The circle turns again
by Matt Worley

I thought it was all over. Of course, I was just being naive, but there was this hope in my mind that people wouldn't be so damn stupid--again. But even my first glimmerings of the fear of music was in the late 80s. Most of my favorite bands were involved (Guns N' Roses, Motley Crue, you know the drill) as well as the usual suspects: Ozzy, Dio, and the evil W.A.S.P. I attended numerous Satanism conferences where church and police leaders in our community would show propaganda films about what the music was gonna do to us kids. One thought I had during a poignant speech was, "Is this girl next to me wearing a bra?" In other words, I didn't pay much attention to what the church and police were trying to teach me.

I know more about Satanism and witches and fear than I ever cared about from these little love ins. After every show, I argued with my fellow friends and church youth leaders. See, I was a regular guy that listened to this stuff, and so were my friends. It seemed ridiculous to try and stomp music when the problem obviously wasn't lyrics or beats or guitar fills. It was with the people themselves. Sure, one kid who went to our church shot his head with a shotgun (this is B.C., Before Cobain) while on coke. Another tried to steal a few thousand dollars from the bank he worked at as a courier. In our small town, these incidents were large, signs of a declining morality. And yes, they listened to rock music. The correlations are astounding. It's like saying that drinking milk is a gateway drug because everyone who takes drugs once drank milk.

Today the bullshit is back. I'm sorry, I really try to be clean, but this is just stupidity on a large level. First we had the gangsta rap controversy. N.W.A., Dr. Dre, Snoop Doggy Dogg, Tupac Shakur, the Notorious B.I.G. I think the strangest and funniest suit against this music comes from one of the most outspoken detractors of the genre: C. DeLores Tucker. She recently sued the estate of Tupac Shakur because she claims her repeated listening to Shakur's All Eyez On Me has ruined her sex life. My suggestion would be to stop listening to Tupac when she's trying to have sex with her husband.

And then there's Marilyn Manson. I could say a lot of bad things about Marilyn Manson, but it wouldn't be about his message (as strange, opaque and twisted as it is). My question for the people across the U.S., Canada and other places around the world who have tried to stop his shows is this: Don't you have something better to do, like teach your kids to be a little bit more immune to inane ramblings from a cross-dressing goth wannabe? The trick isn't in banning music, it's in making the kids and parents realize what is going on here. Business.

Selling music in large quantities isn't an easy trick. If you don't look good in tight fitting or see-through dresses, you've got to find another avenue to get your vision across to the public. Gansta rap brought a world that many people never see (or even want to venture to) into the bedrooms of middle America. It's a cultural trip, if nothing else. Manson uses shock and overkill to get people to shed their prejudices (or something like that). Not all of this music is good, but none of it is evil. Evil music has no purpose--like Yanni.

So I guess it's going to be this way. Every five or ten years a bunch of suburbanites are going to take a few CDs from their kids collections and be so shocked they have to tell the world. If you've noticed, the names of the outspoken have changed from ten years ago. Back then it was Tipper Gore and her D.C. society friends. Well, Tipper is second lady now and her kids are getting married. I'd say that Tipper won. Back then she was only the wife of a Senator. I'll bet big bucks her kids don't let her listen to their music anymore. Let your mom listen to Prince when you're fourteen just once and you'll understand why.

I still remember trying to explain the lyrics of Jane's Addiction's "Ted, Just Admit It..." to my mom when I was seventeen. We were doing yard work, and the only way I could do yard work back then was to have a little musical encouragement.

"What does he mean 'Sex is violent?'" Mom asked.

"The song is about how TV news equates violence and sex by only showing people getting killed, raped or getting pregnant when you're fifteen. Nothing positive is ever said about sexuality and love on the news, they just report it as all bad."

"Oh."

I probably didn't explain it as thoroughly back then as now, but I think my mom at least understood that I wasn't taking the song to mean I should beat up my sexual partners. If only all kids could be as insightful and all mothers could be as understanding. Besides, my mom knew that I was gonna listen to whatever I wanted to listen to, so she was going to have to accept whatever I said anyway.

And this could be the real lesson (finally). Parents need to trust their children to be smarter than the average tree. And children need to realize their parents might get a little excitable about stuff they don't understand. In the end, most kids who listen to gansta rap aren't going to be gang members. And most parents are still going to think that Yanni is pretty.

Matt Worley was a strange little boy in high school, but he only got called into the office for obscene t-shirts once.

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