The Music of March
My favorite songs from this month’s playlist.
I planned on doing this every month last year in May, but life happens. I planned on starting in January, but life happens. So, I am making sure I write about my monthly playlist, every month, because life happens, and I don’t want to forget it.
March was a month filled with anger at the way things are around the world and at home, and the music I listened to reflected that anger. I’ve had so much built up stemming from the six-month-long genocide my government is funding, my job and its pay, how I am treated by my employers and those I have to rub elbows with, how others are treated by those I have to rub elbows with and many personal life issues.
Despite being the only news reporter/writer/editor for the branch, my job is really doing stories that make the company money and rub elbows with corpos, which isn’t what I signed up for and makes me despise my job a little bit. My publisher told me people don’t become publishers because they’re good at writing and selling, and she got lucky being made a publisher by writing alone.
Not that I want to be a publisher, but I’d like the people running a newspaper to be more focused on news and information rather than ad sales and company profits.
It’s in the name, NEWSpaper.
To try and distract myself from the rage-inducing world around me, March began with the purchase of a new game (new to me, since the game came out in 2020) about all-powerful corporations buying out and corrupting everything while the people used music as a form of rebellion. The game introduced me to the Swedish rock band Refused, who grabbed my attention immediately with their sound and story.
- Black Dog, SAMURAI (Refused) (2020)
The band SAMURAI exists in the Cyberpunk universe with origins dating back to 1988, when Cyberpunk was a tabletop role-playing game. The band that portrays them in the game is the real-life band Refused, who were given the opportunity to “reimagine” themselves into alternative future version of themselves by CD Projekt Red (the game developer). They composed six songs in two weeks for the full release of Cyberpunk 2077. Some songs were unreleased songs from their 2019 album, War Music, while others were songs from the in-game world, such as Chippin’ In (also on the playlist) and Black Dog. Vocalist Dennis Lyxzén said that the SAMURAI songs are bigger than the songs on War Music.
He also said that being the singer voice for Johnny Silverhand, who is modeled after and voiced by Keanu Reeves, was a surprise Lyxzén revealed when the game was announced at E3 in 2019.
Black Dog is my favorite SAMURAI (or Refused) song. I played more than any other song on this list, to the point that it took the number one spot in my “On Repeat” playlist. I enjoy the slow build-up, played with a little distortion. You know from the start that it’s a calm before a storm, and when the chorus comes around, the vocals peak as Lyxzén “yells” into the mic. It ends with the same slow guitar outro, played without distortion, as if pent-up frustrations are out, but nothing is solved.
I don’t think it’s a coincidence that many of the songs on this list share the same ideas, such as “corporations/the rich bleed corruption into the government and law enforcement,” as the game. In Cyberpunk, corporations have full reign to do whatever they want. They control the government and police, they can be as scummy and immoral as they want, kill whoever they want or deem a threat (usually media), and do it all openly, because who is going to stop them?
Wait, that sounds familiar. I think March gave us a taste of exactly what I just described.
John Barnett’s story, the Boeing whistleblower, is a perfect example of what corporations can get away with after he exposed how Boeing built planes with inadequate parts. Then Boeing gave us another perfect example when they killed him. The story has already disappeared from headlines (and our minds) because we know Boeing killed him, but what can we do? Push for justice? I’m sure one of the largest cogs in the US war machine will be held accountable for cutting corners and killing people, as well as murdering a whistleblower.
I’m sure if they were to try hold them responsible, money or blood would flow from someone.
I think the realization that I got this game to escape reality and instead got a glimpse into what the future probably holds is what shaped the rest of the songs in the playlist. An indescribable rage at the lack of being able to do anything effectively because the rich, the corporations, and the politicians own everything and everyone.
2. Kill The Rich, Anti-Flag (1992)
It’s crazy to think that people in 1992 felt the same way I do now. It's even crazier to think that the feelings I feel, the band felt, and many others had been around way, way, way before 1992. It is even crazier, to me, to recognize that we’ve felt this way for as long as we have. We’re still saying, “Eat the Rich,” while they keep getting fatter and we keep getting thinner.
“Record-breaking profits,” they say, while I’m stuck figuring out if I want clean clothes, hygiene products, or food in my pantry. They get to destroy the planet, the economy, and our lives, and we’re stuck with the bill? We get to starve and ration while they feast and waste like the pigs in Animal Farm.
“Eat the rich.” They may be nothing but pigs, but I don’t eat spoiled food. That's a feast for the decomposers and scavengers.
3. All Pigs Must Die, Death in June (2001)
I share the same feelings I have with Anti-Flag’s song with this one, although I have different lines of thinking for each. The relaxed instrumentals and soft chant of “All pigs must die, their stolen riches are really mine,” while relating the 1960s and 90s to one another through anti-governmental sentiments, give it a more serious tone than Anti-Flag shouting, “Kill, kill, kill.”
Both have the same message: the system must change, and those in power must be held accountable. They make it clear that the rich get rich off the backs of those who work for pennies, and most importantly, both talk about how the rich are “Better off with the son of God.”
Between the two, I like this song more. Anti-Flag sounds like a riot, with their anger expressed by the fast-paced guitars and spite in the vocals that can be felt. Death in June sounds as if people have come together and to the same conclusion. Between the two, I think Death in June’s song may be more appealing (to others), as an organized protest is more appealing than a riot. Both are bangers, though.
4. The Fight Song, Marilyn Manson (2000)
“The death of one is a tragedy, the death of millions is just a statistic.”
Last year, I had to cover a cop who ran a red light and got himself killed. Not just the town and county, but the state got on their hands and knees for a cop who couldn’t follow the rules he was supposed to uphold. They said he was responding to a call, but I never could figure out what the call he was responding to was, and no one ever specified it. Behind closed doors, the word was he just ran a red light and got plowed by an 18-wheeler because of it. But, officers and politicians talked about what a great officer he was.
Alumni and students of the local college talked about how the officer was the kind that would bust students for public intoxication after telling them to walk home from a party or sit on campus and wait for them to come walking back from the bars. A pig through and through, emphasized by his desire to wield power and the rotundness of his gut.
The murder of Mykain Davis, Jahquindon Toland, Jhisere Robinson, and Sonterrious Davis, four teens killed in 2022, is only ever talked about as that, the “four teens that were killed.” Rather than target the source of the issue, being ease of access to guns and the death of third places, phones were blamed. Phones and a “lack of respect” are what's causing kids to kill and be killed, just like the game DOOM and the music of Marylin Manson caused Columbine.
The Newberry shooting was still fresh on everyone’s mind when I started the job in 2022. I heard about it then, and I still hear about it now, but never their names. Nine times out of ten, it’s tied with some “The youth are so troubled these days; look at the rates of XYZ.”
But I had to hear Officer Rana Light’s name for months with no critique extra comments or statistics. Just mourning. Guess who’s name is remembered almost a year later. Guess who’s isn’t almost two years later.
This month, South Carolina just made it legal to open or concealed carry a firearm without a permit, but the Statehouse has signs prohibiting guns from being carried onto the property. South Carolina was the state with the fifth highest homicide rate in 2021, with 13.4 people killed out of every 100,000. In 2022, it dropped to seventh place, with 11.14 people killed per 100,000. How many of those people were in the 1%? How many were everyday people?
Why does the sign stop someone at the Statehouse but not at a school? Or is it not the sign stopping them, but the armed cops that stand around the Statehouse? If they knew that the gun wasn’t a source of the problem, then why have the sign and cops posted there?
When the elite and their pigs stub their toe or die, it’s considered a tragedy. When we suffer and die, it’s just a statistic.
5. Ohio, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (1971)
What happened to all the activists of the 60s and 70s? I know some personally, but where did the rest go? Did they make the switch to a bootlicker, and if so, why? Why did they stop pushing for change?
We’re protesting and fighting similar (if not the same) we did in the 60s and 70s, being war, civil rights, LGBT+ rights, and women’s rights, just to name a few. Why? Was 54 years not enough time to solve these problems, or was it enough time to forget they wanted to solve them?
My friend lives in Ohio, not far from Kent State. She said she gets an eerie feeling when she goes to the campus and sees the Prentice Parking Lot Markers amid cars and foot traffic.
The parking lot markers were dedicated in 1999, 29 years after the shooting. 28 years after the Kent Four Sculpture was raised, an annual candlelight vigil and commemoration began on May 3, and Neil Young wrote and composed Ohio. 27 years after May 4th was declared as the shooting’s remembrance day. 26 years after alumnus Ted Abel donated four stained glass windows. Nine years after, the May 4 Site and Memorial was dedicated in 1990, with a daffodil bulb for each American killed in the Vietnam War and the words “Inquire. Learn. Reflect” engraved into the stone.
11 years later, in 2010, the memorial site was added to the list of historical places. Every year, on May 4, they commemorate the moment gunfire opened for 13 seconds and remember Allison Krause, Jeffrey Miller, Sandra Scheuer, William Schroeder, and the 9 who were wounded. Today, when you look up Kent State University, nothing about May 4, 1970 comes up within the first few results.
“The parking lot is still used, except for those spots. The field next to where it happened, they still hold celebrations there, all the while, there’s just these lights, always on in the background.”
Inquire. Learn. Reflect.
Who is that message for? The 58,175 Americans who were tricked and forced into dying in Vietnam? The students who were shot for wanting the killing to stop? Who is supposed to inquire, learn, and reflect? My friend answered it perfectly.
“Protesting a war will get you fucking killed. Not wanting people to be killed will get you killed.”
Ask what happened. Learn what happened. And that reflection better lead to silence because protesting a war will get you killed. I like to think that Bruno Ast, the architect of the memorial, included the inscription not for us but for the powers that were complicit in the murder of four students. I like to think it was for our leaders to take the time to inquire, learn, and reflect on their actions. But I know it’s not.
Memorials are for the corpo rats and political pigs to feign sorrow and remind us, me and you, the everyday people, that they’ll kill us before they inquire, learn, and reflect. They’ll kill us before they even do one of those things. They’ll kill us, and 40 years later, the site of our death will be significant enough to put a national marker on. 40 years later, they’ll feel “sorry” while having done nothing to ease the pain they caused.
I don’t want to see a monument put up in 30 or 40 years and hear about how “awful XYZ was” and “how much we wish we could have stopped XYZ.” What good is a monument 30 years later if the system that allowed for the inhumanities to occur never changed? What good is a memorial to the dead when hundreds more have followed them and continue to follow them to the grave for the same reasons, if not for less?
Things haven’t changed. We have daily reminders of the problems we’ve faced for decades, if not centuries, in both these memorials and in our media, and yet things haven’t changed. There’s a reason we’re fighting the same problems we were in the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, and 90s today. There’s a reason we’ll be fighting them tomorrow.
Other songs worthy of being mentioned, but I have yet to find the words for or were just bangers include:
- Où va le monde, La Femme (2016) — Still figuring out the words for the song that got me into listening to music from around the world and introducing me to a band that I adore.
- Havoc, Atrial (2019) — Banger. And they’re from South Carolina, not far from where I live.
- 40', Franz Ferdidnand (2004) — I’ve been a long time Franz Ferdinand fan. Hits to the Head was one of the first CDs I purchased decades after CDs fell off. I lost he CD itself when I sold my Mazda to a junkyard, forgetting that it was in the player. That was a hit to the head. Luckily, I still have the case.
- Lovefool, the Cardigans (2016) — Banger.
- Excursions, A Tribe Called Quest (1991) — Banger.
The playlist has 35 songs, most of which fit into the rock/metal genre. There’s not a song on the playlist I don’t like, and almost every song is sorted into other daily or driving playlists. I hope you find as much edgy enjoyment from the playlist as I do.
