ELEGANZA
The problem is best described as the Clash Syndrome: how to remain true to one’s socialist and humanitarian instincts in a business where the cost of success is, essentially, the loss of the beliefs that made you start. Thus the Clash, whether or not they still had the edge they had in ’77, were seen as hypocrites.
ELEGANZA
GOOD SOCIALIST LADS by Iman Lababedi
The problem is best described as the Clash Syndrome: how to remain true to one’s socialist and humanitarian instincts in a business where the cost of success is, essentially, the loss of the beliefs that made you start. Thus the Clash, whether or not they still had the edge they had in ’77, were seen as hypocrites. Nothing they could do or say could bridge the gap between the expression and the reality of their social condition.
Folk music, even as late as Woody Guthrie, didn’t suffer from the problem of perception: he never made any money and stayed close to his roots. But Guthrie fan Bob Dylan left protest for English-style personal politics, country pie and bornagain Christianity. Stop for a moment and think of Dylan’s Saved. I didn’t much care for Saved when it was first released (though Dylan had never been in better voice): he saw Christianity as an anti-political vision. But he also saw Christianity from an extreme. Saved’s first song, “You’ve Got To Serve Somebody”—be it the devil or God—was self-righteously excessive. No way out except acceptance of God.