Whoo-hoo! Thanks, everyone!!!


Oh, man.




You know, you guys look like a hip audience.








Whoo-hoo, indeed, sir.








Anyway, I'm sure you've heard Tracy Chapman's "Talkin' 'Bout a Revolution," right?






Don't get me wrong, it's a great song and all, but have you ever really listened to the lyrics?








No, seriously, I saw Tracy Chapman on "Austin City Limits" last week, and she's singing about her Revolution, right? And I see the audience placidly bobbing its collective head in apparent agreement with the ideological import of the words.








Right? And then I'm thinkin', you guys don't really want this revolution you're so rapturously singing about, you know, all you L.L. Bean-clad concert-goers sipping your lattes out there with your cell phones on "mute" deep inside your warm corduroy pockets.




I mean, think about it: everyone's smiling and even singing along to lyrics that essentially advocate (or at very least excuse) the violent overthrow of their own economic class: the yuppie concert-goer!








And how can Tracy herself sing such inflammatory words, knowing full well that the first thing her underclass rebels would do (according to her own implicit advice) would be to rush on stage, grab her inexcusably expensive guitar and say, "I'll take this, thank you very much. It should earn me megabucks at the local pawn shop!"



And they'll be like: "Well, Tracy, you said it yourself: 'poor people gonna rise up and take their share!'"






I mean, don't get me wrong: I love poor people. (I'm like: kissy kissy!) I was a poor person once myself. But do we really want to stir them up like this with militant lyrics? The poor things have enough on their minds without filling their heads with counterproductive expectations of violent redress. Besides, violent redress doesn't strike me as particularly democratic. And if Chapman sanctions such violent redress in the richest nation on earth, only imagine what bloody undertakings she is implicitly welcoming in third-world countries! (She's like: Poor people of the world unite -- and bring your staves and pitchforks!)

Nor is it just the poor that Tracy's egging on: How about the lyric:
"Sitting 'round waiting for a promotion."

Now, that hits close to home with me, one whose merits (I speak in all humility, ready to back up my claims with charts and figures) have been at least somewhat overlooked in the past.

So, what, Tracy: does that mean I should march into my boss's office and lower the boom? ("Hey, Jack, I'm risin' up to take my share! Make me Vice President or me and my boys -- my poor and/or equally unpromoted boys -- will wreck the place! Sabe?")




You say Tracy's speaking metaphorically, but how about the line:

"You better run, run, run...
Oh, I said you better run, run, run...."

Make no mistake: she's telling the moneyed classes to run for their lives! But the well-heeled crowd in Austin even bobs their head along to those lyrics, as if to say, "Yeah, we better run run run 'cause the poor people are gonna take their share -- oh, yeah!"

Maybe there's even an extended version of this hit wherein Chapman gets specific, lest the privileged strata of society tune her out:



"They're gonna stab you and hit you and shoot you and choke you...."

I mean, to paraphrase Hamlet, this is NOT a consummation devoutly to be wished in a free society, okay? Besides, if we let the poor people get away with it, bless their confused hearts, they'll kill the goose that lays the golden egg by torching and leveling the very businesses that should be hiring and promoting them!




In short, I love the song, Tracy, but I'll trouble the poor people to work through established channels, okay? (At any rate, tell them not to batten their aggrieved hatches on my tender flanks: What with the price of gasoline these days, I'm just getting by at best! Most of my neighbors are much richer than I am: at least attack them first!) Meanwhile, the concert-going crowd can do something constructive by voting for elected representatives who support training programs and economic incentives for businesses that hire the poor, etc. (Or they could even treat a poor friend to an "Austin City Limits" concert!)




You know: do something productive for a change, instead of placidly bobbing your heads up and down, in apparent sympathy with a musical call to arms. (The very idea!)




You guys have been great -- now get out of here, ya knuckleheads, I mean it!




Yeah, that's right: but you better run, run, run....
'cause I'm talkin' 'bout a revolution!