Jack Flash Jr wrote
Bought the album on emusic on the strength of your "what I'm listening to". It's great (the guy can PLAY) but he definitely "over egged the cake" on money shuffle... not because it's not true but because there's no insights in the song, we know it all already...
Yes we do. Which is why it's so strange that nobody wrote songs about it. It's not a great song really (especially not by Thompson's standards) it's an angry song. I think back on this little issue that sparked my letter, the amount of time taken to "allocate" my retirement savings. Or I think back on a couple of investments that matured and where it turned out I'd have been better sticking the money under the matress, and you look at things like Enron where people who really should have known better were playing fast and loose with money that didn't even exist, and I wonder why we're not all hopping and down with rage and forming lynching parties. I note that in Finland the electorate have taken their former PM to court for criminal mismanagement of the economy and there are mutterings in the UK about similar treatment for Gordon Brown.
To be honest he's not a great writer of protest song, and rarely dips his toes in those waters. The Money Shuffle is really just an angry, pissed off song, a rant more than protest. At least he said it.
Reminded me of the last Stones anti-Conservatives/Repubs rant... agree with them but it doesn't make for good protest music. See Neil Young and your namesake for more interesting/subtle indictments.
Well Dylan wrote some great protest songs in the 60s, but lately....
I went to a whole show of political songs in London in June. I was amazed! The Tory/Lib Dem coalition had been in place for mere days and already there was a protest song about some decision they'd taken. So protest song is alive and well, but I do think you've got to look around a little to find it.
