning over my iTunes library, I came across several songs that could be described as "conservative" in the manner used by the National Review, but none of those songs are actually right wing. For example, there's a conservative bend to many of Ray Davies's lyrics, and the same goes for Jonathan Richman/Modern Lovers.

Rush, of course, is a pretty obvious contender. And there's a fair amount of right-wing hardcore from the 80s (even if you exclude the neo-Nazi stuff). Did Johnny Ramone ever write any Ramones lyrics?

While Darby Crash was thoroughly versed in the conservative thought of the venerable Edmund Burke, this particular song has one lyric that would be troubling to the contemporary conservative coalition:

Let's Have a War

There's so many of us,
So many of us,
So many, there's so many, there's so many

Let's have a war,
So you can go and die,
Let's have a war,
We could all use the money,
Let's have a war,
We need the space,
Let's have a war,
Clean out this place

It already started in the city,
Suburbia will be just as easy

Let's have a war,
Jack up the Dow Jones,
Let's have a war,
It can start in New Jersey,
Let's have a war,
Blame it on the middle-class,
Let's have a war,
We're like rats in a cage

It already started in the city,
Suburbia will be just as easy

Let's have a war,
Sell the rights to the networks,
Let's have a war,
Let our wallets get fat like last time,
Let's have a war,
Give guns to the queers,
Let's have a war,
The enemy's within

It already started in the city,
Suburbia will be just as easy

Hmm-- thought I remembered it from Rochester NY, the "Street Legal" tour...

Actually for many years the litmus test for whether someone in a conversation was actually at Woodstock as claimed was to ask them who they thought played the best set; if they said anybody other than Canned Heat, Santana, or Hendrix, you figured they were fibbing. I wouldn't argue with your assessment of C.H. overall, but for about an hour in August 1969 they were great, and the first Woodstock album was criticized for not including their jam... (the first album did include "Up the Country.")

I have no idea how they sound on the album, or even if the performance released is the real one; Mandel was deep in his raga period and was playing a lot of fuzzed up Indian riffs over the John Lee Hooker structures, so if that's not whats on the album, then it isn't the real thing. My memory is that they played "Up the Country," a long long jam which I think was "Fried Hockey Boogie," and "On the Road Again" and that was the set.

My vague understanding has been that Al Wilson quit immediately before the festival and they picked up Harvey Mandel just to play Woodstock as a last gig before breaking up; but the crowd response was so good that they continued with the new lineup for years to come. However the impromptu nature of the arrangements left the performance in a sort of legal limbo, subject to lawsuits by somebody no matter who signed off on its use... But that understanding is pretty damn vague at this point.

The Airplane really stunk out the joint--didn't have any two instruments in tune with each other much of the set, and the vocalists were lost in space as a consequence, and they seemed pretty fatigued as well... the Who had many better nights as well...

Incidentally, ZZ Top has been known to mine the Canned Head stope heap themselves...