Well, I’d say that is a fairly unambiguous message. Pretty bold and telling it like it is. I guess the question it raises is not so much why a band would want to write a song so lyrically blunt and to the point but why they would feel the need to.
Like all of my favourite music, “Don’t Be A Fascist” is the perfect blend of melody and message; it works as a stand-alone piece of music, but it also carries some powerful and poignant lyrics. Musically it gyrates with new-wave nervousness, angularity and fractious energy whilst it recalls cold war discomforts, which sadly appear with increased frequency and ferocity on modern horizons, fanned by the self-interests of the likes of Nigel Farage, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Vladimir Putin, or whichever despotic crazy parading as popular politico is local to you.
But there is something in there, too, which goes beyond the contemporary indie music world and embraces the music hall theatrics of the pre-war days, that blend of subversive art and decadence associated with the Weimar Republic days. The result is the sound of The Pop Group being the house band at The Kit Kat Club whilst Sally Bowles recites the Communist Manifesto, and Christopher Isherwood makes a mental note to book tickets out of Berlin.
The beat is unapologetically krautrock, the groove funky, the tone dark and cautionary. Dance music for a new cold war era? Well, if it is all going to kick off, we might have something as cool and fun and stark and subversive as this to dance to as the world falls apart!
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