{"id":1421,"date":"2016-11-25T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2016-11-25T08:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/douglascowie.com\/?p=1421"},"modified":"2016-11-24T08:38:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-24T08:38:43","slug":"1421","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/?p=1421","title":{"rendered":"Song of the Week: &#8220;Cult of Personality&#8221; by Living Colour"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it.<\/p>\n<p>This is &#8220;Cult of Personality&#8221; by Living Colour:<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/7xxgRUyzgs0\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>This song was a real eye(ear?)-opener when I first heard it, and saw the video, at the age of 11.\u00a0 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!\u00a0 The juxtaposition of Mussolini and Kennedy (I think it was at this time in school&#8211;fifth grade&#8211;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.\u00a0 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 <a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/ZfYjCqw\" target=\"_blank\">the lyrics seem no less dangerous and subversive<\/a>, 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Cult%20of%20Personality%22%20by%20Living%20Colour\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Each Friday I pick a song\u2013new, old, borrowed, blue\u2013that\u2019s been on my mind and in my ears, and write a short post about it. This is &#8220;Cult of Personality&#8221; 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.\u00a0 Everything about the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n<div style=\"padding-bottom:20px; padding-top:10px;\" class=\"hupso-share-buttons\"><!-- Hupso Share Buttons - https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/ --><a class=\"hupso_toolbar\" href=\"https:\/\/www.hupso.com\/share\/\"><img src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/buttons\/share-medium.png\" style=\"border:0px; padding-top: 5px; float:left;\" alt=\"Share Button\"\/><\/a><script type=\"text\/javascript\">var hupso_services_t=new Array(\"Twitter\",\"Facebook\",\"Google Plus\",\"Pinterest\",\"Linkedin\",\"Tumblr\",\"StumbleUpon\",\"Digg\",\"Reddit\",\"Bebo\",\"Delicious\");var hupso_background_t=\"#EAF4FF\";var hupso_border_t=\"#66CCFF\";var hupso_toolbar_size_t=\"medium\";var hupso_image_folder_url = \"\";var hupso_twitter_via=\"DouglasCowie\";var hupso_url_t=\"\";var hupso_title_t=\"Song%20of%20the%20Week%3A%20%22Cult%20of%20Personality%22%20by%20Living%20Colour\";<\/script><script type=\"text\/javascript\" src=\"https:\/\/static.hupso.com\/share\/js\/share_toolbar.js\"><\/script><!-- Hupso Share Buttons --><\/div>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-song-of-the-week","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1421"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1424,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1421\/revisions\/1424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.douglascowie.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}