"Shut Up" - Savages (video)

Five stars.  Just watch it.

The editorial:  we don't want mainstream, well, ever.


There was some playing here which popped up some unusual changes and that might be an incipient project.  "Andromeda Weeps" is flying about with philosophy and there's a discussion in another thread.  The outcome of that may lead to a change in the lyrics but just now I do not think it will.

There's some reluctance to comment on it because it appears to be an evaluation of my art but really it's an evaluation of an idea.  In my view, if I ask you to listen to the song to try to pick up the idea, that's a different thing.  The request is to consider the idea without the influence, artistic or no, of the song.

Apart from the basic moral dilemma of whether Jason should launch the nuclear weapons, there's a huge one in Jerusalem paying the price for the existence of the weapons.  The question on that one isn't whether you think it's good or bad but rather whether it follows logically.  It isn't something we hope will happen but it must be credible it could or the song is pointless.

Note:  there is no war against religion and they will survive this.

Maybe the question is better phrased this way:  someone or something has to pay the price for the folly of the nukes, particularly after we have just experienced a false alarm which nearly destroyed the world.  That fact cannot be left unresolved at the end of the song.

Jerusalem is inadvertently the city which gets nuked when the missile men stand down and an accident gets one launched which just happens to be targeted on Jerusalem.

I believe it has to be Jerusalem because the grave sin of a nuclear mistake costs humanity its 'only son' and really Jerusalem isn't the only son but it's nothing anyone wants to lose.  If any other city is the victim, regional power would apply and that leads into an entirely different story of zero interest in this context.

If you see another city which would be more logical to end up as the martyr, what should it be.  I don't see an appropriate substitution with a place like Papeete which would, in effect, get nuked for its innocence.

My thinking is it must be Jerusalem for a number of reasons but it's not because I want to trash Jerusalem so I'm interested to know if there's somewhere someone thinks is more appropriate and delivers the right message.  Our morality has failed or no nuke would have been launched so there needs to be a strong connection to morality in whichever target is used.

Note:  the disclaimers of that nature are because I don't want to be bitchslapped for trying to burn the church when such things have nothing to do with this.


This one is a much more interesting question to me because the fundamental of whether nukes should be launched at all doesn't have much potential for surprises.  My thinking is to stand down but another position is to find whomever launched first and kill them back.  Arguing whether retribution is ever valid goes all-out Dalai Lama and I'm fine with that but it won't serve the song.  For Dalai Lama-ish reasons, I believe the missile man should stand down but I realize retribution is a possible reaction as well.  However, that doesn't preclude Jason standing down in another missile silo.  Therefore, I believe the song as it's written now in which Jason stands down is still worthy.

The only suspension of disbelief needed for you is whether it's possible for a nuclear false alarm to take place at all.  Frankly, we don't think that's a big suspension and accepting the potential reality of the song shouldn't be such a tough thing.  If you think it's so ridiculously unrealistic to project such a thing could happen, that would be of interest as well.

You saw it with "The End of the World in Fort Worth" and I'll take months on a song if I think it's necessary.  So it's important to be clear from the top what this song is doing or a couple of months of my time may go in the tank.