North American Scum

Matthew's post today discusses the greatness of LCD Soundsystem's "North American Scum," which I've been meaning to write about for a while. Matthew's right--there are other great songs on the album, and there's a certain connection with them, but NAS is the song whose lyrics are truly, 100% great. It is, at its heart, a very patriotic song, especially if you take patriotism to be a love of where you're from rather than a particular set of gestures and symbols.

I do like "All My Friends" but so many people have clutched it tight to their bosom that it almost makes me a little suspicious about the degree to which it panders to its audience. (Which is fine--I do watch the CW, after all--but it is somewhat contrary to the ideas expressed in the song.) They're much more emotional songs, certainly. But NAS is practically a Leonard Cohen song in its complexity, the twists and turns it undergoes in its verses, and the cross-talk between the verses; it manages to express an ambivalence that tends to get trampled underfoot, and to do so in a song that you perform on Letterman--and have almost no one get it--is maybe what LCD Soundsystem is ultimately all about. So let us examine.

The song can be seen as a speech divided into three sections (the three verses), all serving a central argument that goes something like this: while there are certainly objections you can make to America, the way in which it is often done, especially by Europeans, demonstrates exactly the sort of cultural ignorance of which America is being accused. The first verse establishes his credentials, the second tries to answer some of the criticisms, and the final verse forcefully makes his point, with a caveat or two.

The first verse, as I say, is about establishing his credentials, which is unsurprising for a James Murphy song, but is necessary here, since the opinion he's disputing is that Americans don't care about the rest of the world. And so he makes it very clear that he is speaking as himself, the frontman of LCD Soundsystem, not as a character, by making the "we're from England" joke, which is funny but also clearly identifies the speaker. And as the frontman of LCD Soundsystem, he has seen lots of Europe, having "been on trains...far from North America...where the buildings are old." So he knows what he's talking about; he's not being ignorantly jingoistic here, but has made a reasoned and informed decision.

But in these places where the buildings are old, he has had some frustrating conversations. "I don't know where to begin" with arguing against the things he's heard said. But the problem is, he doesn't know where to begin; in the context of a conversation, there's not time to explain all this, and since there's no commonly-held idea about there that he can refer to, he's at a disadvantage, since his conversational partner can conjure up the "ignorant American" stereotype without even thinking. And so, instead of getting into it, he "makes it go away" by pretending to agree. He "hates the feeling" but knows "we make the same mistakes all over again," and he has places to be; to make his point, it requires, well, a 5-minute song, and that's not something you can just slip into conversation.

So by the end of the first verse, he's established his credentials as someone who's very familiar with Europe, and has established the problem as people making him feel embarassed for being an American, and having no easy way to deal with that situation--thus this song.

The second verse is all about establishing differences--that America is a different place than Europe (for one thing, it's gigantic, although he doesn't say this explicitly), and that you can't then blame people for being different when they've grown up in a different environment. Specifically, it's a bit of a cultural wasteland--the kids want to be culturally vibrant, "want to make the scene," but the resources just aren't there; instead they're reduced to yearners and observers, ones who have "to read it in your magazines," i.e. European magazines. These constantly stress that Europe is important and America is not, that it's a cultural backwater, and because a sort of self-loathing has been cultivated amongst Americans of taste, there's no countervalent force to that, nothing that says that you can have a "party" anywhere. But there are strong institutional forces against it ("the cops come in and bust it up," "my parents got pretty upset"), and so Americans can't move forward, since after all "the more i do it the better it gets." This is a sort of aesthetic criticism of American culture as a whole, arguing that you have to take it on its own terms.

A word, though, on the word "party." In the context of the album, especially "New York I love you," the mentions of parties in the second verse can be seen as a complaint against New York's particular anti-party laws (the cabaret laws, noise ordinences, etc.). But in general, I think you have to read his use of "party" as not specific to parties per se, but as an invocation of an ecstatic state, one that can be found many places besides at a party, but it's a good shorthand.

It's interesting here to read it in the other sense of "party," as a political party, since a lot of anti-Americanism is premised on America's foreign policy being bad. So the second verse becomes an argument that you can't equate America and its president, that there are lots of people who want to be included, but they can't, because of the above-mentioned institutional pressures. We can't start our own party because the cops would bust it up, but just because there's no organized place for expressing our political views doesn't mean they don't exist, or that they're not significant. Being anti-American because of George Bush's policies amounts to its own cultural ignorance, because Americans aren't like that; you're working from a stereotype no more informed than the dirty Frenchman motif. And worse, it actually represents the opposite of the views of the person you're talking to, like calling an OCD man from Paris a dirty Frenchman.

The third verse is so good, and so key, I think it's best taken line-by line.

"New York's the greatest if you get someone to pay the rent." I acknowledge that there are certain class issues in elevating New York City as an argument for America's awesomeness.

"But it's the furthest you can live from the government." Nevertheless, for whatever you want to say about America, you have to acknowledge New York City's existence as a place that contradicts everything you might say about it right smack dab within its borders, a beacon for those scattered around the country who might want to escape the influence of the dominant culture. New York's policies often directly contradict those of the federal government--it welcomes immigrants, it opposes the death penalty, it has its own brand of free condoms, it provides protection for minority rights, and it celebrates the arts. It's a city where everyone is welcome, probably the most cosmopolitan city on earth, and that's a miraculous thing given its geographic distance from Washington. You can't get away from the government's policies in California, but if you're a gay Honduran abortionist who pees on the flag and calls it art, you'll be safe in New York. And New York is just the most visible manifestation of the existence of little pockets of resistence that exist everywhere, pockets that might be more aware of each other's existence if the cultural influences we look up to didn't make it look cool to be ashamed of where you're from, to pretend like you're the only one that gets it. You're not; there's a whole city that does. And you can't just ignore it.

"Some proud American Christians might disagree." I acknowledge that there are Americans who hold abhorrant beliefs, but I disagree with them as well.

"But New York's the only place we're keeping them off the street." It's strange for people who've lived in New York for any amount of time, but people are genuinely intimidated by the city, to the point where they won't even visit. It is overwhelming and confusing, and for people who think that homosexuals, atheists, and feminists live lives of filth and shame, it can be off-putting to see someone who might embody all three of those qualities pushing a double-wide stroller down tree-lined streets and saying hello to their neighbors. (Similarly, it can be off-putting for people who think that most Americans are openly intolerant idiots to engage with the rest of the country.) There are places in America where the Christian worldview dominates, but not in New York. There is a necessary cultural pluralism there, one which doesn't require everyone to be nice to each other, but which admits there are so many different sets of values here that no one set can be enforced. It's a stunning couplet, one that almost perfectly captures the feeling of being back in New York after some time away from it. New York proves that there are enough people to drown out the version of America that people find distasteful, and those people are all Ameicans, too.

"We can't have parties like in Spain where they go all night, or like Berlin where they go another night, alright!" The things you're looking for in America aren't there because it is a different place than where you're from. By looking for specific indicators of cultural vitality, you're ignoring the quality itself, which is in abundant supply. You have to take it on its own terms, just as you'd expect me to take your culture on its own terms.

"You see I love this place that I have grown to know." OK, I'll admit it--I didn't always like America so much. Once I, too, accused it of all the multifarious sins that are conjured in your head when you break out the anti-American bullshit. But now I've grown to know it; I was culturally ignorant, but of my home country. And now that I know it, I love it. American culture is what made me.

"And yeah, I know you wouldn't touch us with a ten-foot pole, 'cause we're North Americans." And fuck you, asshole. You're sitting here, listening to my music--listening to American music--and you're pretending like it's an exception to the rule, like I share your values. Well, I don't. In fact, I think you're a jackass. You make us into these second-class world citizens on the basis of things we have nothing to do with, and it's plain ignorant. You wouldn't touch us with a ten-foot pole, but here you are, listening to me. How does that make sense? Do you know anything about America? Have you been to New York? You expect me to come see your countries before I can say anything about them, and then you make these snap judgments about where I'm from without even having been there? Fuck you. New York is the greatest city in the world, the most diverse, most vibrant, and it's part of America. It's having these things to push up against that encourages us to do what we do, and it's having all these other people around us in the city that gets it done.

"North American Scum" is a burst of true patriotism (leftist patriotism, if you need it spelled out) from an unlikely place, and a potent condensation of an argument that a lot of us have wanted to make for years. It's an assertion of the vitality of American culture, and a signpost to be pointed to every time someone wants to "look at me that way." Who're you calling scum?

Labels: lcd soundsystem, new york, pop

posted by Mike B. @ 4:27 PM