Well, we're having a ball just
'a bopping on the big dance floor.
Well, there's a real square cat,
he looks like 1974.
Well, he looked at me once,
he looked at me twice,
Look at me again and there's
gonna be a fight.
We're gonna rock this town.
We're gonna rip this place apart.
--Stray Cats
Kids today. With their crazy haircuts. Can't tell the men from the ladies. Crazy clothes. Showing off their unmentionables for all the world to see. Dirty dancing. We tell ya, it'll all lead to promiscuity, sloth and a weak dollar!
Can you remember the year that was said? Was it 2017 or 1958? Maybe the early Madonna years circa 1984 or when Elvis the Pelvis was shaking his legs on black-and-white television. The more things change, the more adults don't get the next generation. It has always been thus.
To prove the theory once again, now comes Judy Green, a member of the Quorum Court in Pulaski County. Less than two weeks after 28 people were injured in a shooting/stampede at a rap concert in Little Rock, JP Green recommended that cities in the county prohibit concerts or performers who sing songs that "promote or incite violence."
Well.
The idea went nowhere, officially. The Quorum Court of Pulaski County has people on it who've read the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Even Judy Green understood her resolution wouldn't pass. She said as much to the papers:
"But I got your attention, especially the media."
The media, it should be noted, don't like to be played.
That said . . . . Well played, ma'am.
No doubt there's got to be a discussion about how to handle these concerts. More security would be a good place to start. Real, live, full-grown cops with city or county badges would be a better place to start. So would metal detectors at entrances, to prevent just such a free-for-all mass shooting like what happened the other night just blocks from our offices. And Judy Green et al. have a point about some of the lyrics you'll find in modern rap songs. Just atrocious.
But banning such concerts and performers is a constitutionally suspect and overly vague proposal at best. With the Extra Added Bonus of possibly putting another racial wedge between communities in Little Rock.
And which performer is next?
The Dixie Chicks wrote a song called "Goodbye, Earl," about the murder of an abusive spouse. When Aerosmith comes to town, will they be prohibited from singing "Janie's Got a Gun"? What about Steve Miller's "Take the Money and Run"? If Paul McCartney comes back to central Arkansas again, will officers hand him a notice telling him "Maxwell's Silver Hammer" is off the playlist?
"Mack the Knife" is about a serial killer.
One of the Rolling Stones' best songs is called "Street Fighting Man." Like a lot of Stones lyrics, the words could be disturbing, if you could but understand them as they were being sung. It's easier to read along while Sir Mick Jagger sings/groans/yowls:
I'll shout and scream, I'll kill the king!
I'll rail at all his servants!
Our considered editorial opinion: Put more cops on the concert beat, fewer politicians. Police already have the ability to arrest anybody inciting a riot. But when the music is for entertainment purposes--that is, young people railing against the man--it's free speech, and the goodness or badness of the performer is subjective in the extreme. What is garbage to some is beautiful to others.
Ask us about the first time Dear Old Dad heard "Whole Lotta Love" coming from the basement.
Editorial on 07/13/2017