not ready to make nice
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So I'm half-listening to this iTunes playlist of random guy singer-songwriters: John Stewart doing his own version of "Daydream Believer," Lee Hazlewood singing about going back to Houston, some Fred Neil and Donovan, and in the midst of this:"Trust your leaders/Where mistakes are almost never made"The lines are from a Phil Ochs song, "The War Is Over." At a certain point, as the Vietnam War dragged on, Ochs decided he would just call an end to it (in the late '60s, musicians had naive notions like that). He'd simply had enough.Iraq wasn't mentioned on the Grammy Awards last night, but the Dixie Chicks knew why they were winning every trophy in sight: the music industry was, in effect, apologizing for what the Chicks had to go through for being right before it was ok to call out Bush from a concert stage. (Also, they happened to make the best of the five nominated albums.)Predictably, reporting the news of the Grammy sweep, Fox News called the night's big winners "Bush-bashers." Come on...what year is this?On that playlist, Ochs gave way for Steve Goodman singing "Don't Fence Me In," then something by Tim Buckley. The Grammys were kind of a mess. I mean, where were the rock bands? Why did Xtina pay tribute to James Brown when Prince was sitting in the audience? What was with that Eagles medley? But as an act of penance, and an appreciation of integrity, it was a satisfying event.I remember when the Chicks flap happened, and certain music biz types were trying to get them to apologize. Last night, it was the biz that said it was sorry.
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