A Depressing List of Rock Songs

During halftime at the Super Bowl this Sunday, The Who will be rocking out to what is now known as the greatest conservative rock song of all time.  In 2006, John J. Miller wrote the list of the 50 greatest conservative rock songs of all time.  "Won't Get Fooled Again" was at the top, narrowly edging out "Taxman" by The Beatles.

As I looked through the list, I found that it was definitely a stretch to consider some of them conservative.  Initially I thought the same of "Won't Get Fooled Again" until I found out that Pete Townshend agrees with the sentiment.  He says it's "right on the money" and that he never bought into "all that hippie (expletive) I so despise."  So there you have it - tune in to the Super Bowl at halftime to listen to the greatest conservative rock song ever.

In thinking about thi list, I find it quite sad that it's THIS HARD to find conservative rock songs.  I mean...they really had to scrape the bottom of the barrel to come up with 50.  I'm sure a quick glance through Green Day's discography alone would nearly be enough to fill a list of liberal songs.  Anyway, here are a couple that probably shouldn't be on there:

1. "Gloria" by U2 - it's on the list just because it's about faith and its title is in Latin...neither of which are inherently conservative things.
2. "I Fought the Law" by The Crickets - as far as I can tell it's only on here because the law won.  Presumably liberals like that too.
3. "Red Barchetta" by Rush - it seems that speeding is apparently seen by Mr. Miller as a conservative virtue?
4. "Small Town" by John Mellencamp - there are a LOT of liberals that live in small towns and nothing in this song is distinctively conservative as far as I can tell.
5. "Wake Up Little Susie" by The Everly Brothers - what? a song about falling asleep in school?

Anyway, I decided I should find a few songs to replace these ones that quite obviously shouldn't be on the list.  Here's what I came up with:

1. "Never Again" by Nickelback - say what you will about Nickelback (odds are high I'll say it with you), but their Silver Side Up album was actually quite good.  The conservative principle: hand-guns in the hands of defenseless women for the purpose of self-defense.  Here's a sample: "Seen it before but not like this / been there before but not like this / never before have I ever / seen him this bad / she's just a woman / never again." "He's drunk again, it's time to fight / same old S*** just on a different night / she grabs the gun, she's had enough / tonight she'll find out how F***ing / tough is this man? / pulls the trigger just as fast as she can / never again."

2. "Hollywood's Not America" by Ferras - it's no secret that virtually everyone in Hollywood is a raging liberal.  Leading men from Sean Penn to Brad Pitt.  Leading women from Angelina Jolie to Scarlett Johanssen.  Guys who play presidents from Martin Sheen to Harrison Ford.  Ocean's 11.  And pretty much everyone else not named Chuck Norris or Jon Voight.  Hollywood is decidedly NOT a representative sampling of America, and certainly doesn't represent middle-America in any way.  So this song's encouragement to "put your blue jeans back on" because "Hollywood's not America" should ring a loud bell for conservatives.

3. "Critical Acclaim" by Avenged Sevenfold - this is a song written by lead singer M. Shadows in his frustration at people who were critical of the war effort in Iraq, since a number of his friends were over there fighting.  A brief sampling: "So how does it feel to know that someone's kid in the heart of America / Has blood on their hands, fighting to defend your rights / So you can maintain the lifestyle that insults his family's existence?" and "All the way from the east to the west / We've got this high society looking down on this very foundation / Constantly reminding us that our actions are the cause of all their problems / pointing fingers in every direction / blaming their own nation for who wins elections / they've never contributed a F***ing thing to the country they love to criticize."

Jay Nordlinger suggests the Steppenwolf song "Renegade" as #1.  I think that actually sounds quite reasonable.  There's nothing conservatives hate more than Communism, after all.  Does anyone have any more ideas for conservative rock songs?