This Weekend I’ll Mostly Be Listening to Music about… Conspiracy theories!

These themed TWIMBLT’s are kind of entertaining to put together – next week IEL has a classic one. But in the meantime the thought struck me, what about music and conspiracies, political and otherwise.

So we have pretty much anything by Killing Joke in the past twenty or thirty years (though Jaz Coleman doesn’t seem to think so!), REM’s kind of sort of one about how the Republicans stole to power in the US (and full marks to them for using the term social democrat, which I suspect they regarded as a bit more leftwing than some who use the term – which makes me think of the almost contemporaneous Youth Against Fascism by Sonic Youth which amongst a list of fascists includes an actual conspiracy, the Ku Klux Klan) and the Lords of the New Church who loved themselves a good conspiracy theory – Seducer covers the Priory of Sion, the Anti-Christ, whoever. Holy War is almost even more conspiracy doused. Sample lyric:

Anti-Soviet polish priest
Was just the image they need
Seize control or the Catholic Church
For Bolshevik creed
They replaced him with an actor
Set the stage for war
Pope John Paul II was poisoned
Behind Vatican doors

Did he mean JP I? Who knows. It was a conspiracy!

In the early 1980s I loved the Lords and their mix of punk, glam and metal. Wasn’t so keen on Stiv Bator’s sub-current of misogyny though. But they were a most strange group, worth another look.

Who else? Megadeth’s Hanger 18 featured in a This Weekend about flying saucers a short while back, but it’s filled with conspiracy theories. Techno/IDM maven Black Dog has made a career of skirting close to political conspiracy theories in the last couple of decades and MK Ultrabrite plays/engages with that. MIA was prescient all the way back in 2010 about surveillance, even if a bit off about the source. Public Enemy veered close to some potentially dodgy stuff. Race Against Time as the Guardian notes suggests/demands/propounds(?) that ‘the World Health Organisation is, in fact, engaged in the propagation of racially targeted biological warfare’. Okaaaaaaaay. The Goats were simply genius, and the problem was their conspiracy theories were pretty much rooted in fact, or close to same (check out Noriega’s Coke Stand). Less plausible was Prince’s Dreamer which has the immortal lines:

While the helicopter circles us, this theory’s gettin’ deep
Think they’re sprayin’ chemicals over the city while we sleep”

But… best in show? The Golden Horde and the greatest conspiracy song ever – The Chocolate Biscuit Conspiracy. And what a coup, Dublin’s finest, dragging the grandfather of conspiracy theories, Robert Anton Wilson in on co-vocals.

Any other songs gratefully accepted.

MIA – The Message

The Goats – Whatcha Got Is Whatcha Gettin’

The Goats – Noriega Coke Stand

REM Ignoreland

Black Dog – MK Ultrabrite

Killing joke – The Great Cull

Public Enemy – Race Against Time

Prince – Dreamer

Lords of the New Church – Holy War

Lords of the New Church – Seducer

Golden Horde – The Chocolate Biscuit Conspiracy