I Should Be Allowed To Think

Sometime in ’93, around the time this song was being written and recorded, the city of Seattle was pushing hard for the ban of posters and ads on utility poles and streetlights. The ban went into effect in ’94, and consequently, promotion for local bands and entertainment was significantly restricted. Many Seattle citizens felt that the ordinance impinged upon freedom of speech, as well as would lead to a degradation of Seattle's music scene, the arts, and political communities.

This song comes from the point of view of someone protesting the Seattle poster ban. Trying to appear intellectual, the narrator cites Ginsberg's "Howl,” which was banned for obscenity in 1956. Not only does the narrator probably not understand “Howl,” but he/she does not seem to comprehend the personal, artistic, and cultural liberties that such bans threaten. Ironically, the narrator believes that the ban somehow interferes with his/her desire to think and spout nonsense, and is fighting for the “right” to leave paper stains.

I still see this as a monument to college indie-ism.

Howl meets Catcher in The Rye?

inspired by ginsberg?

this is such a wonderful teen angst anthem, and not in an annoying way. things like gluing your poster to a wall make perfect sense to someone who's young and feels like it's their personal space, but are automatically shot down by parents and other adults. it gives examples of a lot of things that frustrates young people and speaks to them with that kind of passion. i say this about almost every TMBG song, haha, but this one truly is one of the best.

why can't it be inspired by ginsberg, but sound totally different? i see a great deal of relation between howl and this song, personally.

Ginsberg was an influence on this song- several other lines in this song could be applied to the Beat generation in general or Ginsberg specifically, though overall, it comes off as more of a teenager's interpretation of Ginsberg.

It also made me totally unable to read Howl without getting the tune stuck in my head, as I discovered last semester >.< I ended up humming this thing for weeks. I'm pretty sure that parts of my term paper have the same rhythm and syntax because of it.

I LOVE GINSBERG. beat poets are nifty.

I don't think it was inspired by ginsberg, but the quote at the beginning is ripped out of howl (says so in the liner notes). but... I dunno, it just doesn't seem that much like ginsberg to me... it's more bitterly ironic. I mean, "I saw the worst bands of my generation applied to whiteboard" seems to be a much more modern attack on the music industry. plus, like all of tmbg's stuff, it's more innocent than ginsberg... at least on the outside.

I believe that "I should be allowed to think' is about a special ed student who feels that people don't let him do stuff by himself (like thinking) because he's in special ed.