Bowie songs of the year #1: “It’s No Game” (1980) Part 1: Recap and the Issue

Recap
This “songs of the year” project was an attempt to use Bowie songs to represent what to my thinking were the most significant issues of 2022. What do I mean by significant? What do I mean by “issues?” I didn’t really spend too much time contemplating working definitions for either, though “issues” and “stories” are roughly synonymous. Many of the previous nine issues are interrelated. Six of the nine have something to do with the effects of, or aspiration toward, authoritarianism.

A quick recap and explanation: Numbers 8-10 were really not related to authoritarianism. Song #10, “Repetition,” represented the Amber Heard v. Johnny Depp trial. #9, “Space Oddity” represented the images produced by the Webb Space telescope. #8, “Changes” represented the passing of Queen Elizabeth.

The rest, however have overlapping connections. #7, “What’s Really Happening,” represented the internet’s problem children such as Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Musk, along with Donald Trump and his Truth Social launch, have been using the internet to spread disinformation and promote a kind of politics that would be wrong to call “conservative” or “libertarian” — “authoritarian” is the polite word, though its hard to argue why “fascist” is inaccurate. I mentioned the collapse of the crypto-currency industry and since thenFTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried has been arrested for fraud, with prosecutors claiming that FTX was a scam, all along. In my eyes, this all goes hand-in-glove with a world view that rejects the idea of objective reality. There’s little daylight between the mechanism that makes Bankman-Fried’s get-rich-quick pitch and Trump’s MAGA pitch work. The pied-pipers ask their audience to ignore tough realities, blame others for their problems, and latch their hopes and dreams to magical promises. Snake-oil demagoguery has always been around, but the internet has enchanted its reach in everything from personal finance to politics.

#6, “Running Gun Blues,” represents all the mass shooting that took place this year. Many of these were motivated by the same ideology that the likes of Musk and Trump promote, but even those that were motivated by other twisted reasons were helped along by the gun culture and pro-gun laws fostered by adherents to this political worldview.

#5, “Scream Like a Baby” represented the crackdown that those pro-authoritarians in power have been perpetrating against the vulnerable, such as the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. #4, “Wild Eyed Boy from Freecould,” represented the impacts of human neglect and abuse on nature, such as the ongoing covid pandemic and climate change, the denial of which again is an especially anti-empirical tenant of the pro-authoritarians.

#3, “How Does the Grass Grow” stands in for Putin’s War against Ukraine (no further explanation needed), and “#2, “1984” represents the aspirational goals of the movement. Since my post, German authorities busted a significant Q-Anon linked conspiracy to overthrow the German government and replace it with a dictatorial monarchy. Reports indicated that conspirators were in parent inspired by than American January 6th conspirators. There should be no confusion about what this movement ultimately wants.

The #1 Issue/Story of the Year
That brings us to #1, “Its No Game,” which I’m using to represent the resistance to all that. Though I didn’t know about the German situation at the time I picked this song, that’s one type of democratic resistance to violent authoritarianism. In the United States, the resistance took many forms, including but not limited to the January 6th Commission hearings, the Justice Department’s appointment of a special prosecutor to take over Trump-related cases, and perhaps most important of all, re-mid term election results that seemed to distinguish between Republicans and authoritarians.

The victories were far from absolute. Some of the authoritarian candidates won. In the midst of the better-than-expected performance by Democrats, I don’t think everyone cheering fully appreciates what chaos will likely stem from the Republican takeover of the U.S. House. Also, while it at least seems like more of the clashes between word-views ended up with the authoritarians on the losing side, too many were too close. This was most obvious in the cases of close elections (how is it that Herschel Walker did as well as he did), but also in other forums (consider Judge Aileen Cannon’s various rulings in favor of Trump in the documents case). Internationally, for every defeat of a Bolsonaro there was the election of a Gloria Meloni (the neo-fascist who became Prime Minister of Italy).

I chose resistance as the issue or story of the year because resistance is more hopeful than the onslaught of forces being resisted. Also, from my personal exposure to ness coverage, the emphasis seemed to have more on the resisters than the assailants. Even something like the Buffalo shooting was covered more in terms of community reaction than the actual, horrific act.

Finally, resistance ties together most of the other themes of the year. Resistance comes close to the year’s meta-story.

So why did I chose “It’s No Game” to represent the issue? Come back tomorrow for Part 2.