by Chris McGinty
Remember when rock was all about shaking up world power through high profile murder? It was Assassination Rock. Now you can have it all in this limited time compilation on 3 CDs or 64 records if you order before the rally is called off.
Let me say real quick that I have thoughts about the recent assassination attempt on Donald Trump. My default point of view is that I’m glad he’s ok, unless he’s one day the subject of a thought experiment where you ask if you could go back in time and murder Trump before all the suffering he caused, would you? I might write my full thoughts as its own blog post, but for now my only motivation for doing this is that my vast music trivia knowledge showed me pretty quickly that I knew enough songs to make a theme post. This is that post.
Suicidal Tendencies – I Shot [Reagan]
I feel like I’m experiencing a Mandella Effect (named after Nelson Mandella who was assassinated in prison, look it up!) with this song. Officially, it’s called “I Shot the Devil,” but I have always remembered it being called “I Shot Reagan.” I can’t find evidence that it was ever released under that title though, and Wikipedia says that it was rumoured that the FBI encouraged them to change the title, which makes no sense given that the phrase “I shot Reagan,” is in the lyrics.
I feel like the generations are getting increasingly soft. Someone tries to kill Trump and he walks away with a nicked ear. Back in my day, when a controversial right-wing figure was attacked with gunfire, he took it like a real man with a broken rib and a punctured lung. I mean, JFK took a bullet to the head and showed up to work the next day… ok, sorry. Not good at history here. Just finding out that John F. Kennedy did, in fact, die.
Butthole Surfers – Pepper
Speaking of dying in Texas, I’m going to have to admit that this song has been running through my head since Saturday. Again, unless Trump ends up responsible for immeasurable suffering in the future, I’m glad he’s alive and well, but there is a line in this song that I just couldn’t help but keep singing to myself. The problem is that it did technically get him in the head, just not accurately enough that he could truly be in love with dying. This is possibly the only reason I will ever actively look up this song unless I’m in the mood to see Eric Estrada. I do like the song, but it was overplayed when it first came out.
The Stone Roses – Elizabeth My Dear
It took me a long time to realize that this was probably about the queen, who was eventually assassinated by natural causes. I was always aware that the song was suggesting murder, but not who the subject of the proposed murder might be. I may have misheard “throne” as “throat,” even if the rhyme scheme wouldn’t work. It’s not really very safe being a public figure, but I would argue that when you’re a public figure you’re generally safe because of the 24/7 protection. If I’m ever attacked at one of my jobs, I’m not going to have a bunch of guys throwing their bodies between me and my assailant. It’s that whole rich man poor man thing.
Franz Ferdinand – Take Me Out
I’m just going to say that you simply can’t start a band named after a prominent figure who was mudered and possibly started World War I in the process, and not write a song suggesting being assassinated. This was that song and they really delivered. I have stories about this song, but none of them are really in theme for this blog post, so I’ll just leave you with this quote:
“For some stories, it’s easy. The moral of ‘The Three Bears,’ for instance, is “Never break into someone else’s house.’ The moral of ‘Snow White’ is ‘Never eat apples.’ The moral of World War I is ‘Never assassinate Archduke Ferdinand.”
― Lemony Snicket, The Wide Window
Chris McGinty is a blogger who has no intention to ever kill anyone. If his Google searches ever suggest otherwise, understand that he also writes fiction. The ongoing joke is the fiction writer’s browser history is full of weird searches but looking at my browser history I need to write fiction more often.