Each Friday I pick a song–new, old, borrowed, blue–that’s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.

This is “Cult of Personality” by Living Colour:

This song was a real eye(ear?)-opener when I first heard it, and saw the video, at the age of 11.  Everything about the song seems designed to grab your attention: the Malcolm X recording that opens the song, followed by the entrance of that big guitar riff, for a start: yes! my brain shouted to itself, this is a language that I can easily understand!  The juxtaposition of Mussolini and Kennedy (I think it was at this time in school–fifth grade–that we were first really taught about fascism), of Stalin and Ghandi seemed dangerous and subversive, though I doubt I knew the word subversive then.  Those two guitar solos turned me on like crazy, too: the first, short, almost nonchalant one, and then especially that blazing long one towards the end of the song made me think nobody could ever play a guitar the way Vernon Reid played the guitar. Listening to it now, I think a few things: that one of the great appeals of this song, now, then, whenever, is the way that riff, neither fast nor slow, pins the whole song down like a good funk bassline does; that the guitar playing is no less exciting to me in 2016 as it was in 1988; that the lyrics seem no less dangerous and subversive, and the Kennedy, Roosevelt and Malcolm X splices still speak alongside those guitars, bass, drums, voice and lyrics in a language that everybody here can easily understand.  I also love the fantastic sense of layers and energy that Living Colour brings to a song built on a single riff, a bass, drums, guitar and a voice.