Program #138, March 20 2003: War! What is it good for?

Since my country's leaders started the official campaign against Iraq just a few hours before the show, I thought I'd respond in some way. Rather than writing up a summary per se, I'll just run down the list of pieces, and comment on them briefly, quote some of the lyrics, or quote from the composer's own words in the liner notes:

Fagen: The guy from Steely Dan, remember? Of course you do. I decided to let this substitute for my regular opening music this week. "Standing tough under stars and stripes/We can tell/This dream's in sight/You've got to admit it/At this point in time that it's clear/The future looks bright..."

Hollanbeck: Words of MLK combined with improvising trombonists and a drummer, from a very important speech with the same title as this selection. "But this is why we are drifting. And we are drifting there because nations are caught up with the drum major instinct. 'I must be first.' 'I must be supreme.' 'Our nation must rule the world.' And I am sad to say that the nation in which we live is the supreme culprit. And I'm going to continue to say it to America, because I love this country too much to see the drift that it has taken."

Oakes: "As the world continues to witness armed conflicts, it is important to remember My Lai. When political and military leaders inform their television viewing audiences about their latest military accomplishments, we must remember My Lai."

Pape: "The title of the work has two meanings: (1) The misuse of language, and (2) a particularly harsh, unprepared musical dissonance. On an international level, a catachresis might be suggested by the kind of sabre-rattling rhetoric that is a perversion of language; miscommunication leading to misrecognition of others' intentions, which ultimately leads to a catastrophe."

Herrmann: Scary music for a scary time. Enough said.

Alain: These sophisticated selections from a composer who died at 29, way too early; June 20, 1940, to be precise. He died during a difficult, confusing period, in the stretch of days when Marshal Pétain declared that France had surrendered, and General de Gaulle declared that it had not. In the confusion, Alain and his compatriots decided to fight on rather than leave their posts. He died in defense of Saumur, along with -- by the end -- 400,000 of his fellows. Somehow, just knowing that, while listening through these pieces for traces of the music we never had because Alain put patriotism first, makes all this talk of the cowardly French ring very, very hollow. "Freedom fries," anyone?

Scott: Changing gears, and having had quite enough, I tried to put my head in the sand for the last hour. These pieces, happy, jaunty, designed for babies, so pleasant and so charming: the ideal escape, yes? But on this day, thoughts about the world those pieces implicitly envisioned -- that same notion of a perfected future depicted in "I.G.Y.", where "...by '76/we'll be A-OK" and where there will be a "just machine to make big decisions/programmed by fellows with compassion and vision" -- rang hollow, too. We didn't make that kind of world. Maybe we never had the chance, because too many things in the world are just too much of a zero-sum game to allow that much prosperity and stability. But if it was ever possible to make that perfected future for everyone, we've muffed it so far, for ourselves and for everyone else too. And with each passing day of this bold new millennium -- 2001 now simply another year in the rear-view mirror -- the promise of I.G.Y., the soothing for Scott's happy and engaged babies, all of it just seems to get further and further away for me, for you, for us, and perhaps most importantly, for them, whomever they may be, this week or next month or next year. We're playing a different game instead. The world is up for grabs and, under whatever guise, we are making sure we get our slice. Do you like this game? Do you like it?

Me either. See you on the radio next week.