They’re back. Those half-forgotten hounds of that benighted decade, the 1980s, have returned, and this time they’re out to change Western foreign policy. I thought George Michael was gone for good after that unfortunate incident in a Los Angeles public lavatory where he tried, unsuccessfully as it happened, to shag an off-duty policeman. But you can’t keep a good man down. He has a new single out and it is a warning to the world: stop all this war! Stop it right now! It’s horrible and dangerous! Just stop it!
”Being silent is not an option,” he intones with all the self-regard of someone who, in earlier years, was able to rhyme ”go-go” with ”yo-yo” and not blush in the process.
His single is called Shoot the Dog. The song was partly inspired by John Pilger and is, therefore, a confused rant at those fascists Bush’n’Blair for pursuing the war against terrorism. The lyrics are described as ”sensational”; well, judge for yourself from these short extracts:
”Nine nine nine gettin’ jiggy. People did you see that fire in the city? It’s like we’re getting fresh out of democratic. Gotta get yourself a little something semi-automatic … yeah.”
Or how about this:
”Mustapha, Mazeltov, the Gaza boys, all that holy stuff. I get the feelin’ when it all goes off, they’re gonna shoot the dog, they’re gonna shoot the dog.”
Well? No, me neither. I’m sure it must have meant something at the time he wrote it. Maybe we need the music to draw out the deep structure of the piece. Maybe then it will all become clear. The tune has been described as ”upbeat, catchy, toe-tapping”. Lord, I can’t wait; really, I can’t wait.
But George isn’t alone in venturing forth into territories more normally inhabited by, say, the Royal Institute for International Affairs, or the foreign affairs select committee. Bob Geldof is right behind him, ready to take part in the official campaign against Britain’s adoption of the euro.
I must admit that I have a lot more time for Bob, partly because he looks as though he never washes — and I like that in a man. It makes me feel more comfortable about my own declining standards of personal hygiene. And, it is only right to admit, he has contributed far more good than evil in this world.
But why should we care about his thoughts on the single currency? Leave aside the fact that he’s not British and therefore in a delicate position regarding the relevance of his advice. What, exactly, are his qualifications for telling us which monetary system to adopt? Check through his songwriting canon. Is there something there to suggest a burgeoning Chateaubriand? Is there the germ of a clue in Mary of the Fourth Form, or Rat Trap?
All of this is unfair, of course. I’m aiming at the wrong targets. It’s not George’s fault, or Bob’s, that people have suddenly started to take them horribly seriously. Nor is this debilitating process the fault of the tabloid press. Newspapers didn’t send Bono tramping across Africa, for example, whining about foreign aid and the debt burden. It was the United States administration that dignified his absurd trip by sending its Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill, with him.
If you want the quintessential instance of a society dumbing down, this is it — the elevation of people who believe John Lennon’s Imagine is a salient social statement (rather than an inane, hypocritical dirge) to a position where they can effect real harm upon the world. It is, to cite another example, Geri Halliwell as a United Nations ”Goodwill Ambassador”, spreading her cheerful ignorance across the planet like a strange neurological disease.
There have been a few occasions in the history of rock and pop music when musicians have genuinely captured the mood of an angry minority in a way that has perhaps, in time, contributed to a gradual social or political change. Neil Young’s Ohio; Buffalo Springfield’s For What it’s Worth — even The Sex Pistols’s God Save the Queen.
But back then, pop musicians were not the establishment, as they have since, sadly (for them and us), become. Now, no matter how crushingly stupid the stars may appear to be, there will be a politician or a quango somewhere prepared to give them a bit of influence in order to curry favour with a celebrity-obsessed public. Last week Bono on Third World debt. Next week SClub7 on steel tariffs and import duties.
The good news is that one man, at least, has had enough. The Republican Senator George Voinovich has boycotted a Senate environmental inquiry because he’s bored with the parade of witless celebrities called to give evidence. Kevin Richardson, from the Backstreet Boys, was the straw that broke the camel’s back. ”It is a joke to think he could provide us with information on important geological and water-quality issues,” says Voinovich, with refreshing candour. Good for him.
Meanwhile, George Michael is still telling us that silence is not an option. Well, don’t bet on it, George. In your case it seems a pretty good one to me.