Mike Mills said: "Michael's rolling against Republican politics. The opening line is, 'These bastards stole all the power from the victims of the us v. them years / Wrecking all things virtuous and true'. And the last verse is really great – 'I know that this is vitriol, no solution, spleen-venting / But I feel better having screamed. Don't you?' It's really great."[1]
"You need headphones to get all the words, but they're understandable," said Peter Buck. "Michael's singing through an amp on that. He wanted to get that cold anger in his voice that you get with natural distortion. And the song is written in Neil Young's tuning. Not that he owns it. But the Es are tuned down to D, like in 'Cinnamon Girl'. I admit it, he's the one I learned that tuning from."[1]
IGNORLAND VIDEO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03gauuHIgME
CINNAMON GIRL VIDEO - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jREf47BPe5w
I always sensed something nicely off-kilter with, "Cinnamon Girl," but I could not really put my finger on it. Young took some basic poppy lyrics and pulled this tuning trick. Excellent.
btw - I was walking home today, hearing a loud band, which I thought was producing its sound from an approaching bar. Nay, it was in an upstairs floor of the flower shop. The flower shop which blasts Sublime through its outside speakers. The sound of this band was mid-Led-Zep. I was ready to walk into the bar and ask if they needed a singer, but it was not the bar, it was upstairs, and their singer began to kreen and yowl, pretty badly, as is the fashion here. Well, maybe I'll show them down some time later. But, the take-away is this: LIFE. Life rises up again! Rock and Roll, baby! Make babies and rock and roll and life pops out of you like babies man, oh yeah, life returns to COVID-infected anywhere! Like babies, baby!
