Quote: 'For a while, he traveled outside the country, including an extended stay in Africa. While some of Oingo Boingo's early songs took aim at American institutions--"Capitalism" made sarcastic comments on the U.S. economy--he generally endorsed democratic values.
He told Lawrence Henry of Music Connection:"I'm not a doomist. My attitude is always to be critical of what's around you, but not ever to forget how lucky we are. I've traveled around the world. I left thinking I was a revolutionary. I came back real right-wing patriotic. Since then, I've kind of mellowed in between. It affected me permanently and totally. "'
Which I can very much sympathize with - as a staunch liberal who has walked away disgusted from more than one online forum because the people there seemed more interested in policing each other's "hardcoreness" than doing anything that might, say, lead to an actual change in society. Activism is great, but circle jerks are not activism. There's this sort of hairshirt mentality that says that aimless acts of self-denial will improve the world, and I think that this is the real target of the song. (Mind you, SOME acts of self-denial will improve the world... but it really depends on the extent to which you're consuming resources in the first place.)
I remember a time when I went to a war protest, just before they started the second Iraq war, and found that the downtown streets had been closed off for the purpose. So we could march around and talk at each other. And that was when I realized that the U.S. Government, sometime between the nineteen-sixties and now, had found the 'solution' for the 'problem' of free speech: put it in a nice little box where nobody listens to it but the people talking.
Since then I have been careful about my "talk, talk, talk". I try to spend my energy saying things where I believe they'll be heard by someone whose mind they might change, not preaching to the choir. And so I can kind of respect this song for reminding me where the pitfalls are.
In short I think there are two messages here - one somewhat parodical/exaggerated, and one serious. No one with the tiniest shred of education actually believes that there's NOTHING wrong with capitalism: even super-hard-core libertarians tend to understand that the system needs some adjustment to work well. But the deeper message is a criticism of ineffectual, poorly-thought-through political styles. I think that part of it is absolutely serious - and in some ways downright sensible.
@TheYellowSign Great analysis and commentary. I'd heard Elfman was once a Libertarian, possibly around the time that he wrote this song, which confused me since I could tell that this song was satirical. It just seemed paradoxical, but it makes sense now.
@TheYellowSign Great analysis and commentary. I'd heard Elfman was once a Libertarian, possibly around the time that he wrote this song, which confused me since I could tell that this song was satirical. It just seemed paradoxical, but it makes sense now.
I find this song interesting and disturbing. To get a better idea of where Danny Elfman was coming from when he wrote it, look here:
http://www.boingo.org/articles/Encyclopedia.html (1989)
Quote: 'For a while, he traveled outside the country, including an extended stay in Africa. While some of Oingo Boingo's early songs took aim at American institutions--"Capitalism" made sarcastic comments on the U.S. economy--he generally endorsed democratic values.
He told Lawrence Henry of Music Connection:"I'm not a doomist. My attitude is always to be critical of what's around you, but not ever to forget how lucky we are. I've traveled around the world. I left thinking I was a revolutionary. I came back real right-wing patriotic. Since then, I've kind of mellowed in between. It affected me permanently and totally. "'
Which I can very much sympathize with - as a staunch liberal who has walked away disgusted from more than one online forum because the people there seemed more interested in policing each other's "hardcoreness" than doing anything that might, say, lead to an actual change in society. Activism is great, but circle jerks are not activism. There's this sort of hairshirt mentality that says that aimless acts of self-denial will improve the world, and I think that this is the real target of the song. (Mind you, SOME acts of self-denial will improve the world... but it really depends on the extent to which you're consuming resources in the first place.)
I remember a time when I went to a war protest, just before they started the second Iraq war, and found that the downtown streets had been closed off for the purpose. So we could march around and talk at each other. And that was when I realized that the U.S. Government, sometime between the nineteen-sixties and now, had found the 'solution' for the 'problem' of free speech: put it in a nice little box where nobody listens to it but the people talking.
Since then I have been careful about my "talk, talk, talk". I try to spend my energy saying things where I believe they'll be heard by someone whose mind they might change, not preaching to the choir. And so I can kind of respect this song for reminding me where the pitfalls are.
In short I think there are two messages here - one somewhat parodical/exaggerated, and one serious. No one with the tiniest shred of education actually believes that there's NOTHING wrong with capitalism: even super-hard-core libertarians tend to understand that the system needs some adjustment to work well. But the deeper message is a criticism of ineffectual, poorly-thought-through political styles. I think that part of it is absolutely serious - and in some ways downright sensible.
@TheYellowSign Great analysis and commentary. I'd heard Elfman was once a Libertarian, possibly around the time that he wrote this song, which confused me since I could tell that this song was satirical. It just seemed paradoxical, but it makes sense now.
@TheYellowSign Great analysis and commentary. I'd heard Elfman was once a Libertarian, possibly around the time that he wrote this song, which confused me since I could tell that this song was satirical. It just seemed paradoxical, but it makes sense now.