same wrote:Andrew L. wrote:same wrote:Andrew L. wrote:same wrote:They also left out all that annoying political shit.
Wrong about both bands on this point. Go4's lyrics are great. And Lydon was pretty overtly "political" at times: "Careering," "The Suit," "Go Back," "Religion." There is politics in these songs.
Those songs aren't exactly political. They're more critiques of what he views as the snide or disgusting social behavior of the status quo.
I think it's a political move to critique social structures and the status quo, especially as consistently as Lydon does. And the thing is, most of Go4's lyrics are in exactly this vein of critique, yet everyone seems to know that Go4 are super political and "a Marxist band."
I'm not saying that GoF didn't sing about those things. The subject matter of the band's lyrics overlaps quite a bit. But they had kind of a preachy agenda about it in a way that made them seem political to me, like they were trying to send out some important message or influence you, whereas John seemed more like he was just making cynical observations.
A good deal of PIL's lyrics were political for sure. It can mean many things.
But PIL came from a thoroughly lower class background. There was no reason for them to spell it out. You could just stand to look at the guy (Lydon) and see how he presented a challenge to the status quo, at least for a while there. GoF was def. middle class and a lot of the time wrote about what they learned at the uni that day (so to speak). What they focused on/challenged were the mores of their own background. They obviously felt the need to distance themselves from that.
I don't think GoF's lyrics are annoying, though. They're sometimes really great ("At Home He's a Tourist"). And anyway I usually don't let a lyric interfere with my liking of a song, except when it is, like, really bad.