FROM THE BIG CHURCH TO THE BIG RIVER AND OUT TO THE SHINING SEA

Background - Billy Bragg used to be 'totally righteous' and his leftist anger was looked on as somehow appropriate. Now he's regarded by many (re: the English) as a suburban socialist, yelling slogans for labor causes from his gated community. I will allow him a degree of bourgeois comfort as he runs roughshod over pretentions you didn't even know you had in his lyrics.

Take "Help Save the Youth of America."

In one sense, he allows us to retain our self-important he-was-a-young-American attitudes - that we're in some sort of privileged position, one not only of pound-for-pound future power but of knowledge and freedom and even taste (rock music and Disney movies have marched around the world). We've still got that world-running swagger, the lingering aftertaste of the american century. Our American history courses end with perestroika and glasnost and one superpower left standing. We learn a few Russian words so that we can know their slow surrender in their native tongue. We rescued Western Europe from fascism, Eastern Europe from communism, and then we made movies about it.

I know it's been said before - that we Americans sit on our thrones and watch the rest of the world so on so forth - but Bragg sees the legs coming out from under us, a la Europe 1914, and how this will affect surfers. The idea of the world saving the youth of America doesn't jive with our own ingrained attitudes - our parents messed up, its up to us to make it right, and we either can or can't. It's us to the rescue or no. But being rescued? Bwah? Not in the programming of isolation versus intervention. We are the deciders!

So realize this isn't about guitars and things. But look at the last few generations. The first dimension they're defined on is music. Elvis, the Beatles, the Bee Gees, the Ramones, Duran Duran, Nirvana. Music sheds quite a bit of light on being young at a specific time. It's the most convincing argument I can come up with for that really obnoxious "music is life/music is so important to me!/i'd die without my music" belief that I just so happen to ascribe to.