Song of the Moment: Mind Your Manners

[IlluminEddie]

Can someone explain to me how the words (religion) and images (war) fit together in today's context (two terms of Obama and not Bush)? I get the point of the song, but the war-related images coming from a guy who's a super-supporter of the guy in office just don't make sense in today's framework. I feel like this song makes sense coming from Ed 8 years ago, not today. I'm really trying to figure this out.


P.S. Are the dollars on a slot machine or is that printing money?

[Strat]

Can someone explain to me how the words (religion) and images (war) fit together in today's context (two terms of Obama and not Bush)? I get the point of the song, but the war-related images coming from a guy who's a super-supporter of the guy in office just don't make sense in today's framework. I feel like this song makes sense coming from Ed 8 years ago, not today. I'm really trying to figure this out.


P.S. Are the dollars on a slot machine or is that printing money?

are you 15?

[evenslow]

Danny Clinch sucks.

I actually thought he did a fantastic job with Immagine in Cornice

[BurtReynolds]

I seem to remember that there's a slow motion Stone at one moment, but I'm not rewatching that thing to find out.

Slow motion Stone is something, at least.

he's just moving really slowly.

[VinylGuy]

i love Danny Clinch.

Watching this video again right now...i thought they hinted King Animal´s cover at first, but no...my mistake.

[IlluminEddie]

Can someone explain to me how the words (religion) and images (war) fit together in today's context (two terms of Obama and not Bush)? I get the point of the song, but the war-related images coming from a guy who's a super-supporter of the guy in office just don't make sense in today's framework. I feel like this song makes sense coming from Ed 8 years ago, not today. I'm really trying to figure this out.


P.S. Are the dollars on a slot machine or is that printing money?

are you 15?

No. I'm not. Why was your question asked?

[dimejinky99]

I think I know what's happened here.

They all chipped in for a green screen before fixer and decided to get some good use out of it.
That's a meeting I can see happening.

Still a great video though.

And strat, yeah.. Is that guy 15 or what?

[stip]

Can someone explain to me how the words (religion) and images (war) fit together in today's context (two terms of Obama and not Bush)? I get the point of the song, but the war-related images coming from a guy who's a super-supporter of the guy in office just don't make sense in today's framework. I feel like this song makes sense coming from Ed 8 years ago, not today. I'm really trying to figure this out.


P.S. Are the dollars on a slot machine or is that printing money?

What makes you think that Eddie is at all supportive of Obama's foreign policy? Elections are about choices, and the choices on the table were Obama and Romney in 2008. On a host of other issues Obama is probably in line with the bands policies, and probably on every single measure Romney would be worse. They tried the 'keep our hands clean' approach in 2000 and I suspect they regret that.

I desperately wanted Obama to get reelected less because I support everything he did and more because the alternative was so much worse. And it sucks that those are your choices, but that doesn't change the fact that they are, nor does having to make it preclude you from trying to also take steps to ensure that next time you have a better one.

[stip]

B is out, so I'll post it here. This is what I whipped up for TSIS after 3 viewings. So hopefully I'll stand by all this later



We have our first video from Lightning Bolt (for Mind Your Manners), and it tells us quite a bit about how the band interprets the song (and possibly acts as a guide for how to understand the album). Someone on the Red Mosquito message board (Farmer John) described it as the love child of Do the Evolution and The Fixer videos, and that’s a pretty good bumper sticker description of the video. We have the images of a collapsing civilization that was the hallmark of the DTE animation (although much of this is actual film footage, underscoring the severity of what’s at stake) with the silly rock star theatrics of The Fixer. Whether or not they fit together is up to the viewer, although I’ll speculate in a minute as to why they may have tried to merge them together.

My initial impression of the song Mind Your Manners was that it was an anti-religious screed (given the opening ‘I found myself believing that I needed God’ and the chorus it isn’t hard to see why), but it seemed like there was a deeper, more interesting message hovering just below the surface, and it comes to the fore in the visuals of the video. This is not a song about religion in the ‘isn’t organized religion horrible’ sense. Religious hypocrisy is too easy a target to be all that compelling. It is instead a song about learning to see what is happening to the world around us, and being prepared to take steps to do something about. In fact, most of the religious imagery in the video has nothing to do with churches.

Instead we’re given a series of occasionally striking, occasionally subtle, occasionally heavy handed visual representations of a world collapsing in on itself. Often the first appearance is animated, but then we’re given the real thing to remind us that this is actually happening.
-Tidal waves, floods forest fires, floods, avalanches, sun blasted deserts where there used to be trees, tornadoes,
-War (bombs, tanks, gunfire)
-Pollution, smoke stacks, oil spills, (animated, and real), poisoned air (the statue of liberty in a gas mask--a nice shot at America’s failure to lead on environmental issues))
-Greed (the printing presses)
-Democracy (or the United States) in chains (the barbed wire imagery on the flag)
-The lightning bolt striking the puritanical looking figure (the rapture or a comment on hypocrisy. both?)
-Hour glasses counting down the time we have left


This is all framed by the 1960s PSA video on manners, and it sheds light on the pre-chorus. If this is the world around us why aren’t we howling with outrage. Why are our problems marginalized, diminished, if they are even talked about at all? How often did impending environmental collapse or the serious structural weaknesses in the US economy come up during the 2012 election? Why can’t our political and corporate leaders actually address what is at stake? Why isn’t the declining state of our civilization an issue given the gravity it deserves? Because people in power fear disruption. Disrupting the status quo. Disrupting their ability to get elected Disrupting their legitimacy. Even if the emperor has no clothes, as the story teaches us, it’s rude to point that out. Mind your manners.

So where does the religion come in? There is plenty of religious imagery in the video--the lost soul stumbling through the woods (a fairly traditional metaphor for spiritual striving), the ascension up to heaven, escaping this tortured world, being directed by God (who flicks the pilgrim onto the cloud and sends him back--there is no real agency from the seeker). This song is a critique of the idea of theodicy--the belief that this is the best of all possible worlds, that the problems that exist are beyond us, and that attempts to deal with them will just make things worse. Therefore, they aren’t our problem and we are no longer morally obligated to deal with them. It’s a philosophy of passivity. Originally this is a religious concept, but the idea can be easily appropriated by free market fundamentalists, social Darwinists, or anyone who argues that we lack the ability to DO something about the world. And fuck it. It hardly matters anyway. As long as your soul is squared away with God it’ll all work out all right for YOU in the end.

But what if that’s wrong. What if we can do better? What if we HAVE to? In the video, god kicks the ascending man out of heaven and back down to Earth. He’s stuck here. Trapped. For better or worse. So he might as well try and make it a place he can live in. And so during the second chorus we are confronted with images of destruction reversing itself. If we stop accepting we can do ‘something else’.

This is not the work of heroes. This is a project anyone and everyone has to engage. And so while the rock star cheesiness is in the video in part because it’s playful (do you really think Danny Clinch included that because he thinks it looks cool?), and in part as a juxtaposition with how serious the problems that face us are. But I think it may also be meant to signify that there aren’t heroes that are going to make this better. There aren’t 20 people that are going to sit down in a room and solve our problems. Nor is it enough for some celebrity to draw attention to these things, since in the end a celebrity is just some silhouetted asshole jumping up and down in front of a blue screen. After all, we frequently get this footage from within a TV in the video, implying that we’re passively being dictated to, or that being a spectator is not enough. If the world is going to save itself, we’re going to have to roll up our sleeves, all of us, and get to work.

[stupidmop]

Can someone explain to me how the words (religion) and images (war) fit together in today's context (two terms of Obama and not Bush)? I get the point of the song, but the war-related images coming from a guy who's a super-supporter of the guy in office just don't make sense in today's framework. I feel like this song makes sense coming from Ed 8 years ago, not today. I'm really trying to figure this out.


P.S. Are the dollars on a slot machine or is that printing money?

He can support Obama in a wider sense but still oppose war.

He could also not really support him but realise he's the lesser of two evils.

He could be a hypocritical asshole.

He could be cozying up to Obama just to tear him down later. Hint: its an inside job today

He could actually be two people one of whom is liberal and anti war and the other a politician shmoozing dickbag.

He could be an Eddie Vedder clone built by Obama and used as a pawn to gain more votes and sway the 'alternative' crowd.

He could be doing it just cause he hates us.

[Heathen]

He can support Obama in a wider sense but still oppose war.

He could also not really support him but realise he's the lesser of two evils.

He could be a hypocritical asshole.

He could be cozying up to Obama just to tear him down later. Hint: its an inside job today

He could actually be two people one of whom is liberal and anti war and the other a politician shmoozing dickbag.

He could be an Eddie Vedder clone built by Obama and used as a pawn to gain more votes and sway the 'alternative' crowd.

He could be doing it just cause he hates us.

You forgot the most important part: he could something else.

[evenslow]

there is no real agency from the seeker).

Nice easter egg for the RM faithful.

[stupidmop]

He can support Obama in a wider sense but still oppose war.

He could also not really support him but realise he's the lesser of two evils.

He could be a hypocritical asshole.

He could be cozying up to Obama just to tear him down later. Hint: its an inside job today

He could actually be two people one of whom is liberal and anti war and the other a politician shmoozing dickbag.

He could be an Eddie Vedder clone built by Obama and used as a pawn to gain more votes and sway the 'alternative' crowd.

He could be doing it just cause he hates us.

You forgot the most important part: he could something else.

Fuck that's a giant wasted opportunity. I'm a bad internetter.

[stip]

there is no real agency from the seeker).

Nice easter egg for the RM faithful.

don't think that didn't cross my mind

[EJ]

there is no real agency from the seeker).

Nice easter egg for the RM faithful.

don't think that didn't cross my mind

"screed" should've been on your words tourney list

[stip]

mistakes were made

agency was on an initial list

[dimejinky99]

So B writes all the RM blogs?

That explains a lot.

[VinylGuy]

good write up Stip, you nailed it.

I like it more and more with each view. Pretty cool video.

[VinylGuy]

Also, i like how the images and draws relate to the " cover" of LB.

[Farmer John]

I'm honoured to have gotten a shout out in the main page write-up!