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THREAD Regarding the propriety of praising a song performed by someone who doesn’t share your precise political opinions… https://twitter.com/COsweda/status/1323152855562289152
A wise teacher from the days when schools existed to educate children rather than to fund teachers’ unions formed to help Democrats win elections taught me how to understand art.
She explained that we could never know what was in someone else’s mind when they wrote a poem, painted a picture or sang a song. Art means whatever it means to the observer.
This was a relief to me at the time, as I was struggling to relate to Willa Cather’s depressing prose. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Willa_Cather
Even in the Internet Age it’s often not possible to know what song lyrics mean to their author. Sometimes songs don’t mean anything at all.
Songwriter Jon Anderson wrote of the seemingly profound lyrics of the Yes hit, “Roundabout”: ‘I just loved how words sounded when I put them together’. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-inspiration-behind-roundabout-the-1972-hit-song-by-yes-1488898767
“Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there. Twenty-four before my love you’ll see I’ll be there with you.”
Other times artists deny the undeniably obvious meaning of their song lyrics. One-hit-wonder Brewer & Shipley famously denied their “One Toke Over the Line” was about marijuana.
Of course it was, as was CCR’s “Proud Mary”, Traffic’s “Low Spark of High-Heeled Boys”, the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” and many others.
I’ve found my teacher’s approach very useful through the years, as it allows me to enjoy music I’d otherwise find politically abhorrent. How can I do this?
Each of us is unique, and we interpret the world around us in a manner that’s consistent with our experiences, attitudes and beliefs. This includes music.
Our feeling about a song may be colored by our winning Little League season when it was popular, or the girl we fell in love with, or even the loss of a loved one.
These personal experiences have much more influence on how we feel about a song than the alleged intentions of an artist we’ll never know.
For instance, I LOVE Rage Against The Machine’s rendition of the Dylan classic “Maggie’s Farm” even though I know “Rage” is a bunch of infantile leftist morons.
But when I listen to it I think “Animal Farm”, and “I ain’t gonna work for leftists any more.” Plus I love the music 
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I do the same thing with Jefferson Airplane’s “Volunteers of America. In my mind, the volunteers are in a Trump Train.
My approach lets me continue to enjoy the music I loved as a child, 70% of which consisted of half-baked lefty lyrics sung with great conviction and set to great music.
Yet another upside to this approach is the kick I get thinking of how upset lefty artists would be if they knew how I re-interpret their work. Suck it, @RATM & @GraceSlick_JA!
Anyone on either side of the political spectrum who has a problem with my approach should refer to the link @COsweda posted that kicked off my train of thought.
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