Revolution #005, June 12, 2005, posted at revcom.us
Nine Inch Nails refused to play the MTV Movie Awards after MTV decided to act as political censors. The band was scheduled to play the song "The Hand That Feeds" from their new top-selling album With Teeth. Apparently MTV had a problem with the scheduled performance.
The song "The Hand that Feeds" is a hard-rocking, timely, and provocative challenge to the war, holy crusades, not going along with the program and biting "The Hand That Feeds" you shit. Nine Inch Nails planned to play the song with a photo of Bush as a backdrop.
JEERS to MTV who felt "uncomfortable" with Nine Inch Nails' "performance being built around a partisan political statement." Who in the Bush administration delegated the role of political culture police to MTV?!
CHEERS to Trent Reznor, lead singer of Nine Inch Nails, for standing on the very principles being called for in their song "The Hand That Feeds." Reznor stated on their website: "Nine Inch Nails will not be performing at the MTV movie awards as previously announced. We were set to perform 'The Hand That Feeds' with an unmolested straightforward image of George W. Bush as the backdrop. Apparently the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me. See you on tour this fall when we return to play in America."
In the context of a society increasingly demanding blind acquiescence to war and empire and rising Christian Fascism, Nine Inch Nails' "The Hand That Feeds" is right on time.
The Hand That Feeds
You're keeping in step
In the line
Got your chin held high and you feel just fine
Because you do
What you're told
But inside your heart it is black and it's hollow and it's coldJust how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?What if this whole crusade's
A charade
And behind it all there's a price to be paid
For the blood
On which we dine
Justified in the name of the holy and the divineJust how deep do you believe?
Will you bite the hand that feeds?
Will you chew until it bleeds?
Can you get up off your knees?
Are you brave enough to see?
Do you want to change it?So naive
I keep holding on to what I want to believe
I can see
But I keep holding on and on and on and onWill you bite the hand that feeds you?
Will you stay down on your knees?......
****
In just three minutes of stripped-down strumming and scathing lyrics, the disgust of half the country with a president who fancies himself on a mission from God was finally blurted out before a viewing audience of millions. This immediately spread to many more through internet bloggers and the controversy it generated. Cheers to Conor Oberst of Bright Eyes - whose songs have tapped into the alienation of a generation in a way uniquely infused with hope and connection, even responsibility, to others. The young Nebraskan wrote "When the President Talks to God," which calls out Bush's (and his God's) wars on women, other countries, the ghettos and the truth, in the bitter hours of Bush's re-inauguration. On May 2nd he performed it on Jay Leno's show sounding a bit like Dylan mixed with The Cure with daring, defiant anger, and—rather poetically—a cowboy hat perched on his head. Touché George Bush! Looks like you are one butt-naked emperor!
View video here: http://homepage.mac.com/onegoodmove/movies/leno050205brighteyes.html
When The President Talks To God
When the president talks to God
Are the conversations brief or long?
Does he ask to rape our women's rights
And send poor farm kids off to die?
Does God suggest an oil hike
When the president talks to God?When the president talks to God
Are the consonants all hard or soft?
Is he resolute all down the line?
Is every issue black or white?
Does what God say ever change his mind
When the president talks to God?When the president talks to God
Does he fake that drawl or merely nod?
Agree which convicts should be killed?
Where prisons should be built and filled?
Which voter fraud must be concealed
When the president talks to God?When the president talks to God
I wonder which one plays the better cop
We should find some jobs. the ghetto's broke
No, they're lazy, George, I say we don't
Just give 'em more liquor stores and dirty coke
That's what God recommendsWhen the president talks to God
Do they drink near beer and go play golf
While they pick which countries to invade
Which Muslim souls still can be saved?
I guess god just calls a spade a spade
When the president talks to GodWhen the president talks to God
Does he ever think that maybe he's not?
That that voice is just inside his head
When he kneels next to the presidential bed
Does he ever smell his own bullshit
When the president talks to God?I doubt it
I doubt it