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In which protein wisdom provides a long-deferred answer to Edwin Starr (c. 1970)

What are you, Edwin, a twelve-year-old?  Christ. Grow up, would you?

26 Replies to “In which protein wisdom provides a long-deferred answer to Edwin Starr (c. 1970)”

  1. Jeff Goldstein says:

    And yeah, I know he’s dead.  But the question was rhetorical.

  2. none says:

    Good God, y’all.

  3. Pablo says:

    I don’t care if he’s dead, he should still grow up.

    What war is good for.

    Huuuuh!

  4. Imhotep says:

    Where is Philip Merrill?  With Sharon? Peace

  5. Kent says:

    Now, is that any way to talk about the lyrical genius—Motown’s own Rimbaud; the Dostoevsky of Pop!—who gave unto us such searing and timeless socio-political insights as the nigh-legendary Agent Double O-Soul…?

    “Double-O-Soul!

    I dig rock and roll music,

    I can do the Twine and the Jerk.

    I wear strictly continental suits,

    And high collared shirts.

    I’ve got a reputation of bein’

    Gentle but bold.

    And that’s why they call me

    Agent Double-O-Soul, baby!

    Agent Double-O-Soul!”

    Honestly!  You neo-cons, you!

  6. sears poncho says:

    Always thought 25 Miles was the better song anyway.

    TW Give me an example of some soul

  7. sears poncho says:

    Kent,

    So he had 3 hits.  Always forget double 0 soul.

  8. CalDevil says:

    Forgetting the Disco era:

    Eye To Eye Contact & HAPPY Radio are two of the best from that era.

  9. Muslihoon says:

    Good link, Pablo.

  10. bgates says:

    But Bruce Springsteen sang an Edwin Starr song once, after telling me not to have blind faith in anything.

    And I implicitly trust anything he says.

    Hey, he’s The Boss.

  11. So sad that a man who could write “Thunder Road” could advance “War! Huh! Good God, y’all – what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’!” as a political philosophy.

    I used to like Bruce. Sigh…

    Don’t run back inside, darlin’,

    You know just what I’m here for.

    So you’re scared and you’re thinkin’ that

    Maybe we ain’t that young anymore –

    Well, show a little faith!

    There’s magic in the night;

    You ain’t a beauty but eh, you’re all right,

    Hey, and that’s all right with me…

    All punctuation mine. I doubt Bruce has ever seen a semicolon. Sigh again…

    TW: record. Sigh…

  12. JD says:

    Who is this Springsteen fellow y’all keep referring to?

    Is he the same fellow that basically took The Grapes of Wrath and set it to music (“Nebraska”)?

    The same fellow that, for some reason, people say personifies rock and roll but will turn around and bash his own nation at the drop of a hat?

    The same gentleman whose songs are best left sung by other people?

    I think we need a little more Toby Keith and a little less “Boss” around these parts…

  13. Kent says:

    I think we need a little more Toby Keith and a little less “Boss” around these parts…

    Bah!  Hulk wanna be sedatedwink

  14. McGehee says:

    Toby K would be the patron saint of blogging if he were, you know, dead.

    “I wanna talk about me

    Wanna talk about I

    Wanna talk about Number One

    Oh my me my

    What I think

    What I like

    What I know

    What I want

    What I see…”

    That’s my theme song right there.

  15. gahrie says:

    Anybody else up for a re-release of The Ballad of the Green Beret?

  16. Gahrie, anybody here would think you’re ooooold, man.

    I’m up for a re-release of “Hot Child in the City,” though, I tell you what. (Or as our Houston oil friends say, “Ah tell you whuuut,” which adds something you just can’t get here in PA.)

    TW: south. How does this thing do that?

  17. Anybody else up for a re-release of The Ballad of the Green Beret?

    uh, no, cause then rto would just be misty eyed all the time and i’d laugh at him, it wouldn’t be pretty.

  18. Jim Follanski says:

    JD wrote:

    Who is this Springsteen fellow y’all keep referring to?

    Is he the same fellow that basically took The Grapes of Wrath and set it to music (“Nebraska”)?

    The same fellow that, for some reason, people say personifies rock and roll but will turn around and bash his own nation at the drop of a hat?

    The same gentleman whose songs are best left sung by other people?

    I think we need a little more Toby Keith and a little less “Boss” around these parts.

    JD, it’s very likely that Bruce Springsteen has done more for Americans and for America than you could even dream of doing.  He doesn’t “bash this nation,” you dickweed, he loves and reveres this nation and the ideals it ought to embrace. 

    Toby Keith is a shit-kickin’ idiot.  Bruce Springsteen is a rock and roll legend.

  19. A says:

    So sad that a man who could write “Thunder Road” could advance “War! Huh! Good God, y’all – what is it good for? Absolutely nothin’!” as a political philosophy.

    I used to like Bruce. Sigh…

    Yes, of course:  Bruce “advanced” War, so he must really believe all war is bad, and is therefore obviously an idiot!

    Tell me again who’s unsophisticated?

    Bruce, of course, is also a pedophile (having penned “I’m On Fire”), a crook named Johnny, an out of work Vietnam vet, and a guy on the edge who’s about to hock his girlfriend’s stereo without telling her (since you seem to like that album).  He has all kinds of contradictory feelings at different times, indicating not a sophisticated, conflicted mind, but an idiot who can’t think straight.

    Also, nobody ever exaggerates or expresses themselves in exaggerated words, least of all artists; and in real life, all actors are just like the characters they play!  Whee!

    (Oh look—a Springsteen fan used a semicolon!)

  20. Wow, who knew there’d be such vitriol attached to criticism of “The Boss”?

    OK, actually I did. But as I should’ve said to my long-ago ex when he first told me, with fire in his eye and defiance in his voice, that “Springsteen is the only person I’ve ever respected!”, eh, so what? He’s a musician, that’s all. Take a deep breath, A. This is the lighthearted thread.

  21. A says:

    Take a deep breath, A. This is the lighthearted thread.

    Ok, y’all are baiting Edwin Starr fans, Bruce fans and liberals all at the same time, and I, being all there, bit.  Fair enough.

    I was going to write a reply about how much it irks me when Jeff says stuff like that (about how it reinforces a stereotype that doesn’t really exist, wasn’t particularly funny unless you bought into that strawman, and was really just Jeff’s cutsey way of telling us he thinks that antiwar sloganeering is simpleminded and that he’s much more worldly than the obtuse knee-jerk liberals that inhabit his imagination) …

    … but as you point out, this is the lighthearted thread.  So:

    Broooooooooooce!

  22. Jeff Goldstein says:

    Actually, had you followed an earlier thread, you’d know what this post was about and wouldn’t have felt the need to presume to psychoanalyze me.

    I don’t leave roadmaps for occasional trollers; sorry, but I so love when people like you, hiding behind your anonymity, try to tell others what it is I’m thinking.  Shows up your presumptuousness and your arrogance all in one embarrassingly incorrect public move.

    Anyway, since I’m feeling generous

    And for the record?  “Jungleland” is one of my favorite songs, along with “Mary, Queen of Arkansas,” and “Meeting Across the River.”

    In fact, I rank both “Born to Run” and “Greetings from Asbury Park” in my top 50 albums.

    Imagine that!  Another strawman slayed!

    Don’t thank me, though.  Remember:  I’m a giver.

  23. A says:

    Geez, Jeff, this is the lighthearted thread!

    C’mon.  Bruce’s pre-song shpiel doesn’t assert that war is always wrong, but that kids shouldn’t blindly trust their leaders when those leaders say some particular war is good/necessary/etc.  I’m pretty sure Jeralyn understood that when she posted it.  You replied that war is sometimes good for something—true also!  Jeralyn kicked it off before all that by saying that violence begets violence, which bothered you.  True as well—all three ideas are reconcilable without contradiction.

    So, like I said, c’mon.  You were being cutsey with the Starr post.  You were making fun of Starr, and of Jeralyn for quoting him—tongue firmly in cheek of course.  That doesn’t mean I can’t think it’s kind of lame for you to do so, and zing you a little for it in the comment thread.

    And not to be overly snarky, but I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the one who started in with the psychoanalysis—or the condescension, such as it is/was:

    Jeralyn’s post reveals a lot about certain progressives who pretend to support our troops but who, let’s face it, think of them as little more than rabid dogs with flak jackets and fancy night vision binoculars.

    So I’m not quite sure why you’re so upset with me for being a little provocative in the same way.  Especially on the lighthearted thread.  I’m not a friggin’ troll, Jeff.  I just thought you were wrong to post what you posted.  You disagree.  Hey, it’s your blog!

    P.S. I think it’s pretty f’in cool that people so diametrically opposite on the political scale can love the same music.  “Jungleland” is my all-time favorite too.  Peace.

  24. Jeff Goldstein says:

    I was making fun of Jeralyn for quoting him, that’s it.  And for the bumper sticker sentiment.  And for the fact that it reappeared in Rush Hour just before Jackie Chan kicked him some Juntoa ass.

    And of course, Starr didn’t write the song.  So I was kinda poking a bit of fun at myself, too. But be that as it may…

    As for my psychoanalyzing Jeralyn, uh, sorry—she said that, given the opportunity, soldiers were more likely to “stomp” a wounded enemy than help one.  This provides a pretty straightforward account of how she thinks about soldiers.  And she isn’t alone—as several of her commenters evince in the thread I linked to.

  25. Kent says:

    I’m not a friggin’ troll, Jeff.  I just thought you were wrong to post what you posted.!

    Unintentional irony is always the falling-down-funniest sort!

    LOL

  26. Jack Roy says:

    Um, Kent, “troll” doesn’t mean “someone who says something I disagree with.” That’s not “irony” at all, except in the Alanis Morrissette rain-on-your-wedding-day sense.  Which I guess is the only definition of the word irony the kids these days are getting, what with public schools and the gangs and the pokemon…. [/oldgrouch]

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