[thechat] spin magazine: punk

Erika Meyer emeyer at lclark.edu
Tue May 15 11:23:39 CDT 2001


I love Johnny Cash.  He's (almost) up there with Chuck Berry in my book.

Speaking of killing one's wife, wasn't it Willie Nelson who wrote 
that song "Time of the Preacher" (Johnny Cash did a kick-ass cover on 
the tribute album "Twisted Willie").

"It was the time of the preacher...
in the year of 01'...
now the preachin' is over...
and the killin's begun..."

(hey!  this is the year of '01!)

A really awful movie was made from that song, starring as I remember 
Willie Nelson and Morgan Fairchild.  (Now THERE'S a couple!!!) 
Willie plays a guy who turns from preachin' to killin' and back to 
preachin' again.  (The first person he kills is his awful cheatin' 
wife of course... or is she the last person he kills?)

And then there's Waylon Jennings: "Ruby, don't take your love to town..."
"And if I could move I'd get my gun and put her in the ground..."

And a recent CW tune (don't know the group) that was REALLY awful 
"Mama's in the Graveyard, Papa's in the Pen."  The worst thing about 
that  song is that it was supposed to make "Dad" (who ran over his 
cheatin' wife with a semi) was supposed to look like a good guy, the 
song had this snappy dance beat, and was supposed to be "funny."  And 
Country radio stations played it over and over and over.

I agree that the Eminem "controversy" was pretty damn stupid.

Any female with ears and a brain knows that misogynistic lyrics are 
par for the course.  It doesn't make it right, but c'mon.  It's 
easier to pick on Emenem's lyrics I guess than to look at the larger 
picture.

The fact is that women who are murdered are usually murdered by 
husbands, boyfriends, ex's.  That's where the real problem is.

Erika

>Especially interesting in light of the recent furor over Emenem's 
>song about (fantasies of) killing his wife. The media wrote it up
>like that sort of thing was new and shocking in the music scene. 
>Hell, Johnny Cash did that thirty years ago with his song "Delia's
>Gone". That's actually a relatively common theme in music, esp. in 
>Blues and Country music. And maybe rap too, although I'm not
>enough of a fan of that genre to say.
>
>
>-Bruce
>
>--------------------------------------
>The first time I shot her
>I shot her in the side
>It was hard to watch her suffer
>But with the second shot she died
>
>Delia's gone
>One more round
>Delia's gone
>
>-Johnny Cash
>





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