Terror And Music
by Sean Carolan

Within days of the coordinated disasters America witnessed last Tuesday, radio playlists reflected the shockingly altered mindset of their listeners. It wouldn't take a psychic to predict that "Click Click Boom" by Saliva wouldn't hold quite the allure it did prior to 9/11.

This leaves alternative rock in the center of its own odd dilemma - for a genre whose radio presence has been winnowed to its angriest subset over the last few years, there can be little surprise that its direction will change yet again. Rage Against The Machine and System Of A Down will likely be the victims of a slump, not because what they have to say is any less relevant, but because the general public will likely be less interested in caustic rhetoric. (Though I hear RAtM's "Freedom" is picking up play.)

Look at popular music during World War II. "White Cliffs Of Dover" ruled the day; melancholy songs of separation (and rarely of actual loss) are what survive from that era. Few disagreed with America's presence in the war, and music was there as consolation, for nobody needed motivation to fight. Songs that directly referenced fighting in the war were consigned to the novelty bin - an appropriate tactic, as embodied in Spike Jones' "Der Fuehrer's Face", whose spirit still lives in Mel Brooks' "The Producers". Direct mention of the horror in music was acceptable when embedded in a cushion of humor.

Popular music during the Vietnam War reflected the polarized views of the time. "The Ballad Of The Green Berets" gave way to "For What It's Worth"; blind patriotism and blind pacifism battled on the charts as well as in popular opinion.

The Persian Gulf War, a blip on the radar of history (but ultimately as important to today's situation as the assassination of an archduke in Sarajevo was to the horror of World War I) gave us a resurrection of Tony Orlando's career. That alone should have signalled there were worse days ahead.

So here we are. We have seen terror first hand. We are united, but without focus, seething at the actions of an enemy we do not truly know and, if we are correct in laying blame, does not have the vulnerability of the desire to protect a homeland. Osama Bin Laden, an expatriate Saudi extremist, likely sees Afghanistan as more of a staging platform than as a homeland, and if his minions are exterminated there, they will find another unstable plot of land from which to export their intolerance.

The music of our time, this time, will probably reflect both unity and uncertainty, in much the way that Laurie Anderson has paraphrased the National Anthem, which I'll paraphrase again: "Do you smell something burning? Can anyone see if our flag's still up? It is? Then let's keep defending it..."

©2001 Sean Carolan