Soundtracked

Handlebars

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This week's theme: One Hit Wonders

I don't normally care for fan-made videos...usually they seem to run counter to my personal expectations or interpretations of the subject matter. But every once in awhile one will come along and it just blows me away, without explanation. When someone uses their creative genius in a way that tops the original, artist-backed submission, it's a beautiful thing.

And I don't remember how I first came across "Handlebars" by Flobots. It was fairly popular right around the time I first started blogging, so maybe eight years ago? I know it's showed up in some of my earliest entries, perhaps in the first year or so? I'm not going to try and look it up...that was before embedding videos was the way to go, and there is no way I'm gonna sift through that mess and click on blind links .

But anyway, the song itself is unique and starts off harmless before building into an impassioned dystopian view that unchecked power will destroy the world. The point is something like this: We have all this technology and intelligence, but we use it more for evil instead of good. From the song's Wikipedia page  : "And it's tragic to me that the appetite for military innovation is endless, but when it comes to taking on a project like ending world hunger, it's seen as outlandish." It's like the powers that be have given up on the idea that peace and goodwill can be profitable, and instead have turned their efforts toward bigger armies that fuel the war industry. There is more money in death and destruction than true prosperity.

You could also look at it from the original video's perspective   that there is a war going on against the middle class of society. Everything is run by giant corporations and CEOs making decisions for us that often have little at stake other than their giant bonuses and profit margins. When the workers don't meet certain expectations and are doing a job they may not believe in because they're just trying to provide for a family, they are the first ones to feel the pinch of the corporate purse strings tightening. And when the employees begin to fight back, on a good day they'll be replaced by someone willing to keep their mouth shut and do the same job for less pay...best-case scenario. When that corporation is a government and the worst-case scenario is an uprising, well, you don't need me to tell you what that means...to say that "everyone loses" would be putting it mildly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that governments have let certain industries get too big and too out of control to consider that they're failing people everywhere. The banking industry and Wall St., the automobile companies and their bail-outs, the water crisis in Flint, MI that has been poisoning citizens for a couple years now...rather than take creative approaches to solving these problems, the easy answer seems to be "Let's just throw some money at it and it'll go away." But it doesn't. The affects suffered by those who have lost the most will be lifelong, while the people in charge can bathe in their personally-appointed salaries and escape in golden parachutes. It's disgusting, and those who run things should be above that as decent human beings first...but they're not.

Anyway, that's enough of my ranting on the state of the world's affairs. I know I picked up the cd Fight With Tools   shortly after it came out, and I'm bummed I no longer own it. "Handlebars" hit #3 on Billboard's Modern Rock chart, and was one of the quickest singles at the time to reach the Top Ten. At some point I got their second album from iTunes, but I wasn't as into it. The biggest reason I went with "Handlebars" today was because a Flobots song shuffled up while I was doing some other random stuff last night, and whenever that happens I'm like "Damn...I wish I still had that first disc." I guess that's the nature of 1HWs.

"I can hand out a million vaccinations, or let 'em all die in exasperation...
have all healed from their lacerations, or have 'em all killed by assassinations."
Lyrics.