Hostages taken in Iran
As the humiliation of the Viet Nam sixties set in, having ripped the country’s psyche apart, in the seventies we anti-bodies to stupidity just couldn’t fight anymore as the body politic was overrun by reactionary corruption. Nixon’s ‘law and order’ pretenders fouled the political machinery causing a breakdown in its ability to function and belief that it ever would. Capped off at the end of the decade with a near nuclear meltdown through corporate ineptitude, as we helplessly watched American hostages taken by Iran’s Ayatollah, thumbing his nose at our emasculation. Stuck in a crippled system and unsure of the future, during my transition from altruistic artist to self-interest businessman, in the song “Progress” I wrote:
I’m not socially committed
I don’t know what to believe
All the people we’ve elected
Have sewn pockets in their sleeves
And the food that we’ve infected
With preservatives and greed
And the cities we’ve erected
Not designed to let you breathe