Asymmetric Music

I read with interest this report saying how people in high-tax countries are happier (just go with it).

On the other side, there's Mark Sanford:

I think it's safe to assume that mark Sanford probably wouldn't be happier paying 66% of his income so that the government can tell him which doctor to see.

It's my position that people can tolerate almost any government or political system. I'm sure yesterday's serfs were probably happier than many Beverly Hills liberals were under George Bush. Friedrich Engels, noticing this phenomenon, accused people who didn't care for his proposals as having a "false consciousness," or of not being as unhappy as they should be. Conservatives like Mark Levin call people who aren't mad at Obama, "drones."

Anyways, left and right have different views on happiness. To the liberal, happiness is not worrying about stuff. Government's got your back. Thus non-preoccupied with feeding oneself or taking care of one's own children or parents, the person is free to visit museums, take as many classes as they feel like for no other reason than to fulfill oneself, have sex, play video games, and go on vacations. There's little guilt because everybody else can do this.

A song that expresses this view is Evelyn Knight's "Lucky Lucky Lucky Me." She works the government-limited eight hours. No doubt heeding the advice given in an intense public service announcement campaign, she sleeps eight hours. And, she has eight hours left for the above activities. She doesn't have "a dime" because of taxes or the approach to life implied in the liberal version of happiness, but she's got the basics covered and the peace of mind that no matter how little she tries, she'll never lose them. Song above.

The Best of Evelyn Knight by Evelyn Knight and the Stardusters

On the other hand, if the conservative never sees a government official in his life, he would have done well. Being in danger of starving is half the fun. The other half is enjoying his just rewards. He dislikes when the lady with eight kids and no husband pulls out her wad of food stamps. This point of view is musically represented by Cole Porter's "Don't Fence Me In," here sung by Bing Crosby.

Gold by Charles Kenny & Nick Kenny

I've sort of fallen in love with the 40s station on Sirius radio. Not only is the music great; it serves as a primary source on the greatest generation (each of us has an ancestor from that era. Kind of weird, if you think about it).

These two songs, "Murder, He Says," one version sung by Anita O'Day and another by Betty Hutton, and "Hubba Hubba Hubba" allow us, for example, to listen to the era's slang in a proper context, if not quite in the wild.

First up is "Hubba Hubba Hubba, Dig You Later," by that most laid back of singers, Perry Como. You'll notice, as in this song by Wanda Jackson, a different understanding of the necessities of warfare, from that in our own day, although "Hubba" lacks the sheer triumphalism of the Jackson song. Callous, perhaps, but showy expressions of regret don't make people less dead, assuming that minimizing collateral damage is some kind of priority (then again, perhaps such a consideration makes for a less effective effort). I wonder if a people with a "forties" sensibility would have made such a hubbub over sleep deprivation, waterboarding, and the use of bugs in the interrogation of murderous terrorists?

Hey, that's Carmen Miranda!

The Very Best of Perry Como

Doll Face

Next up is "Murder, She Says." It's probably one of popular culture's first encounters with "anti-language" or speech where words mean the opposite of their original intention. Modern examples include "wicked" and "bad" for "good," as in, "He's a bad a**." Tori Amos has a very nice version of the song on the soundtrack to Mona Lisa Smile.

Anito O'Day with Gene Krupa:

Uptown

Music from the Motion Picture Mona Lisa Smile

Mona Lisa Smile

As usual, Powerline does the blogosphere a service by providing an alternative to the adulatory coverage of Pete Seeger's 90th birtday. It's not like Powerline is ruining the appreciation of good music by considering Seeger's politics: a great deal of Seeger's appeal is his politics.

And what were his politics up until a few years ago, when it was irrelevant: Seeger maintained faithful allegiance to the the second most murderous political group in history (China's holding at #1), reminding us that:

1. For many on the left, feelings trump reality, "Seeger sang about loving each other."

2. Of course, Nazi-Soviet hypocrisy. A Nazi folk singer probably wouldn't have won the Medal of Honor for art (how ironic that he received his award in a building named after JFK who hated Communism and was killed by a Communist) nor gotten a PBS special.

3. Many on the left prefer style over substance. Consider the Che T-shirts, the long say-nothing speeches of President Obama, that they seem much more likely to form opinions based on art.

4. One can admire a brave, principled Communist, sort of, but Seeger refused to say whether he was Communist and withdrew an album because his Soviet puppet masters told him to.

5. In looking for music for this post, I came across this song, called, "What Did You Learn in School?" Well, Pete Seeger, Communist, must be happy that kids today are pretty much learning the leftist ideas he espoused all of his life. The most popular history text on campus is People's History by Communist sympathizer Howard Zinn. Communist libel like the book Obama accepted from Chavez, Open Veins of Latin America
is popular in college as well. Even in my high school, I noticed that Mother Jones graced the magazine rack in the library. No issues of the National Review or Weekly Standard were there to contest it.

Magazine rack at Huntington Park High School.

Here's an album. Please don't reward the capitalist pigs who run the record companies by paying for it:

The Essential Pete Seeger

A People's History of the United States: 1492 to Present (P.S.) by Howard Zinn

The Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent by Eduardo Galeano