Trigger warning*
Hey guys, just my two cents here, I am doing this song for a project for school, which has required me to listen to it for well over 70 hours at this point. The more I listen to it, the more I get the feeling that this song is likely from the perspective of a Nazi or Adolf Hitler.
Hitler and the Nazi's had an urge/surge to commit terrible atrocities.
Hitler also was known to scream and shout many a time throughout his terrible reign.
Also there are lines bragging about the person's looks. Germany at the time was obsessed with the idea that his people were the master race.
If all of this is enough, the background vox say "Nein" over and over again. This displays the German's general need to hate at the time. Saying "No" I can't let things continue the way they are, the world must conform to the way we are.
Thinking about the song from this perspective really changes the entire thing.
@josephnup "this song is likely from the perspective of a Nazi or Adolf Hitler" No. Your argument is weak. And if one looks at the external evidence, then one finds that the band Devo never espoused or endorsed any conservative, fascist, or Nazi ideology. The band took the opposite stance. The band's lyrics consistently lament conformity ("It's a Beautiful World"), the rule of the strong over the weak (", and the tendency of people to be docile and obey the rules of society. Thus, the band spoke out against fascist doctrine. Devo was against authoritarianism of all stripes—from the injustice...
@josephnup "this song is likely from the perspective of a Nazi or Adolf Hitler" No. Your argument is weak. And if one looks at the external evidence, then one finds that the band Devo never espoused or endorsed any conservative, fascist, or Nazi ideology. The band took the opposite stance. The band's lyrics consistently lament conformity ("It's a Beautiful World"), the rule of the strong over the weak (", and the tendency of people to be docile and obey the rules of society. Thus, the band spoke out against fascist doctrine. Devo was against authoritarianism of all stripes—from the injustice of the American privatized medical system ("Speed Racer") to militarism ("Enough Said") to rule by the wealthy ("Pity You").
"Hitler and the Nazi's had an urge/surge to commit terrible atrocities." The construction of industrial-scale infrastructure for the purpose of mass murder is not something done as the result of an urge. An urge is an impulse, and in the context of the song "Uncontrollable Urge," it is a naturally-occurring impulse. Human beings do not have a common biological urge to commit genocide. This is something which everyday personal experience, history, and biology confirm. (There are a very few people who suffer from serious behavioral illnesses who do have natural urges to hurt other people, but they fall into a category of being extreme outliers, relative to the rest of humanity.) In the lyrics of the song, the speaker says that he wants to communicate his urge to everyone. A murderer does not share his plans with the people around him. The Nazi practice of murdering Jews was not widely publicized; knowledge of it was kept away from the German people and from the world at large.
"Hitler also was known to scream and shout" Many, many, many people have screamed and shouted. There is no correlation between a person's screaming and shouting behavior and that person's probability of affiliating with, or emulating the behavior of, Nazis.
"there are lines bragging about the person's looks" Nowhere in the song is there anything which fits this description. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Goering—just to name a few—had countenances which would be considered unattractive, by the standards of commercial mass media. None of them had looks to "brag" about and none of them lived up to the physical ideals of the master race about which they preached. They were puny, feeble, laughable physical specimens of men.
"the background vox say 'Nein' over and over again" Although the nonsensical scatlike vocal sounds in the chorus might be interpreted as sounding like the German-language word "nein," there is no other evidence to support this interpretation. No German words appear anywhere in any other Devo song. It is overwhelmingly likely that the band members did not intend for their vocal accompaniment to be understood as the German word "nein." If you look at the song's published lyrics, you will see that the word is not transcribed as being "nein."
"[Saying 'No'] displays the German's general need to hate at the time." If you examine the history of Nazi Germany, you will see that German generals scrupulously avoided saying "No" to Adolph Hitler. He did not accept "no" as an answer, and in response to Hitler's orders, if a German general needed to deny or contradict Hitler's words, then the general would very carefully craft his response for the sake of specifically excluding the word "no" and even the very concept of refusal.
Trigger warning* Hey guys, just my two cents here, I am doing this song for a project for school, which has required me to listen to it for well over 70 hours at this point. The more I listen to it, the more I get the feeling that this song is likely from the perspective of a Nazi or Adolf Hitler.
Hitler and the Nazi's had an urge/surge to commit terrible atrocities.
Hitler also was known to scream and shout many a time throughout his terrible reign.
Also there are lines bragging about the person's looks. Germany at the time was obsessed with the idea that his people were the master race.
If all of this is enough, the background vox say "Nein" over and over again. This displays the German's general need to hate at the time. Saying "No" I can't let things continue the way they are, the world must conform to the way we are.
Thinking about the song from this perspective really changes the entire thing.
@josephnup "this song is likely from the perspective of a Nazi or Adolf Hitler" No. Your argument is weak. And if one looks at the external evidence, then one finds that the band Devo never espoused or endorsed any conservative, fascist, or Nazi ideology. The band took the opposite stance. The band's lyrics consistently lament conformity ("It's a Beautiful World"), the rule of the strong over the weak (", and the tendency of people to be docile and obey the rules of society. Thus, the band spoke out against fascist doctrine. Devo was against authoritarianism of all stripes—from the injustice...
@josephnup "this song is likely from the perspective of a Nazi or Adolf Hitler" No. Your argument is weak. And if one looks at the external evidence, then one finds that the band Devo never espoused or endorsed any conservative, fascist, or Nazi ideology. The band took the opposite stance. The band's lyrics consistently lament conformity ("It's a Beautiful World"), the rule of the strong over the weak (", and the tendency of people to be docile and obey the rules of society. Thus, the band spoke out against fascist doctrine. Devo was against authoritarianism of all stripes—from the injustice of the American privatized medical system ("Speed Racer") to militarism ("Enough Said") to rule by the wealthy ("Pity You").
"Hitler and the Nazi's had an urge/surge to commit terrible atrocities." The construction of industrial-scale infrastructure for the purpose of mass murder is not something done as the result of an urge. An urge is an impulse, and in the context of the song "Uncontrollable Urge," it is a naturally-occurring impulse. Human beings do not have a common biological urge to commit genocide. This is something which everyday personal experience, history, and biology confirm. (There are a very few people who suffer from serious behavioral illnesses who do have natural urges to hurt other people, but they fall into a category of being extreme outliers, relative to the rest of humanity.) In the lyrics of the song, the speaker says that he wants to communicate his urge to everyone. A murderer does not share his plans with the people around him. The Nazi practice of murdering Jews was not widely publicized; knowledge of it was kept away from the German people and from the world at large.
"Hitler also was known to scream and shout" Many, many, many people have screamed and shouted. There is no correlation between a person's screaming and shouting behavior and that person's probability of affiliating with, or emulating the behavior of, Nazis.
"there are lines bragging about the person's looks" Nowhere in the song is there anything which fits this description. Hitler, Goebbels, Himmler, and Goering—just to name a few—had countenances which would be considered unattractive, by the standards of commercial mass media. None of them had looks to "brag" about and none of them lived up to the physical ideals of the master race about which they preached. They were puny, feeble, laughable physical specimens of men.
"the background vox say 'Nein' over and over again" Although the nonsensical scatlike vocal sounds in the chorus might be interpreted as sounding like the German-language word "nein," there is no other evidence to support this interpretation. No German words appear anywhere in any other Devo song. It is overwhelmingly likely that the band members did not intend for their vocal accompaniment to be understood as the German word "nein." If you look at the song's published lyrics, you will see that the word is not transcribed as being "nein."
"[Saying 'No'] displays the German's general need to hate at the time." If you examine the history of Nazi Germany, you will see that German generals scrupulously avoided saying "No" to Adolph Hitler. He did not accept "no" as an answer, and in response to Hitler's orders, if a German general needed to deny or contradict Hitler's words, then the general would very carefully craft his response for the sake of specifically excluding the word "no" and even the very concept of refusal.