When it comes to rock music, the Right clearly has a tin ear, as revealed by the Top 50 choices of conservative rock songs.

1) There's a basic truth about popular music that they utterly fail to comprehend. The message and music transcend the lyrics to convey a much more powerful message. "I Fought the Law (and the Law Won) is not about conceding to the power of authority; it's about defiance against the odds. That's why the revoluntary band The Clash did a re-make.

Similarly, "Street Fighting Man" complains about "sleepy London town" and the passivity
of the English in confronting authority, but the furious tone of the lyrics and
pulsing music made it a revolutionary anthem (friends of mine used to listen to
that song before going out to engage in hard-core physical combat with the cops.)

2) The choices also reveal the primitive racism of the Right (the glorification of the
the infantile "Sweet Home Alabama," answered in a hard-hitting song by the late, great
Warren Zevon about the blunted consciousness of white Southerners trapped in a sick culuture being shafted) and its nostalgic affection for the good old days --never to return--when women stayed in their place. Notably, the author chose to ignore Lynyrd Skynyrd's far better "Saturday Night Special" which has a truly kick-ass sound and a powerful message about the foolish gun-toting culture of America.

The Top 50 list is both reminder of the culture that the American Taliban would impose and the Right's
inability to understand anything about popular culture.

Roger Bybee, Milwaukee.