One of my first ideas for my bachelor thesis was to write about how songs describe power. One of the most political band (at least that I know of) is System Of A Down.
It is an American rock band. All of its four members have Armenian roots. Both their lyrics and musical videos are often very political.
During one of my last year classes we discussed A.D.D. (American Dream Denial).
In this song the band criticises war, particularly War in Iraq or war with terrorism. It is called "...unjustifiable egotistical power struggle...". The conflict is about "all your global profits and all your jewel pearls". The normal people are sent to war because of "the truth you stole"(reasons for starting the war weren't clear) and are send back home in pieces. The part "There is no flag that is large enough, to hide the shame of a man in cuffs..." refers probably to the Guantanamo Bay detention camp. All that denies the american dream. "You' that is addressed in the song is probably president Bush, who we see at the beginning of the clip and who started this war. The video to this song offers disturbing images, but is a good illustration to the song.
The next song B.Y.O.B. is probably their most-known political song.
In this song war is compared to a party and acronym b.y.o.b., which usually stands for bring your own beer, here means bring your own bombs. Lyrics could be interpreted in a many ways, but I think the most important part is "Why don't presidents fight the war? Why do they always send the poor", which asks why the president doesn't fight a war that he started (Bush again), but instead send poor, bad-educated soldiers. Is is also stated that the government and probably the media "feed us lies from the tablecloth".
The clip was shot during anti-war protests. Attention should be paid to what people say during the demonstration. I don't know if people were asked to repeat the words of the song or the song was made of sentences that people said. Many slogans and statistics are also shown. The only thing that was not shot during the demonstration are animated cartoon characters of George Bush, Tony Blair, Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden riding bombs.
Those are just 3 songs by System Of A Down that are political. You can definitely state that they are anti-war and that president Bush wasn't their favorite president:) Other songs worth mentioning are: Soldier Side, War?, Deer Dance or Prison Song(criticising American prison system).
