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Paul's SONG OF THE YEAR 2004: "Silent Nation" by AsiaJul 01 '05 (Updated Jul 11 '05) Write an essay on this topic.
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The Bottom Line In which the author wants his mouth back.
No matter what side of the political fence you were on leading up to and immediately following the 2004 Presidential election, it was disturbing to think of how high and impenetrable that fence had gotten; how the slightest criticism of one candidate (no matter how valid) was construed as a whole-hearted endorsement (no matter how unlikely) of the other; how so much opinion-spewing erupted from can-do-no-right can-do-no-wrong mentalities. It was hard not to feel helpless, and hopelessly frustrated. On one hand, many of us were feeling that this was the most important election we'd ever voted in; on the othe, there was so much to hate about both sides. And like it or not, we were all forced to choose sides. Even people who voted third-party were thought of as having helped one of the sides out indirectly. In one of the ballsiest displays of totalitarianism most of us have ever seen from a U.S. President, Bush's campaign disallowed Bush critics not just from his rallies, but from actual policy speeches as well, giving the lie to his rosy, off-repeated assertion that he was "everyone's President". In an creepily ironic flourish, protesters of campaign events were fenced off like cattle in "Free Speech Zones". It was hard to read about what was happening here, and not feel a sense of urgency and even panic. It wasn't uncommon to hear in conversation that our country was facing its darkest days. Well, no, it wasn't. But one might have been forgiven for succumbing to such alarmist notions, given the saturation of news, the superstar status of talking-head pundits, who, like professional wrestlers, had become both the purveyors and true believers of a monumental sham-spectacle - news commentary as a simple battle between good and evil, right and left, right and wrong, and most importantly (most tragically) extreme and moderate. News personalities became bigger than the news itself, and in the maniacal proclamations of Ann Coulter and Michael Moore, I heard echoes of the irrational pre-match shit-slinging ring-talk of Hulk Hogan, Ted DiBiase, and "Macho Man" Randy Savage. Election 2004 had become Wrestlemania, and an electric sense of anticipation seemed to color everything. I've never seen an Election Day like it, and I don't care to see anything like it again. - - - - - In the fall of 2004, it was as unlikely that the band Asia would release a record that anyone might deem important as it was that the upcoming election would unite the American public. Even long-time fans of the band like myself, who'd seen and admired them through their John Wetton glory years in the early 80s and the unjustly neglected John Payne years since 1992, held few illusions. Asia were the very definition of the has-been that inexplicably keeps going, the Japanese soldier in the mountains of the Phillipines who still thinks he's fighting World War II. With each new release, whatever its merits were (and all of their recent albums have merits), it was hard not to think, "when are these people going to get it? No one cares anymore." (Which, obviously, isn't exactly true. I, for one, bought their 2004 album Silent Nation the day it came out.) Even so, Silent Nation appeared on its surface to be making some important concessions to the present tense. Conspicuously gone was the standard "A---a" title and Roger Dean artwork; and in their place was a title with a blatantly political suggestion and a creepy cover illustration of a city street as an ongoing side show where none of the people had mouths (like that boy's sister in The Twilight Zone: The Movie). But without question, the album's crowning moment was its title track: a six-minute epic that would prove a most effective soundtrack to the sense of climactic futility I'd developed as the election neared, the feeling that, like in the movie On the Beach, an invisible cloud of radiation was soon going to sweep over our continent and infect every last one of us with its sickness, and all the church revivals and "There Is Still Time" banners in the world couldn't protect us from it. "Raging in thought, mouthless, the millions obey," Payne sings in one of the most thoughtful vocals of his career with Asia (even if some of his lyrics digress into Orwellian cliche). In fact, that very mouthlessness seemed to stem from the fact that everyone's mouths were moving in 2004. Everyone had a blog, everyone was a pundit, everyone had an opinion and everybody had an outlet for broadcasting theirs; the effect being something like struggling to hear the workings of your own mind (not to mention your own conversations) above the din of clinking cocktail glasses, the subliminal thumping beats of a stereo, and a hundred other tangled conversations about the very same thing. Free speech may never have been freer, with the ironic result that few of us actually felt heard - or even represented - by anyone. "It's not up to me," Payne cries on the chorus, and there, in a song by a band that had ceased to matter twenty years earlier, was a near-perfect demonstration of the cognitive dissonance of the moment: of course, it is up to "me", and it was, and though most of us recognize that our government is our responsibility, there seemed nothing we could do about it if reasonable words could not be heard over the 24 hour news ticker panic-bites. With its contemplative opening, Govan Guthrie's ringing guitar lines (quite obviously inspired by the Edge's strident work on U2's "Where the Streets Have No Name") and its growing sense of drama and inevitabililty, "Silent Nation" tapped into its own historical moment in the way a song like Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" did in the Vietnam era, a connection that little music being created these days by more relevant or respectable bands (American Idiot by Green Day excepted) failed to do. That it failed to reach a greater audience than it did says as much about state of the record industry as the song does about the state of our Union. - - - - - SONG LYRICS: Shake the hand of time With the builders of stone Are you recognized? You're not going home Have to find a hideaway So turn up the neighbors The eagle is listening today It's not up to me To change what has been done It's not up to me A speechless world looks on It just has to be! Silent nation No longer have a name A number will do Cutting the wires of doom 'Cos they're watching you Raging in thought Mouthless, the millions obey So call off your dogs You preachers of what we can say It's not up to me To change what has been done It's not up to me A speechless world looks on It just has to be! Silent nation In a silent nation We must change what has been done It's a travesty Silent nation It's not up to me To change what has been done It's not up to me A speechless world looks on It just has to be! In a silent? (reprinted from the band's website: www.asiaworld.org) - - - - - SONG CREDITS: Written by Geoff Downes/John Payne Produced by John Payne Performed by Asia, 2004 John Payne: Vocals, Bass Geoff Downes: Keyboards Chris Slade: Drums Guthrie Govan: Guitars - - - - - CHART INFO: Didn't chart. - - - - - ALBUM REVIEW: Asia - Silent Nation (2004) - - - - - OTHER IMPORTANT (TO PAUL) SONGS OF 2004: "Stones" by Sonic Youth "Won't Give In" by Finn Brothers "Don't Say Nuthin'" by the Roots "The Outsiders" by R.E.M. "Float On" by Modest Mouse  |
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