SPINS MAD
By:
November 3, 2024
One in a series of occasional detours from Adam McGovern’s irregularly scheduled column OFF-TOPIC.
There have been enough pop songs that Trump rallies have used without asking; now one of my fav bands has supplied one whether he likes it or not. Implicitly, that is; the pop resistance best suited to stand the test of the times that are upon us will be supplied samizdat-style, and with “The Leon County Sing Along Blues” The Tall Pines aren’t waiting to put things in a way far enough over the new leader’s head to sing to his face. Back as far as “Yankee Doodle” mythic figures have embodied the collective self-image of a country, and the reckless and assured protagonist of this song, eager to crash through barriers, ignore directions, believe anything and join whatever team is winning, is the latest character on that long white line; the satanic mirror-twin of the standard country-song individualist, the archetypal MAGA personality, though if only that movement delivered the genuine groove and energy and furious joy of this song instead of just sour lazy antagonism it wouldn’t be the problem it is. Speaking the language of red-state America and still keeping the common sense and moral balance it used to pride itself on, the Pines’ music traffics in that now-rare quantity of communication, and can get everyone dancing and thinking under the same tent. Our wits are about to be worth nothing again, but they are what we’ll survive by.
The line we’re fast coming up against is navigated in different ways, and there are barriers no one’s gonna stop testing and crossing, by right or necessity. We’re far beyond any boundaries in Dia Luna’s “The Door”, the limits of desperation having been breached and the bonds of human connection broken. To match the mythologizing of our southern border, as a place of “invasion” or “chaos” or even anything but an arbitrary artificial mark on maps, the songwriter creates a delirium of imagery and her band a hallucinatory landscape of thump and fuzz and keening brass and unearthly synth textures; the sounds invoke the mirages and mental haze of deserts crossed and the words account for every shattered piece of remembered hope, endured trauma and expected future in the portrait of a separated mother and child. The rubble that families lie under and call to each other across is material in many cases, and others walk away with the wreckage as a part of them; it’s invisible and so are they, but Dia Luna hears and echoes their voice.
MORE POSTS by ADAM McGOVERN: OFF-TOPIC (2019–2024 monthly) | textshow (2018 quarterly) | PANEL ZERO (comics-related Q&As, 2018 monthly) | THIS: (2016–2017 weekly) | PEOPLE YOU MEET IN HELL, a 5-part series about characters in McGovern’s and Paolo Leandri’s comic Nightworld | Two IDORU JONES comics by McGovern and Paolo Leandri | BOWIEOLOGY: Celebrating 50 years of Bowie | ODD ABSURDUM: How Felix invented the 21st century self | KOJAK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: FAWLTY TOWERS | KICK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: JACKIE McGEE | NERD YOUR ENTHUSIASM: JOAN SEMMEL | SWERVE YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRO and THE LEON SUITES | FIVE-O YOUR ENTHUSIASM: JULIA | FERB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: KIMBA THE WHITE LION | CARBONA YOUR ENTHUSIASM: WASHINGTON BULLETS | KLAATU YOU: SILENT RUNNING | CONVOY YOUR ENTHUSIASM: QUINTET | TUBE YOUR ENTHUSIASM: HIGHWAY PATROL | #SQUADGOALS: KAMANDI’S FAMILY | QUIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: LUCKY NUMBER | CROM YOUR ENTHUSIASM: JIREL OF JOIRY | KERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM: Data 70 | HERC YOUR ENTHUSIASM: “Freedom” | KIRK YOUR ENTHUSIASM: Captain Camelot | KIRB YOUR ENTHUSIASM: Full Fathom Five | A 5-part series on Jack Kirby’s Fourth World mythos | Reviews of Annie Nocenti’s comics Katana, Catwoman, Klarion, and Green Arrow | The curated series FANCHILD | To see all of Adam’s posts, including HiLo Hero items on Lilli Carré, Judy Garland, Wally Wood, and others: CLICK HERE