| NOFX – The Cause Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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"... don't trust these lies" This is about all those (punk) bands who claim to be doing their stuff only for "the cause", supporting radical movements while signing major labels, letting the minterfear with their music, tours and output, becoming estranged from a diy punk/radical movement etc. A similar song this one alway reminds me of is spermbirds' "only a phase". Mind you, the spermbirds song ist not aimed specifically at bands but at any participants to a diy movement that betray any convictions they may once have had while pretending not to. |
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| NOFX – The Cause Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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Isn't for the money No it isn't for the fun It's a plan, a scam, a diagram It's for the benefit of everyone You gotta have a little respect Subterranean ideals Traditional neglect Reflect on how it would make you feel The cause - we're just doing it for the cause No it isn't for the fortune, It isn't for the fame It's a scheme, a dream, a barterine We want everyone to think the same Because you know what you know is right And you feel what you can't ignore And you try so hard to point the blame A shame - what are we doing it for? The cause - we're just doing it for the cause The cause - we're just doing it for the cause Open your eyes don't trust these lies What are we doing it for? The cause - we're just doing it for the cause The cause - we're just doing it for the cause |
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| NOFX – Lori Meyers Lyrics | 14 years ago |
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I absolutely agree with Ladnav that the song is trying to point to the fact that there is no black or white. But I believe it's not simply "two different perspectives of the same situation". Will explain, but first: X138X speculated (early on in the thread) that "maybe she was raped on the floor of the factory". That is not what the song is saying. "the floor" of a factory is a term used to describe the production space of the factory and also those employees of a corporation doing the actual manufacturing work. it's considered the lowest and hardest work in a factory. Through years of industrialization factory work has been made ever more efficient. The overall workflow needed to make a certain product has been torn apart and split into isolated repetitive tasks, workrate has increased to uncompared extremes, workers have little or no control over the work process and no connection to the overall process needed to make the finished product. So basically, you can say in the factory workers have become an attachment of flesh to a machine of steel. While for companies that make things, the factory floor is really where the things happen that the whole company thrives on, it is also the place that is looked down upon most by people working in other sectors of the company (office workers, salespeople etc.) Working on the factory floor is extremely taxing, unhealthy, monotonous, alienating and subjugating (and usually badly paid) work. if you look at human potential and creative urges, our desire to be self-determined and our need for inspiration and change, factory work is actually an insult to our being as humans. So it's easy to see why someone would say it is degrading work. Lori Meyers worked on the factory floor so she's been through this shit and she's glad she moved on a long time ago ("I know what degredation feels like / I felt it on the floor / at the factory where I worked long before"). Working on the factory floor was subjugating, now she is self-determined ("i took control / now I answer to me"), factory work was badly paid, now she has a better income and only she decides what to do with it ("the 50k I make this year / will go anywhere I please" (by the way, it really is "THE 50k" not "with 50k")). What the song is suggesting is to stop patronizing porn or sex workers and to stop simply assuming that their work is degrading or subjugating because things just aren't that simple. What the song doesn't say is that working in the porn or sex industry is a great thing or that it doesn't have anything to do with degradation. In a fucked up economic system where most humans are there to benefit the economic process and not the other way round (while ironically forgetting that this is no natural law but something we as humans actually made up in the first place), only the most privileged or lucky will find work that actually meets their needs and desires. The rest is stuck choosing between bad and worse. Many women (and men, but that's a different story) working in the porn or sex industry find at the end of the day what they do there is less alienating and degrading than other job opportunities they have. You can't call it a free choice, because in an economic system that forces you to work to survive - even if it's under unreasonable conditions - while at the same time providing only few good job opportunities, there is only so much freedom involved in job choice for most of us. I love how in between the lines of a seemingly simple (but beautifully told) story this song deals with questions of prejudice, self-determination, shaking off things unbearable and being able to find something better for oneself if one breaks free from social norms. And Kim's voice on this is just fantastic! |
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