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We've been listening a lot to Outkast's "Bombs Over Baghdad" down at the Independent offices recently, but I've been puzzling over the lyrics and I'm having some trouble discerning their political content. Is Outkast a Wolfowitz-style superhawk, a Powell/Scowcroftish dove, or an Yglesias-style advocate of inspections backed by the threat of force? Please comment away — the relevant portion, I take it, is Dr. Dre's chorus:
[Dre] Don't pull the thang out, unless you plan to bangI'll tentatively take that as a rejection of my strategy, telling me that I shouldn't pull the thang of invasion out as a threat unless I actually want to bang. What's less clear, however, is if we're supposed to take that as a warning not to pull the thang out or else that we should be readying ourselves to bang (and, of course, to hit something).
[Choir] Bombs over Baghdad!
[Dre] Yeah! Ha ha yeah!
Don't even bang unless you plan to hit something
[Choir] Bombs over Baghdad!
[Dre] Yeah! Uhh-huh
It's actually a Bushite commentary on war with Iraq, which is basically summarized as such:
"Like a million elephants with silverback orangutans
You can't stop the train
Who want some? Don't come un-pre-pared
I'll be there, but when I leave there
Better be a household name"
If that doesn't make any sense...exactly.
Posted by: jesse on September 14, 2002 06:23 PMDude, it's Dre (with an accent), not Dr. Dre. You'll ruin your rep!
Posted by: Ted Barlow on September 14, 2002 07:00 PMUnless, of course, you're only 16 and don't have a rep yet.
Posted by: on September 14, 2002 07:06 PMI believe that Dre is in opposition to the premature extraction of the thang. Dre is taking a stand against the saber rattling and war hype of the Bush administration- in other words, advocating a position of "don't talk about all this war shit if you're not ready to fight". Because the Bush administration and Congress is not yet ready to commit to the bang, they are being irresponsible by pulling out that thang.
Posted by: Will on September 14, 2002 07:19 PMArtists are often vague about Big Issues, either for artistic reasons, or for self-protection, or for niche marketing. An example of the last is "Street-Fighting Man" by the Stones, which appeared just as the Sixties were going crazy. The song sounds militant as hell, but the key lyric opts out of streetfighting, while the song elsewhere seems to suggest that maybe streetfighting is the right thing for others.... or maybe not. Something for everybody.
Posted by: zizka on September 14, 2002 08:00 PMThis song was written before there were any "major" issue with the middle east. It doesn't mean anything. And yeah it's not Dr. Dre.
Posted by: on December 21, 2002 12:02 AM