watch me trend

Working on a new playlist I started some time in 2010, I re-discovered Joe Pug’s I Do My Father’s Drugs. I listen now, in between seeing newsstand magazines hawking the latest Size 0 model and talking over dinner about the aftermath of Wisconsin’s recent recall election, and it’s utterly heartbreaking. A lot here, especially the use of ‘drugs;’ everything from the State’s propaganda, to the depressants and antidepressants and weight pills and placebos doled out, to the ‘illegal’ substance method of dealing with the reality of holding a rifle never wanted.

-

When the party starts on Monday
Christmas starts in June
When no one minds I’ve just arrived
And I’ll be leaving soon
If I return with eyes half-opened
Don’t ask me where I was
I do my father’s drugs

When every revolution
Is sponsored by the state
There’s no bravery in bayonets
In tearing down the gates
If you see me with a rifle
Don’t ask me what it’s for
I fight my father’s war

When hunger strikes are fashion
And freedom is routine
And all the streets in Cleveland
Are named for Martin Luther King
You will see me at the protest
But you’ll notice that I drag
I burn my father’s flag

So when the party starts on Monday
And Christmas starts in June
When no one minds I’ve just arrived
And I’ll be leaving soon
If I return with eyes half-opened
Don’t ask me where I was
I do my father’s drugs
I do my father’s drugs

- Joe Pug, I Do My Father’s Drugs, from 2007’s Nation of Heat