Sometimes softball questions can be the most revealing ones.
At the end of an interview last Tuesday on CBS This Morning, anchor Gayle King asked newly-minted Republican presidential candidate Senator Ted Cruz a pop-culture question. It’s the kind candidates get asked occasionally as an afterthought or lighthearted way to end an interview. Every little thing means something in the hyper-scrutinizing world of politics, but pop-culture topics are usually reserved for Rolling Stone interviews. In network TV and political news, it hardly comes up.
"What do you do for fun?" King asked. Namely, what music kind of music are you listening to? Both President Barack Obama and former Gov. Mitt Romney were asked questions like this as candidates well into 2012 election season. Cruz, being the first major candidate to announce, got it out of the way early.
This is why softball questions can be the most revealing. And Cruz’s unintentional reveal was really something.
"I grew up listening to classic rock and I’ll tell you sort of an odd story," Cruz said. "My music taste changed on 9/11. And it’s a very strange… I actually, intellectually find this very curious, but 9/11… I didn’t like how rock music responded, and country music collectively, the way they responded, it resonated with me, and I have to say it, just as a gut level, I had an emotional reaction that says, ‘These are my people.’"
...
When did conservatives steal rock'n'roll from us?
After 9/11, rock music never really got its political feet back under it. On the day, rock radio opted for inspirational songs like U2’s "Beautiful Day" and later the wistful "Walk On". Incubus’ mellow hit "Drive" was ubiquitous for its chin-up chorus, "Whatever tomorrow brings, I’ll be there/ With open arms and open eyes."
As the days and weeks wore on, any radio-rock bands that could’ve been conduits for important political dissent were notably squelched. Having disbanded in 2000, Rage Against the Machine’s entire discography was de facto banned from Clear Channel-owned radio stations indefinitely. System of a Down’s "Chop Suey!", the lead single off its 2001 LP Toxicity, was on that list, too, with its chorus of "self-righteous suicide." Toxicity—with album cuts like "Jet Pilot" and informed by a clearly Armenian-American perspective—would end up debuting at number one on the Billboard album charts that fateful Tuesday. The invective toward System of a Down online was likely the first knee-jerk manifestation of Islamophobia in American music post-9/11. Regardless, neither band cut 9/11 response or anti-Iraq War songs.
As the months wore on into 2002, rock had the odd dissenters. Disturbed’s single "Prayer" off Believe criticized Christian leaders—by name, at times—and organized religion overall for using 9/11 as a source of demagoguery. The band didn’t toe the Support the Troops line its radio-rock peers 3 Doors Down and Linkin Park did. Disturbed pointed fingers in its music while Rage Against the Machine’s Zack de la Rocha and Tom Morello spoke their piece. System of a Down’s Serj Tankian took a gentler approach in an essay called "Understanding Oil," asking for context, peace and togetherness while about to embark on a U.S. tour called—shit you not—The Pledge of Allegiance Tour. They were noble efforts, but country artists had gained control of the post-9/11 American zeitgeist.
There’s an irony in that. Rock artists were some of the most openly patriotic and of service after 9/11, they just weren’t dicks about it. Except for maybe Kid Rock who, surprising absolutely no one, was a dick about it. In terms of sheer enthusiasm, he led rock’s patriotic post-9/11/pro-Iraq War response, doubling down on his "American Badass" jingoism. The network-TV telethon response was predominantly rock and pop artists who led massive fundraising efforts. America: A Tribute to Heroes and The Concert for New York City were a Who’s Who of mostly rock musicians. And they were acknowledged—barely, momentarily—over country’s screaming "God Bless the U.S.A." squall. Indeed, mainstream rock seemed largely inert or perfunctory in its response, at least in comparison to country, falling short on anything truly rocking the boat. Certainly in terms of protest, 40 years after the first anti-war/pro-civil rights songs of the '60s, rock choked.
Neil Young, a legend of the era, seemed to flip flop after 9/11. Young took up the mantle of patriotism—tempered by his signature plainspoken storytelling and apolitical empathy—with his 2001 song "Let’s Roll", released just months after the attack, later re-releasing it on his 2002 LP Are You Passionate? It took him about five years more to cut an anti-Bush protest song, "Let’s Impeach the President", for 2006’s Living With War.
