I'm told that being hipster is defined by knowing a lot about music, artists and bands that no one else has ever heard of. if that's the fact, then - taking me as background - you're all hipsters. none the less, today i'm going to tell you a thing or two about music, things you might not have heard of. or thought of.
not long ago i was brought across an artist by the name of Serj Tankian, whom you probably already know, or if not, you are sure to recognize him as the lead singer of the currently suspended System of a Down. i, like many, found myself quite fond of his probably most known song "Empty walls", which i found to be rather curious, but, without further ado...
"Empty walls" by Serj Tankian, 2007. original video
(stupid embedding disabled by request sign ruining my blog post here)
now, Serj is openly political throughout with an artistic romance towards humanistic views. the world that we live in - where the only thing keeping this vile antagonism that has entrenched deep into most cultures at bay is the fresh memory of the world wars - feeds quite a lot of material to such mind to write songs about.
if you look at the video, it is pretty evident what it's about - a plane crashes into twin towers, military is called, Husseins statue is torn down, suicide bombers ram buildings, people are imprisoned, so on so forth. it's basically the chronicle of war on terrorism. this only serves as side narration to the song itself though. it's stage-setting. what is presented on the stage is in the song and that is not so evident. without paying much attention, what will you recall? burning bodies, peretense, dying, coffins, empty walls, killed my family, intoxication. so - war is a terrible thing. do we really need Serji to tell us that? no. there's something else in there. the empty walls. what are they?
after some digging into the subject i found my answers. little had i known that US government had banned portraying the flag-draped coffins of US military overseas casualties as they arrive in the United States. this was a dubious approach said to protect the privacy of the families of the soldiers, although i found no evidence of that being a necessity of the families after decades of war victims being brought home as public heroes and no one having a problem with that. i did, however, find a lot of evidence of public contempt towards the decree of bringing the dead soldiers home secretly through the back alley.
this is where the puzzle starts to fit together. let's look at the lyrics again, shall we?
Your empty walls
Pretentious attention
Don't waste your time
On coffins today
Don't you see their bodies burning
Desolate and full of yearning
Dying of anticipation
I want you to be left behind those empty walls
Taunt you to see from behind those empty walls
all makes sense now? empty walls are baseless censure. walls built of nothingness between us and the truth. the effect of censure is not to be doubted. it's the play of masses. keep a powerful image from the public view, and the reaction dims. people will know, but too little, too late. too far away.
but enough of the political jib-jab. the question that i am finally aiming at is - why?
why this elaborate dance with meanings and symbols, not saying anything out as it is? could Serj possibly fear being censored himself? no. this isn't soviet union. US cannot go publicly illegal in keeping such censure, and banning a song only adds to it's fame these days. the real function i think, whether Serj agrees or not, is the evasion of a completely different kind of censure, one that is self imposed, not forced by anyone in specific. you see, classic censure works by information starvation, and controlled propaganda. what censures our democratic and free information market today is over-encumbrance of information. to keep the volumes down, a lot of information is reduced to just fragments and we are left to our own devices in how we put them together. but with Serj's presentation, you can only move towards the right goal. Serj can be understood or not understood, but not misunderstood.
so, go home and do your fucking homework. there is a shitload of stuff that you should know, and the only reason you don't know is that you don't look. no one is hiding it from you, but as long as it's not the front page with a big picture, no one notices. that's how censorship today works. nothing is hidden from us, but some things are kept from being thrown into our faces. all we have to do is wipe the crap off the windshield to see it. which we never do.
but, not to finish with a negative note, here's a symphony orchestra version of the song, for the melomaniacs.
not long ago i was brought across an artist by the name of Serj Tankian, whom you probably already know, or if not, you are sure to recognize him as the lead singer of the currently suspended System of a Down. i, like many, found myself quite fond of his probably most known song "Empty walls", which i found to be rather curious, but, without further ado...
"Empty walls" by Serj Tankian, 2007. original video
(stupid embedding disabled by request sign ruining my blog post here)
now, Serj is openly political throughout with an artistic romance towards humanistic views. the world that we live in - where the only thing keeping this vile antagonism that has entrenched deep into most cultures at bay is the fresh memory of the world wars - feeds quite a lot of material to such mind to write songs about.
if you look at the video, it is pretty evident what it's about - a plane crashes into twin towers, military is called, Husseins statue is torn down, suicide bombers ram buildings, people are imprisoned, so on so forth. it's basically the chronicle of war on terrorism. this only serves as side narration to the song itself though. it's stage-setting. what is presented on the stage is in the song and that is not so evident. without paying much attention, what will you recall? burning bodies, peretense, dying, coffins, empty walls, killed my family, intoxication. so - war is a terrible thing. do we really need Serji to tell us that? no. there's something else in there. the empty walls. what are they?
after some digging into the subject i found my answers. little had i known that US government had banned portraying the flag-draped coffins of US military overseas casualties as they arrive in the United States. this was a dubious approach said to protect the privacy of the families of the soldiers, although i found no evidence of that being a necessity of the families after decades of war victims being brought home as public heroes and no one having a problem with that. i did, however, find a lot of evidence of public contempt towards the decree of bringing the dead soldiers home secretly through the back alley.
this is where the puzzle starts to fit together. let's look at the lyrics again, shall we?
Your empty walls
Pretentious attention
Don't waste your time
On coffins today
Don't you see their bodies burning
Desolate and full of yearning
Dying of anticipation
I want you to be left behind those empty walls
Taunt you to see from behind those empty walls
all makes sense now? empty walls are baseless censure. walls built of nothingness between us and the truth. the effect of censure is not to be doubted. it's the play of masses. keep a powerful image from the public view, and the reaction dims. people will know, but too little, too late. too far away.
but enough of the political jib-jab. the question that i am finally aiming at is - why?
why this elaborate dance with meanings and symbols, not saying anything out as it is? could Serj possibly fear being censored himself? no. this isn't soviet union. US cannot go publicly illegal in keeping such censure, and banning a song only adds to it's fame these days. the real function i think, whether Serj agrees or not, is the evasion of a completely different kind of censure, one that is self imposed, not forced by anyone in specific. you see, classic censure works by information starvation, and controlled propaganda. what censures our democratic and free information market today is over-encumbrance of information. to keep the volumes down, a lot of information is reduced to just fragments and we are left to our own devices in how we put them together. but with Serj's presentation, you can only move towards the right goal. Serj can be understood or not understood, but not misunderstood.
so, go home and do your fucking homework. there is a shitload of stuff that you should know, and the only reason you don't know is that you don't look. no one is hiding it from you, but as long as it's not the front page with a big picture, no one notices. that's how censorship today works. nothing is hidden from us, but some things are kept from being thrown into our faces. all we have to do is wipe the crap off the windshield to see it. which we never do.
but, not to finish with a negative note, here's a symphony orchestra version of the song, for the melomaniacs.
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