WASTELAND PROVOKES INTENSE DEBATE
This from the excellent weblog site Big O April 15, 2015 – 3:42 pm
When
Iris DeMent wrote Wasteland Of The Free in 1996, it angered
conservatives in America, war veterans and some politicians. The
five-minute song denounces religious and political hypocrisy and
corruption, government and corporate attacks on workers’ wages, the
great and growing gap between rich and poor. But the singer was never
arrested or charged with any hate crime. Nineteen years later all that
DeMent wrote about has probably gotten a lot worst. There’s a YouTube
link below where first-timers can listen to the song. By Richard
Phillips.
he folk/traditional American music scene has produced powerful social
commentators from Woody Guthrie and others in the 1930s and ’40s,
through to the numerous folk singers who spoke out in the 1960s against
racism, the war in Vietnam and other political and social issues.Today
there are few artists within this genre prepared to deal with the social
problems confronting ordinary working people or speak out against
religious hypocrisy, war or government attacks on democratic rights.
Those capable of producing songs that combine hatred of the social ills
produced by the profit system with genuine musical creativity and
emotional depth are few in number indeed.
Iris DeMent, a 37-year-old singer/songwriter born in Arkansas and
raised in California, is amongst the best within this small group of
musicians. DeMent cites Loretta Lynn, Merle Haggard, Jimmie Rodgers, and
the Carter Family as some of her principal musical influences.
In 1996, after two critically-acclaimed CDs ( Infamous Angel and the
intensely personal My Life), DeMent released The Way I Should, an album
containing “Wasteland Of The Free” a blunt indictment of the right-wing
political and social agenda dominating in the US. The five-minute song
denounces religious and political hypocrisy and corruption, government
and corporate attacks on workers’ wages, the great and growing gap
between rich and poor, and the imprisonment of tens of thousands of
unemployed and poverty-stricken American youth.
‘Wasteland Of The Free’ still
has a tremendous ability to provoke serious reflection and discussion
about social and political life, not just in America, but around the
world.
“Wasteland” derides those claiming the US to be an “advanced
civilization” and describes government and media scapegoating of the
poor as a “Hitler solution”. The song also attacks US foreign policy
declaring: “We kill for oil then we throw a party when we win/Some guy
refuses to fight and we call that a sin”. It concludes:
“While we
sit gloating in our greatness/Justice is sinking to the bottom of the
sea/And it feels like I’m living in the wasteland of the free.”
Naturally, conservative radio programmers and DJs would not play the
song, and the album was poorly received by most of those critics
associated with the recording industry in Nashville.
A year later, in 1997, the song so inflamed Republican State Senator
John Grant of Florida that he used it as a pretext to secure government
support for a US$103,000 cut in annual state funding to WMNF-FM, a
community radio station in that state. Grant cited DeMent’s song and two
others - one by Robert Earl Keen, another by Dan Bern - as the pretext
for cuts representing almost 17 per cent of the station’s budget.
In a crude, but nonetheless instructive example of how governments
censor small independent stations, Grant, citing extracts from
“Wasteland Of The Free”, claimed the station was broadcasting adult
content and therefore not eligible for funding. He suggested that if the
station changed its programming he might be willing to change his
position.
The station’s management who immediately told listeners about Grant’s
“offer” rejected this. This produced an outpouring of anger against the
senator and support for the station. An emergency one-day fund drive
saw listeners donate $120,000 to the station.
In a debate over the song’s
relative strengths, or weaknesses, a Canadian writer described
‘Wasteland’ as a “damning indictment of unbridled capitalism, corporate
and public greed. The Hitler metaphor was pretty strident stuff and came
as a bit of shock, but makes sense: the ends justify the means.”
Grant responded by claiming credit for the support and told station
management that all they had to do was work harder and raise the
$103,000 shortfall each year. It was only after hundreds of protest
letters and widespread local media publicity that the Florida state
legislature agreed to restore funding but only at three-quarters of the
previous allocation.
“Wasteland Of The Free” still has a tremendous ability to provoke
serious reflection and discussion about social and political life, not
just in America, but around the world. Evidence of this, and a growing
understanding amongst sections of the population that something is
fundamentally wrong with society, is shown in a series of e-mail
exchanges about the song on a Iris DeMent discussion group in early
February [1999].
In a debate over the song’s relative strengths, or weaknesses, a
Canadian writer described “Wasteland” as a “damning indictment of
unbridled capitalism, corporate and public greed. The Hitler metaphor
was pretty strident stuff and came as a bit of shock, but makes sense:
the ends justify the means.” An American correspondent rejected
assertions that the song “lacked balance” and said it told “the truth of
what goes on in the States.”
A letter from a disgruntled concert-goer denounced DeMent as “a
selfish, non-thinking socialist of the 1960’s sort” and said he would
never purchase her CDs or attend her concerts again.
“It’s easy to have all that America provides as long as you don’t
have to contribute anything, especially your life. She made references
to ‘them’ and ‘the other side’, intimating about people with religious
beliefs and who have conservative economic values. I am not a member of
any church, Christian Coalition, or anything even remotely connected.
“It is, at its heart, a song
about how we need to think about solving problems, not blaming people or
’spinning’ them in a way that supports some other agenda.”
“I came away disheartened by what I had thought was a remarkably
talented person. In music yes. In thought, character, honesty and
loyalty - NO. She was divisive and certainly deserves no credit for her
poor performance.
“In case you want to know. I’m 52 years old, served in Vietnam and
Thailand in 1966-67. Believed that and still do that communism is a
despotic system. Sure you think I’m an old right-wing crank. Part of
that Hilary inspired ‘conspiracy’. Was starting to believe that the
Country was, after many long years, coming together again. What I heard
from Iris was divisive, revisionist, and in all, of poor taste.”
This letter produced a rash of thoughtful comments, including the
following: “I don’t know that it’s so much a song about ‘left wing
good/right wing bad’ but a song of tremendous frustration with the
world. I think it is simply lack of empathy, honesty and justice in our
culture that has Iris angry and it makes me angry and frustrated, too.
It is, at its heart, a song about how we need to think about solving
problems, not blaming people or ’spinning’ them in a way that supports
some other agenda.”
Other readers commented on DeMent’s courage and conviction and
confirmed the song’s observations about the profound problems
confronting youth in America. “My boyfriend is a NYC inner city school
teacher and from what he says and from what I have seen, the song rings
true. I really like the song and admire Iris for being so forthright,”
another writer said.
Iris DeMent says: “I don’t have
all the answers but if my songs make people think more deeply and
figure out solutions that I’m not able to, then this is what it’s for.
If people get upset and it forces them to stop and think, then the song
has done the job.”
Two interesting letters were posted by former Vietnam veterans. The
first explained: “Strangely enough I also served in Vietnam and Thailand
‘63-’65 and my opinions on Iris do not mirror our original contributor
on this subject.
“Show me a folk singer who isn’t left wing and it would truly
surprise me (the exception might be Burl Ives who when asked by the
McCarthy committee if he’d identify subversives said ’sure’ and named
almost everybody associated with folk music). A folk singer’s job is in
some respects to point out shortcomings in our society.”
The last letter said: “I am new to this list, but not new to
listening to Iris. I discovered her several years ago when I heard ‘Our
Town’ on the closing episode of ‘Northern Exposure’. I was the first
person in Baton Rouge (when I lived there) to get a copy of her ‘The Way
I Should’. I am a retired Army Officer and Vietnam Vet and I find great
irony in her songs. I am not in the least offended. IT’S THE TRUTH! All
great folk artists have taken their licks for publicly expressing their
opinions… sometimes the truth is a bitter pill. To this end… Right On
Iris!!”
Last year [1998] in an
interview
with the World Socialist Web Site Iris DeMent explained that “Wasteland
Of The Free” was a difficult song to perform because it was so direct.
“But I can’t keep quiet about these things,” she added.
“I don’t have all the answers but if my songs make people think more
deeply and figure out solutions that I’m not able to, then this is what
it’s for. If people get upset and it forces them to stop and think, then
the song has done the job.”
Three years since the release of “Wasteland Of The Free”, the song is
doing its job - forcing people to confront the social ills produced by
the profit system, compelling them to critically contrast government and
media platitudes about democracy and freedom with social reality. The
discussion and questioning provoked by this and similar songs continue
in spite of the efforts of Senator John Grant and other big business
politicians.
Note: The above was first published at the World Socialist Web Site.
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THE LYRICS AND THE VIDEO
Wasteland Of The Free
by Iris DeMent
(click
here for the song)
We got preachers dealing in politics and diamond mines
and their speech is growing increasingly unkind
They say they are Christ’s disciples
but they don’t look like Jesus to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got politicians running races on corporate cash
Now don’t tell me they don’t turn around and kiss them peoples’ ass
You may call me old-fashioned
but that don’t fit my picture of a true democracy
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got CEO’s making two hundred times the workers’ pay
but they’ll fight like hell against raising the minimum wage
and If you don’t like it, mister, they’ll ship your job
to some third-world country ‘cross the sea
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free
We got little kids with guns fighting inner city wars
So what do we do, we put these little kids behind prison doors
and we call ourselves the advanced civilization
that sounds like crap to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We got high-school kids running ’round in Calvin Klein and Guess
who cannot pass a sixth-grade reading test
but if you ask them, they can tell you
the name of every crotch on MTV
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
We kill for oil, then we throw a party when we win
Some guy refuses to fight, and we call that the sin
but he’s standing up for what he believes in
and that seems pretty damned American to me
and it feels like I am living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
where the poor have now become the enemy
Let’s blame our troubles on the weak ones
Sounds like some kind of Hitler remedy
Living in the wasteland of the free
While we sit gloating in our greatness
justice is sinking to the bottom of the sea
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
Living in the wasteland of the free
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