Jonah Goldberg expresses an interesting opinion about what’s wrong with the Republican Party that has nothing to do with positions on issues:
While I have my sympathies and positions in all of these fights, I’ve long argued that regardless of what policies Republicans should offer or what philosophical North Star they might follow, one thing the GOP could definitely use is better politicians.
Ronald Reagan’s cult of personality remains strong and deep on the right, and I count myself a member of it. But what often gets lost in all the talk of the Gipper’s adamantine convictions and timeless principles is the simple fact that he was also a really good politician. Barry Goldwater was every bit as principled as Reagan, but Reagan was by far a better politician. That’s at least partly why Goldwater lost in a stunning landslide in 1964 and why Reagan was a two-term political juggernaut. Reagan won votes from moderates, independents and lots of Democrats.
To listen to many conservative activists today, we need a candidate as principled as Reagan to save the country, but you rarely hear of the need for a politician as good as Reagan.
Unfortunately, to paraphrase Donald Rumsfeld, you go into elections with the politicians you have, not the politicians you want. So the question isn’t how to find better leaders but how to make the leaders we have better.
One answer is really remarkably simple: Tell better stories.
In July, Rod Dreher, author of the memoir “The Little Way of Ruthie Leming,” wrote a deeply insightful essay for the American Conservative on how the right has largely lost the ability to tell stories. Worse, many of the stories we continue to tell “are exhausted and have taken on the characteristics of brittle dogma.”
This is a problem not just for Republican politicians but for conservatives generally. For roughly 99.9% of human history, nearly all of human wisdom was passed on in stories. We are a species that understands things — i.e. morality, politics, even religion — in terms of tales of heroism, sacrifice and adversity. Yet so much of what passes for conservative rhetoric these days isn’t storytelling but exhortation. Whatever the optimal policy might be, if you can’t talk to people in human terms they can relate to, you can’t sell any policy. The war on poverty, for instance, has been an enormous failure in so many policy terms, but it stays alive because of the stories liberals tell. …
As Dreher noted, conservatives have largely abdicated their role in “tending the moral imagination,” which Russell Kirk defined as “conservatism at its highest.” Too many on the right don’t even claim what victories there are in the popular culture, which is far richer and more rewarding than many older conservatives are comfortable acknowledging.
Many historians will tell you that the secret of Reagan’s political success was his gift for storytelling. By all means, Republicans, be more like Reagan — but don’t tell his stories; tell your own.
Between Reagan’s retirement as California governor and his successful run for the presidency, Reagan did syndicated radio commentaries that ran as far east as Iowa. The subject frequently was abuse of and by government. And well before that, Reagan toured U.S. General Electric plants giving speeches.
I’d been asked to write a letter for a “time capsule” which would be opened in Los Angeles 100 yrs. from now. It will be The occasion will be the Los Angeles Bicentennial & of course our countrys tri-centennial. It was suggested that I mention some of the problems confronting us in this election year. Since I’ve been talking about those problems for aboutsome 9 months that didn’t look like too much of a chore.
So riding down the coast highway from Santa Barbara–a yellow tablet on my lap (someone else was driving) I started to write my letter to the future.
It was a beautiful summer afternoon. The Pacific stretched out to the horizon on one side of the highway and on the other the Santa Ynez mt’s. were etched against a sky as blue as the Ocean.
I found myself wondering if it would look the same 100 yrs. from now. Will there still be a coast highway? Will people still be travelling in automobiles, or will they be looking down at the mountains from aircraft or moving so fast the beauty of all I sawthiswould be lost?
Suddenly the simple drafting of a letter became a rather complex chore. Think about it for a minute. What do you put in a letter that’s going to be read 100 yrs. from now–in the year 2076? What do you say about our problems when those who read the letter will alr know what we dont know–namely how well we did with those problems? In short they will be living in the world we helped to shape.
Here’s another:
Some of these broadcasts have to be put together while I’m out on the road traveling what I call the mashed potato circuit. In a little while I’ll be speaking to a group of very nice people in a banquet hall.
Right now however I’m looking down on a busy city at rush hour. The streets below are two coloredtwin ribbons of sparkling red & white. The colored onesTail lights on the cars moving away from my vantage point provide the red and the headlights ofthose on the opposite side of the streetthose coming toward me the white. It’s logical to assume all or most are homeward bound at the end of thea days work.
I wonder why some social engineer hasn’t tried to get them to trade homes. The traffic is equally heavy in both directions so if they all lived in the end of town where they worked it would save a lot of travel time. Forget I said thator& dont even think it or some burocrat will try do it.
But youI wonder about the people in those cars, who they are, what they do, what they are thinking about as they head for the warmth of home & family. Come to think of it I’ve met them–oh–maybe not those particular individuals but still IIfeel I know them. Some of our social planners refer to them as “the masses” which only proves they dontknow them. I’ve been privileged to meet people all over this land in the special kind of way you meet them when you are campaigning. They are not “the masses,” They are individuals.or as the elitists would have it–”the common man.” They are very uncommon. individuals who make this system work.Individuals each with his or her own hopes & dreams, plans & problems and the kind of quiet courage that makes this whole country run better than just about any other place on earth.
Goldberg’s theme could be more broadly defined as the GOP’s ongoing need to communicate itself better. That is content, but it’s also delivery. Reagan was a master at delivery, which is why conservatives pine for Reaganesque candidates, because Reagan was so comfortable delivering the conservative message regardless of audience or medium.
Ten months after Mitt Romney shuffled off the national stage in defeat — consigned, many predicted, to a fate of instant irrelevance and permanent obscurity — Republicans are suddenly celebrating the presidential also-ran as a political prophet.
From his widely mocked warnings about a hostile Russia to his adamant opposition to the increasingly unpopular implementation of Obamacare, the ex-candidate’s canon of campaign rhetoric now offers cause for vindication — and remorse — to Romney’s friends, supporters, and former advisers.
“I think about the campaign every single day, and what a shame it is who we have in the White House,” said Spencer Zwick, who worked as Romney’s finance director and is a close friend to his family. “I look at things happening and I say, you know what? Mitt was actually right when he talked about Russia, and he was actually right when he talked about how hard it was going to be to implement Obamacare, and he was actually right when he talked about the economy. I think there are a lot of everyday Americans who are now feeling the effects of what [Romney] said was going to happen, unfortunately.”
Of course, there is a long tradition in American politics of dwelling on counterfactuals and re-litigating past campaigns after your candidate loses. Democrats have argued through the years that America would have avoided two costly Middle East wars, solved climate change, and steered clear of the housing crisis if only the Supreme Court hadn’t robbed Al Gore of his rightful victory in 2000. But a series of White House controversies and international crises this year — including a Syrian civil war that is threatening to pull the American military into the mix — has caused Romney’s fans to erupt into a chorus of told-you-so’s at record pace.
In the most actively cited example of the Republican nominee’s foresight, Romneyites point to the candidate’s hardline rhetoric last year against Russian President Vladimir Putin and his administration. During the campaign, Romney frequently criticized Obama for foolishly attempting to make common cause with the Kremlin, and repeatedly referred to Russia as “our number one geopolitical foe.”
Many observers found this fixation strange, and Democrats tried to turn it into a punchline. A New York Timeseditorial in March of last year said Romney’s assertions regarding Russia represented either “a shocking lack of knowledge about international affairs or just craven politics.” And in an October debate, Obama sarcastically mocked his opponent’s Russia rhetoric. “The 1980s are now calling to ask for their foreign policy back because the Cold War’s been over for 20 years,” the president quipped at the time.
That line still chafes Robert O’Brien, a Los Angeles lawyer and friend of Romney’s who served as a foreign policy adviser.
“Everyone thought, Oh my goodness that is so clever and Mitt’s caught in the Cold War and doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” O’Brien said. “Well guess what. With all of these foreign policy initiatives — Syria, Iran, [Edward] Snowden — who’s out there causing problems for America? It’s Putin and the Russians.”
…
To Romney’s fans, these episodes illustrate just how unfairly their candidate was punished during the election for speaking truths the rest of the country would eventually come around to. …
During a foreign policy debate in October, the candidate briefly expressed concern over Islamic extremists taking control of northern Mali — an obscure reference that was mocked on Twitter at the time, including by liberal comedianBill Maher. Three months later, France sent troops into the country at the behest of the Malian president, bringing the conflict to front pages around the world.
On the domestic front, Obamacare — which Romney spent more time railing against on the stump than perhaps any other progressive policy — is less popular than ever, while the federal government struggles to get the massive, complicated law implemented. (One poll in July found for the first time that a plurality of Americans now support the law’s repeal.)
And while the unemployment rate has, in the first year of Obama’s second term, gradually fallen to post-crisis lows, the still-ailing U.S. economy, which served as the centerpiece for Romney’s unsuccessful case against Obama’s reelection, was given a potent symbol earlier this summer when Detroit became the largest American city ever to declare bankruptcy.
The Motor City became a symbolic battleground during the election, with Romney proudly touting his father’s ties to the auto industry, and the Obama campaign relentlessly attacking the Republican for a Times op-ed he had written years earlier headlined “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt.”
“The president took the title of that op-ed, which of course was written by editors of the New York Times, and used it to say Gov. Romney was being insensitive about his own home city,” complained former campaign spokesman Ryan Williams. Romney’s article argued that beleaguered automakers should consider going through a managed bankruptcy instead of taking a bailout but, Williams said, “the president’s campaign intentionally tried to blur the lines. It worked. And several months later, the city is going bankrupt because of liberal democratic officeholders.” …
Romneyites are processing these feelings of vindication in different ways. The campaign’s chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, said he has been disappointed to see their central message — that Obama would be unable to restore America’s strength — turned out to be so accurate: “If there is a part of the world in which America is stronger, it’s hard to find. What’s the president doing? Attacking a talk radio host. He has criticized Rush Limbaugh with more conviction than the leaders of Iran… We can only hope it improves. ”
And Jennifer Rubin, the conservative Washington Post blogger who became Romney’s most outspoken advocate in the press, accused members of the news media of failing to take the Republican’s arguments seriously, while allowing the incumbent skate through the race untouched.
A site called WhooNew claims to have identified 10 different types of Packer fans, including …
1. The Tough Guy
These are the fans who like to call themselves “die-hards.” They prove their love of the Green Bay Packers by self-inflicting pain upon themselves.
Most often, that pain comes from extremely cold temperatures that no human should have to endure. These guys (and girls) don’t just go to a game even if the wind chill is 40-below. They make sure to tailgate all day ahead of time.
By halftime, they are so numb that they start stripping down. According to the Mayo Clinic, this is actually a sign of hypothermia. They will never leave the stadium early to try and beat the traffic. They’ll stay in the bleachers (never the skyboxes) until only other frozen Tough Guys are left standing gripping those little beanbag hand-warmers that ran out of heat hours ago. …
2. The Old-Timer
The Packers are one of the oldest teams in football history. So it makes sense that they also have a lot of geezers for fans. (Not you, Grandma)These are the old folks who constantly remind you that they were actually there at the Ice Bowl.
They proudly proclaim that they were once seduced by Paul Hornung, Vince Lombardi cut them off in traffic, they arm-wrestled Ray Nitschke and perhaps they even watched the Acme Packers play at the old City Stadium. …
3. The Oblivious Moron
The moron means well – but truth be told – these fans simply don’t understand the game of football. They just want to get caught up in all the excitement like everyone else.
These fans are the ones who have to ask questions like”Why do they get two points for a safety?” or worse yet “Who has the ball right now?”
If they go to the game, they’re even more confused, because they don’t have Joe Buck and Troy Aikman to help explain things. So their favorite part ends up being the chance to guess the attendance at Lambeau Field. …
4. The Selfish Fantasy Freak
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the fan who is obsessed with stats and history. Chances are…this number-cruncher has at least four fantasy football teams.
Fantasy football is great. But the one problem is that it makes you focus on players’ performances instead of your favorite team.
These types of fans often deal with an intense internal conflict because of the desire to prove they know everything about the NFL and could actually be the GM of a real team.
The fantasy freak may quietly cheer to himself when Adrian Peterson runs for 80 yards against the Packers. Or he may yell in disgust with the rest of us, before exclaiming “Well, at least he’s on my fantasy team.” …
5. The Bandwagon Jumper
Any team that has success will also have bandwagon fans. But the Green Bay Packers are unique, because they are one of the few franchises to pick up bandwagon fans even when they’re having a terrible year.
That’s simply because the passion and excitement portrayed by the real fans is so contagious.
Bandwagon jumpers could be people who moved to the area from out of state, or people who married into a family of Packer-Backers. They had no choice but to assimilate when their father-in-law gave them a cheesehead for Christmas.
They’ll often keep their allegiance to their home-state teams in other sports. So you’ll get St. Louis Cardinal/Packers fans or Detroit Redwing/Packers fans. …
6. The Eternal Pessimist
We all know fans who predict the Packers will be in the Super Bowl every single year. But for every prediction of 14-2 there is a fan of the Green & Gold who is certain they’ll be lucky to go 8-8.
They complain about the team more than they complain about the Wisconsin weather (and we all complain about that a lot).
If there’s a player that’s having a bad year, the Eternal Pessimist shows no mercy. “Bench him! Cut him! Tar and feather him and run him out of town on a rail!” They question every coaching decision, every draft pick, every play.
If the team goes for it on 4th down – they should have punted. If the punter comes out – they would have gone for it.
Don’t be fooled – these fans love the Packers. It’s just a tough love. …
7. The Cry Baby
Some fans get just a little bit too emotional when they watch the Packers.
If you’ve ever been brought to tears by a regular season loss, this might be you (playoff loss crying is acceptable).
The Cry Baby fan doesn’t only experience exaggerated emotions when the Packers lose. They feel like the world is going to end whenever Aaron Rodgers gets sacked. They stress out when the team loses yardage on 2nd and 3. But they also celebrate a lot harder than the rest of us.
If you’ve never seen two grown men hugging each other with tears of joy streaming down their faces, you’ve never watched the Packers win on a last-minute drive with a couple of Cry Babies. …
8. The Angry A-hole
This fan seems capable of expressing only one emotion. And that emotion is pissed-the-hell-off!
It works out – because there is always something to be angry about in football. You can be furious at the Packers poor performance, or at the coaching staff. You can be ticked off at the referees, or because you think Chris Collinsworth “hates us for no good reason.”
They are a close cousin to the Eternal Pessimist. However, these guys tend to have high hopes, which get smashed into a million pieces no matter what. …
Comments added other types (Internet smilies theirs):
The Black Sheep. These fans are people who married into a family that cheers for a different team, and you’re the only one that cheers for the Packers and they all make fun of you for it. My husband and I have a mixed marriage: he’s a Bears fan and I’m a Packer fan. …
The Lifer (my wife): From baby pictures in Packer gear to wallpapering their bedroom with Packer newspaper articles in high school to formulating contingency plans for if a playoff game falls on your wedding day, the Lifer has always been and will always be a fan and makes sure everyone knows it. They NEVER miss a game, though may not get to attend many in person. He or she is also incredibly superstitious, believing in lucky hats, shirts, jewelry, seats, etc. (My mother-in-law was forced to spend 3 seasons in the kitchen during games because the Pack once won at the last minute when she was in there) Typically enraged by Wisconsin residents who are not Packer fans. …
Prob a category I’m sure I cannot be alone in something like Favre 4ever(even though i don’t care for that spelling)…I’m a die hard Favre lover. Created by my dad growing up eating our hot ham & rolls….continuing to cheer for him no matter what team he went to! Even buying their jerseys (yes i even own a special edition #4 vikings jersey,ugh). My baby girl so to be 2 has a couple favre jerseys already (one bought by her grandpa).It then became a game in my own household because it seemed to annoy my husband sooooo much so I, of course, continued on times 57285932! So much, to this day announcing “did you hear that? They’re still talking about my man brett” every single game or during any highlights. I always like to add for those scoreless slow games DRINK when they say Brett Favre still a PAcKeR fan the whole time too a*rod now not so much but he did get to watch & learn from a legend aka god lol. And I’m sure there are those out there that discredit all of him and hate him…prob good amount that spell it faRve!! No need to hear from them
I’m not sure how you can discuss Packer fandom and not bring up the subject of owning Packer stock. The Old-Timer is most likely to own the original stock, whereas I own the late ’90s stock, so I can look at early 2000s Lambeau Field improvements and know that I contributed to that.
I confess that I have been type number eight on occasion, for instance Brett Favre’s last Packer game. I have become sort of fan type number six, though I am not of the everybody-sucks school referred to there, and I don’t sit in gloom anticipating the next Packer loss. I’m not really fan number two, though I can say that I met Max McGee and got pounded in the chest by Ray Nitschke. (Really. At a bank branch opening in Madison, just before or after Nitschke’s retirement.)
Part of the reason is that, contrary to fan type number three, I know more about football than many fans, having observed it at all levels for three decades or so. I have more appreciation for the success of the Packers over the last two decades because I remember what it used to be like in Green Bay, and for that matter in Madison. (In 1988, the Packers and the Badgers had a combined 5–22 record. Really.)
But winning is hard in the NFL. (More on that momentarily.) To win a Super Bowl, nearly everything has to go your way, including things you can’t control. The most unpredictable Packers title was the last one, in 2010, Winning Super Bowl XLV required (1) winning the last two games to just get in the playoffs, (2) winning three road playoff games, and (3) beating the AFC’s best team without your best defensive player in the second half.
Since we’re discussing fandom, I’d add one of the types of Wisconsin non-Packer fan — the Contrarian, someone who cannot merely root for a team not named the Packers, but someone who obnoxiously brings up every Packer stumbling. I’m not sure why the Contrarian feels this way — perhaps low self-esteem; perhaps the Jerk is strong in this one. In my experience they are more likely Bears fans, though there probably are some Viking fans in western Wisconsin too. (Which, by the way, is the Packers’ fault, the result of their chronic ineptitude during what a friend of mine calls the Gory Years, basically the entire 1970s and 1980s. My friends include a Steeler fan and a Dolphin fan, and I went to high school with both.)
This is the space where I usually reveal my prediction for the upcoming Packer season. (Besides something inane like: The Packers will play 16 games this regular season.)
The good side of predicting came in 1996, when I predicted not only the correct regular-season record (13–3), but every game correctly, and in 2008, when I channeled my inner fan type number six and predicted that, with Favre having departed, the Packers would win six games that season. I did not predict 15–1 in 2011. I predicted 13–3 last season, and they went 11–5.
My prediction method is simple. I don’t pick postseason until the postseason, because the regular season and the postseason are really two different seasons in today’s NFL. (The 2010 season is a perfect example.) I simply go down the schedule, pick each individual game, try to avoid optimism as much as possible, and add up wins and losses. Doing so results in a 10–6 record. I have to think that’ll be good enough to win the NFC North only because, well, based on how they seem today neither Da Bears nor the Vikings nor the Lions seem very good.
The key to the Packers’ season will be their defense. It will not be their running game, because running the football is something you now do in the NFL when you’re ahead. (I’d say that Vince “Run to Daylight” Lombardi would be rolling over in his grave, but Lombardi was more adaptable on offense than usually portrayed. Quarterback Bart Starr, not the Packers’ running backs, keyed the Packers’ first two Super Bowl wins.) Unless you’re one of the teams (including Sunday’s opponent, the 49ers, who will provide loss number one this season) running the read-option, the NFL’s flavor of the day, running is your third or fourth option on offense.
The Packers will score enough points, even with wide receiver Greg Jennings having left and made himself, as long as he is with the Vikings, a one-championship player. (Of course, the words “rookie left tackle” should concern all NFL fans.) The first two games, with the 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick and Washington’s Robert Griffin III at quarterback, will be different from the following 14, because no other Packer opponent runs their read option. However, their run defense needs to be better anyway because Adrian Peterson is on the schedule twice.
The schedule to me includes three no-way-in-hell-will-they-win-there road games — at San Francisco, at Baltimore and at the Giants — and they will probably lose one divisional game they shouldn’t lose and one home game they shouldn’t lose. (The number of home games you should lose is zero, but home field advantage isn’t what it used to be in the NFL.) I therefore come up with 10–6. Come back in four months to see if I’m right.
My friend Todd Lohenry passes on Mental Floss‘ amusing “10 Artists Who Hated Their Biggest Hit”:
Just because certain songs are fan favorites doesn’t mean the artists who made them famous feel the same way. Motorhead’s Lemmy isn’t terribly fond of “Ace of Spades,” Slash writes “Sweet Child o’ Mine” off disdainfully as a joke—and that’s just the tip of the self-loathing iceberg. …
2. BOB GELDOF, “DO THEY KNOW IT’S CHRISTMAS?” AND “WE ARE THE WORLD”
It’s tough to imagine hating a song that united Michael Jackson, Sting, and Phil Collins, but at least one season a year, Irish singer Bob Geldof apologizes profusely for co-penning “Do They Know It’s Christmas?” “I will go to the supermarket, head to the meat counter, and it will be playing,” he told the Daily Mail. “Every f***ing Christmas.”
Geldof is busy paying double penance for his hand in a second star-studded charity singlet too: “I am responsible for two of the worst songs in history,” he admits. “One is ‘Do They Know It’s Christmas?’ and the other one is ‘We Are The World.’”
3. LED ZEPPELIN, “STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN”
In 2002, Robert Plant pledged a donation to a Portland, Oregon radio station that announced its refusal to play Led Zeppelin’s “Stairway to Heaven,” a song Plant dubs “that bloody wedding song.” Plant’s disdain for the song put the kibosh on reunion talks for decades, simply because the singer had it up to here with singing the hit.
Plant put up with the song for at least 17 years after he wrote it, before finally telling the Los Angeles Times, “I’d break out in hives if I had to sing that song in every show” in 1988. When the band played a one-off concert in London two decades later, Plant demanded the song not be played as a finale, and for guitarist Jimmy Page to “restrain himself from turning the song into an even more epic solo-filled noodle.”
5. BEASTIE BOYS, “(YOU GOTTA) FIGHT FOR YOUR RIGHT (TO PARTY)”
The Brooklyn rappers come right out and say the song “sucks” in the liner notes of their 1999 greatest hits album, The Sounds of Science. But the dislike stems more from a lost sense of irony and parody than the song itself. Some fans took the song—and its outlandish pro-partying music video—totally straight.
Beastie Boy Mike D only had one qualm about the song that put the group on the map: “The only thing that upsets me is that we may have reinforced certain values of some people in our audience when our own values were actually totally different.”
6. THE PRETENDERS, “BRASS IN POCKET”
Frontwoman Chrissie Hynde thought the 1979 hit—a song she “hated with a vengeance”—was anything but special, so special. Her bandmates, manager, producer, and record label smelled a smash hit with “Brass in Pocket,” and so did Hynde; that’s precisely why she hated it. She dismissed the tune as “so obvious.”
The song pushed the band’s self-titled album to platinum sales, but Hynde told the Observer in 2004 that she released the song very reluctantly. “I wasn’t very happy with it and told my producer that he could release it over my dead body,” she said.
7. FLOCK OF SEAGULLS, “I RAN (SO FAR AWAY)”
The ‘80s one-hit wonders get remembered for two things, and Flock frontman Mike Score dislikes both of them: “I Ran (So Far Away)” and Score’s eccentric hairdo. In VH1’s 100 Greatest Songs of the ‘80s, Score acknowledged his loathing for the song, saying that he only performs it live for fans: “Every time I perform live, everyone just wants to hear ‘I Ran.’ I’m sick of it.”
The ‘do wore out its welcome quicker: Score got tired of reporters asking more questions about the haircut than the band’s music. Score, a former hairdresser, told the Daily Record that he basically shaves his head to shirk questions of whether he’ll ever bring back the signature look (and probably also because he doesn’t have much hair left). “I think that haircut owns me,” he says. “I don’t own it.”
8. JOHN MELLENCAMP, “JACK AND DIANE”
John Cougar can’t name two people in rock ‘n’ roll more popular than his titular pairing (at least according to a 2008 interview with The Sun), but as life goes on, even the Americana singer’s gotten tired of the duo long after the thrill of writing about them was gone. In the same interview, he said, “I am a little weary of those two.”
“Jack and Diane” notched the only #1 in Mellencamp’s career, so the singer begrudgingly owes the fictional high school sweethearts for a sizable chunk of his 35-year career. “I’ve been able to live on my whims, that’s what Jack and Diane gave me,” he says. “So I can’t hate them too much.” …
10. REM, “SHINY HAPPY PEOPLE”
Lead singer Michael Stipe isn’t too fond of his group’s 1991 hit—in fact, he appeared on a 1995 episode of Space Ghost and announced “I hate that song.” Today he tempers his dislike a bit, saying that he prefers not to say anything bad about songs he doesn’t like because there might be a fan out there to whom that song is very important and has a particular meaning. Instead he now says that “Shiny Happy People” has “limited appeal” for him, and adds that it was the one song that the entire group agreed should not be included on their Greatest Hits compilation.
This dovetails nicely with my list of The Worst Music of All Time, because of something said by Linda Clifford, the lead singer of the ’90s group 4 Non Blondes, about their only recognizable song, “What’s Up”:
“I wasn’t really a big fan of my band,” she said. “I didn’t like the record at all. ‘Drifting’ was the only song I loved. I did love ‘What’s Up?’ but I hated the production. When I heard our record for the first time I cried. It didn’t sound like me. It made me belligerent and a real asshole. I wanted to say, ‘We’re a fucking, bad-ass cool band. We’re not that fluffy polished bullshit that you’re listening to.’ It was really difficult.”
(It’s apparently really difficult for Clifford to speak in appropriate-for-all-ages English, too, but never mind that. And if she hated the production of the original version, her reaction to the dance mix version should be unprintable.)
You can gue$$ the rea$on why the$e $ong$ rank as the$e $inger$’ mo$t popular $ong$. That may be part of the reason for the artists’ antipathy, sticking it to the man and all that (which means, of course, sticking it to themselves), but the comments show other potential reasons:
From what I remember hearing from Buffett in an interview, he dislikes the fact that he has so many songs that he “has to play” at every concert (Margaritaville, Cheesburger, Fins, Volcano, etc) that he doesn’t get to play a lot of his other material. The set list gets filled up with the classics that everyone wants to hear at a Buffett concert, and he gets stuck playing the same songs for decades. …
Warren Zevon felt that Werewolves was easy and that a lot of his music had more meaning than that song, which was basically composed in a couple of hours around a guitar riff. It wasn’t an important song for him (and I don’t think it was his best song but what do I know?) …
Unless you’re a songwriter you won’t understand this. Anyone who creates likes to be known for their best work. For fans to go ape$hit over an embarrassingly bad song while your best work is ignored twists up the mind. It’s like an actor being typecast for one role and character. Think [Max] Baer as Jethro Bodine. Any artist wants to be able to perform each of his/her songs with passion, and to have to go through the motions on a song you don’t like or that you feel is not your best work makes you feel like a cheap hooker faking orgasms. The whole point of becoming a songwriter performer is to escape from drudgery and rote through the creative process, and for that process to put you right where you didn’t want to be in that sense is maddening. …
Frank Sinatra hated “Strangers in the Night,” even though it was his first number-one hit in over a decade and stayed on the charts for almost four months. He tacked on that “doo-be-doo-be-doo” ending to show his contempt for the song, only to have it become a signature for him. …
That’s a big reason I’m hesitant to go to concerts. “And here’s a little something from my NEW album!” Lots of musicians want to do the whole show on new stuff without doing a few of the songs that made them famous. Then, when they do it, they’re resentful and don’t really get into it. …
Most of these people would be living in the gutter without this song that they hate.
I can’t really comment on the “creative process,” since I neither write nor sing songs and I’m not very creative. (Regular readers are now thinking: Since when has that ever stopped you, Steve?) I can relate the experience of three Chicago concerts over three decades. The first, in 1987, included a combination of then-current music and what one of the members called “the old stuff.” The latter two concerts, in Fond du Lac in 1997 and in Oshkosh in 2010, featured the old stuff, which suited fans just fine.
However: Now that I think about it, I have performed songs. Somehow I managed to forget I was in the UW Marching Band for five years. (You’d think creaking knees and feet would remind me daily.) I had no input into song selection, of course, and as a trumpet player I was, well, very replaceable. (As a marcher I was too. The UW Band continued just fine without me after I graduated in 1988.)
The UW Band played at every home football game I attended, starting in 1972, when Mike Leckrone was on his fourth year. (UW 31, Syracuse 14, by the way. Our daughter is going to her first game Saturday.) My ambition started about the time I realized I could be in the UW Band, somewhere around 1980, and when I met real live band members, and then Leckrone himself. (One of his field assistants was our band director for two years. He brought out Mike to a rehearsal.) So watching the band got me interested; my ability, such as it is, to play and march as demonstrated by six Registration Week rehearsals in August 1983 (yes, 30 years ago) got me into the band.
I wanted to get into the UW Band because they looked like they were having a blast. I didn’t see the hard work that went into it, but, yes, it was a blast. My enjoyment of being in the band made worthwhile all the hard work, as well as the less-than-great moments, such as playing songs you don’t like. (I’m not a huge fan of “If You Want to Be a Badger,” but it goes fast.) After graduating I discovered that I enjoyed playing in the band, being part of the musical mayhem, than watching the band.
Back to rock and, specifically, “Brass in Pocket,” which nicely straddles the line between rock song and power ballad — good beat, memorable guitar (though not really a riff), simple girl-wants-boy theme. (The words are here for those who, like me, spent decades not knowing what Hynde was singing.)
Hynde herself noted the irony of her quote several paragraphs ago when she said, “I was a single mom with two kids. What else was I going to do? It was either be in a band or be a waitress.” Hynde also said, “Look, as long as we can make records and sell enough so we can do some shows, that’s all I want. You know what? I just want to play guitar and be in a band.”
That quote about creative types wanting to be known for their best work is interesting based on who’s defining “best.” That in turn poses another question: Why — or, perhaps more to the point, for whom — do you do what you do? Because you demand the right to self-expression? Because you’re good at it? Because you like making music? To do something other people enjoy? To make money at it or gain fame from it?
I learned a long time ago that in the world of news, what the reporter/editor/publisher thinks is important is not necessarily what the reader thinks is important. That was described by my high school journalism teacher as “what you want to know vs. what you need to know.” The journalist is more plugged in than the average reader, but you ignore or dismiss the reader, or listener, or viewer at your own professional peril.
It is possible, I suppose, that some musical artists were too idealistic and assumed that their fans would want to hear whatever the artist wanted them to hear, instead of what the fans want to hear. It’s non-monetary economics — either give your fans what they want, or they won’t be your fans, or at least won’t show up at your concerts and buy your new music. To quote a group that has five decades of songs to choose from for their concerts, you can’t always get what you want.
In most of the cases listed, the group has, in my opinion, better songs, which you can find with the search function on this very page. (Hint: They’re in the “Presty the DJ” pages.) And whatever Plant said about “Stairway” before, his reaction to this version was quite different:
Rick Nelson wrote about the phenomenon of wanting to play new stuff when your fans don’t want you to …
… which ironically turned out to be one of his most popular songs.
This is also where I express my regret that of Chicago’s three number one singles, 2½ are sappy ballads:
Economics has a lot to do with this. Hynde once said, “Yeah, the industry has always been both the enemy and the best friend of the artist. They need each other. That’s the bottom line.” A musician unconcerned with making money can play whatever he or she wants. A musician dependent on sales of concert tickets and recordings better pay attention to his or her market — that is, fans.
The other half it, again, comes down to the motivation for being a musician. If any part of that motivation includes others’ enjoyment of your music, then you have to include what they like, and record sales and chart numbers are reasonably good indicators of that. Chicago is still producing new music; most of its fans seem to want the older stuff, and the band seems to be reconciled to that based on the fact they’re still touring 45 years after first getting rock music’s attention. I don’t decide whether I like something based on its popularity, but I’m announcing a football game tonight, not embarking on a concert tour.
still a PAcKeR fan the whole time too 
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 