Iraq Is Not Another Vietnam ... At Least Musically Speaking

From LA Weekly column by Nikki Finke on the music's difference between the Vietnam War era and now:

" Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young spoke for a generation with its plaintive 'Ohio' in the wake of the National Guard's murdering of four at Kent State in 1970 ' a far cry from Young's perversely jingoistic post-9/11 'Let's Roll.' Where is today's anti-war anthem? (For Chrissake, 'Mr. Blowin' in the Wind' Bob Dylan is doing Victoria's Secret commercials.)

Will anyone pen a musical liturgy for Thomas Hamill, the Mississippian taken hostage in Iraq who, faced with crushing debt, his wife's open-heart surgery bills, a family to support and a recession-plagued economy, took a last-resort job with a contractor supplying the troops in the most dangerous place on earth ...?"

More on the state of music today.

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