Songs For Thinkers

A number of years ago I posted about a list of the top conservative rock songs of all time and gave some suggestions for new ones that should be on the list.

I recently found a new list over at Faith & Theology that was quite entertaining (if disappointing in spots).  The list was an effort to pick a rock song to represent the thought of 40 philosophers.  Here's a link to the list.  These were my 10 favorites - the ones I think the list gets most right:

Plato - "Cave" by Muse
Epicurus - "Let's Live for Today" by The Grass Roots
Augustine - "Time and Love" by Laura Nyro
Rene Descartes - "Suspicious Minds" by Elvis Presley
Thomas Hobbes - "Welcome to the Jungle" by Guns N' Roses
Gottfried Leibniz - "Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke
George Berkeley - "It's All in My Mind" by George Jones
Ludwig Wittgenstein - "Vienna" by Ultravox
John Rawls - "Long Black Veil" by The Band
Harry Frankfurt - "Rock N' Roll Bullshit" by Against Me

It's hard to find pictures related to this post, so here's a funny comic instead!

Now, I'll admit that some of the others I probably don't get because I'm not familiar with everyone's work.  And some are probably connected by lyrics in the song that I'm unfamiliar with.  But some are just blatantly wrong.  He gave Karl Marx the song "Money" by Pink Floyd.  Preposterous.  Yes, the song talks about a few of the negatives of money, but mostly just talks about what money gets you and its role in modern life...which, of course, Marx hated.  I would have thought "Money" would be a perfect song for someone like Weber, Hayek, or Friedman.  Another horrible selection was "Uncle John's Band" for John Locke.  Seriously?  You just picked that because it has the name "John" in it.  So this is apparently the theme song for everyone in the world named John.  Such a lazy pick.

This list claims to be "rock songs" but a quick glance through makes it pretty clear that "rock" is being defined quite liberally here.  George Jones?  Since when is George Jones "rock"?  Bob Dylan, Ray Charles, the Bee Gees...these are all pretty questionable for the title "rock".  So instead of limiting my list to "rock" I'll limit it to songs in my library.  Here are some I came up with.  Some are new for philosophers not on the list and some are different options for guys that are on there already.  There are a few who aren't technically "philosophers" but they are at least closely related to philosophy and the songs fit, so I included them anyway.

...And another (from xkcd.com)

Parmenides - "One" by Metallica
Karl Marx - "Imagine" by John Lennon
Ayn Rand - "The Trees" by Rush
Ludwig Wittgenstein - "Vicious Circles" by Aaron Lewis
Peter Singer - "Dirty Deeds" by AC/DC
William James - "Because I Got High" by Afroman
Maimonides - "Pretty Fly for a Rabbi" by Weird Al Yankovic
Jacques Derrida - "Ramblin' Man" by The Allman Brothers
Clark Pinnock - "Flavor of the Week" by American Hi-Fi
Sun Tzu - "Art of War" by Anberlin
David Lewis - "If I Could Turn Back Time" by Cher
John Locke - "Fight for Your Right" by The Beastie Boys
Richard Dawkins - "Loser" by Beck
Thomas More - "Shangri-La" by Believable Picnic
Aristotle - "Heaven is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle
Gaunilo - "Antisaint" by Chevelle
David Chalmers - "Zombie" by The Cranberries
Bill Joy - "Armageddon It" by Def Leppard
Bertrand Russell - "White Flag" by Dido
Montesquieu - "Dear X (You Don't Own Me)" by Disciple
Voltaire - "Ordinary World" by Duran Duran
Plato - "My Immortal" by Evanescence
John Duns Scotus - "Everybody's Fool" by Evanescence
William of Ockham - "Razor" by The Foo Fighters
J.L. Schellenberg - "Unanswered Prayers" by Garth Brooks
Cornel West - "Damn it Feels Good to be a Gangsta" by Geto Boys
Thales - "Liquid" by Jars of Clay
Thomas Kuhn - "Jump" by Kris Kross
Edmund Gettier - "Don't Know Much" by Linda Ronstadt & Aaron Neville
Gorgias - "I Alone" by Live
Nelson Pike - "Fatalist" by Monarch
Blaise Pascal - "The Gambler" by Kenny Rogers
Friedrich Nietzsche - "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" by Tears for Fears
Peter van Inwagen - "Freewill" by Rush
Emmanuel Levinas - "Epiphany" by Staind

Hope you enjoyed!

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?