Sunday Song Lyric:

All to often, when songwriters bury political messages in their songs, the results are doubly bad – bad music and bad politics. There are exceptions, however. Some songwriters are willing to cut against the grain and skewer the pop-leftist sensibilities prevalent in the entertainment industry. For example, Joe Jackson, not exactly known as the most political songwriter, exhibits a libertarian streak in the Obvious Song off of Laughter & Lust, as he critiques the hypocrisy of elitist environmentalists and laments the drug war.

There was a man in the jungle
Trying to make ends meet
Found himself one day with an axe in his hand
When a voice said “Buddy can you spare that tree
We gotta save the world – starting with your land”
It was a rock ‘n’ roll millionaire from the USA
Doing 3 to the gallon in a big white car
And he sang and he sang ’til he polluted the air
And he blew a lot of smoke from a Cuban cigar

And the stars are looking down
Through a hole in the sky
And if they can see, they cry
That’s obvious

And the walls are coming down
Between the west and the east
You don’t have to be a hippie to believe in peace
That’s obvious . . . obvious

There was a kid in the city selling crack to get by
Got caught one day with a gun in his hand
When a voice said, “Okay, get ’em up in the air
You’re too young to live like this
But you ain’t too fast to die.”
Just another foot-soldier in a stupid little war
Another sound-bite on the American scene
Caught between the supplier only dreaming of money
And the demand of the man with money
Who needs a little help to dream

So we starve all the teachers
And recruit more Marines
How come we don’t even know what that means
It’s obvious

And the walls are coming down
Between the eagle and the dove
You don’t have to be a hippie to believe in love
That’s obvious . . . obvious

Not what you’d expect from the man who brought us Breaking Us in Two and Is She Going Out With Him (but then again, Jackson was early to lampoon health hysteria in Cancer).