Well - since I might not really come around to write about it, I want to use the opportunity to write some words about my relationship with the Dubliners. It started as ... I suppose, though at the time that wasn't really a thing (at least to my understanding), a Meme. I wasn't really a Fan or even knew a track - but while I was in my DJ Genki Dharma phase I once scoured my Dad's CD collection for stuff to use. Primarily looking for something old and ... 'not Hip Hop' - thinking mostly of Bagpipes. So I fetched some of his Dubliners CD's and found some tracks I thought made for good content.
And so there they were - as part of my Remixes - being a thing somehow. So when I then got into my Matrixing phase, and ever so often grew tired of my playlist and switched things up, I once thought of mixing it up with tracks that wouldn't ... fit the mesh, as it were. And so, yep, well - I remembered "ye olde Band", though sure to the skeptical mind it wouldn't make much of a difference, I suppose. Even worse, perhaps, since they ... are some off brand lefties I suppose. Revolutionaries - perhaps. But I wouldn't really know what they were on about as I really only know what music I know of them. I'd think them to be entertainers that do ... play to 'the people's' sentiments. And so you'd get tracks like this one:

Which is clearly ... just comedy.

And that's true for a lot of the songs they sing. They are very non-committal, in a way, but we'll get to that.

From the Matrix Phenomenon stuff, people might know this one:


And ... well, I guess they aren't really 'known' for this song. Anyhow ... so, politics.

I'd think that it's worth listening to this song - though, in a similar vein one might also listen to Heal the World or Black or White or Man in the Mirror or Earth Song or They Don't Care About Us and ... I don't know. To say ... at the end of the day it's all probably just Music and we don't look for this kind of messaging therein - because we want to be entertained ... .
But I also think that there are like ... three types of artists. Give or take. Well, so in regards to politics. So are on the one hand those that do their art - and as they grow as such they exhibit a certain urge, interacting with the crowd that cheers them on, by inserting what might essentially amount to Critique or attempts at ... casting a Light on certain things they care about. To try to right some wrongs or maybe at the very least not be ignorant. And I'd argue that this usually is what people would identify as Left leaning.
Conversely then there are the Right leaning ones. We might call them propagandists - as rather than trying to get people to hear "the plights of man", they work to lull them into states of complacency. Which may be similar to the third group - which would be those in-between - but there are I think subtle differences as those on the right I think can also barely be described as artists. I mean, I suppose we can pull an Attack Helicopter joke on so called "Self Identified Comedians" - and the weird situation of seeing them perform to an audience that seems to enjoy them. But ... maybe I shouldn't be antagonizing so much here. But there still is that thing ...

The thing about alabama 58 to me, here, is; That the song at first is based on a very simple premise. We come from dark pasts - and we live in a better time. And while contemplating on this, we find that we maybe haven't really fully come to terms with that. And I imagine that Conservatives - by virtue of living in this day and age - happen to agree with that - at least ... to some extent. But taking it and just running with it, committing to it, to try and maybe take the ball across the line - that's like ... "woke".

And so we come to our next piece:


Also, clearly, this is comedy. And I suppose that in times of tension it might be downright irresponsible to share this song because it ... might not mix so well with a mind that is on edge and drained of emotional resources.
But in contrast to the previous track - this is like running the other way. It might help, so the idea, to speak of the things that are ordinarily left unspoken. And comedy can be a great way of doing so - I think.
I mean - sure, whatever one wants to slap a serious or a comedic face on is at the end of the day ... artistic freedom. Like so is any caricature/satire still representative of someone or something very real and probably serious.

And for what it's worth - I'd like people to maybe take a moment and contemplate over the energy they add to our civil/cultural evolution. I mean, to be on topic: Culture is an abstract - and whether we like it or not, or see it as such or not, culture is what we live. Any time we see culture as something external - maybe something in the past - it is merely an idea or an ideal. But that isn't really what I'm concerned about. We can for instance talk about festivities such as the Oktoberfest - which is like 'the ideal' brought to life - but it also somehow distracts from what culture is. Like, if we skipped ahead a hundred or a thousand years - anthropologists speaking of the culture that we live these days, they wouldn't speak of holidays as the end all be all of it. They'd speak of how we acted politically, in terms of work, our social dynamics and such.
And so this energy that we have, we might speak of it as leaning a certain way - so in terms of weight distribution. So when people speak angrily over the politicization of things, it is a way of criticizing people's behavior in these regards; As they'd take some issues that are presented to them as worth caring about; And thereby lean into certain directions that are deemed unhealthy or irresponsible.
It might be difficult to not be guilty of this - and maybe I should try, at this point, to advocate for a certain right way of using that energy. Because, sure, eventually the matter is very context sensitive. Though, alas, to calm down and try to meet one another on eye level ... to respect the interpersonal instead of the abstract ... might be a good start.

Anyway. I don't really have much of a point here. This thing just started as an idea to, for some reason, share what songs from the Dubliners I enjoy to a point where they aren't simply a Meme and more something I legitimately like. Round about the same time I had this topic on mind - and somehow, it seemed to match. Hence we come to our next song, which is:


It might be a bit of a genre in its own regards. Blues in a way. But in that vein, I also think it lines up with matters regarding "the Manosphere", as people call it. The point of contention might be whether it's like a left-wing or right-wing problem - or to which extent religiosity or such values might mitigate the perceived problems.
What I however would like to point out, is - and that also applies to the previous part - concern for the romanticizing of concepts. So, concepts such as "the Traditional Wife" or "High Quality Men" - though possibly strung to very legitimate qualities - is a very good setup for starting to chase dreams. Like Waterfalls. To the point that people lose focus of what's in front of them.
Very much like the poor fella of this song.

For this one it might actually be worth reading the Lyrics, and while there are many different versions the gist of them is pretty much the same. A dude gets ensnared by a woman and by a twist of events, that leads to him being accused of theft which leads to him being sent off to a penal colony. The story might not be very applicable; Or it might seem like it's in line with what the Manosphere types criticize. That being, roughly speaking, an environment in which non-Committal and 'female Freedom' enables women to cheat on men. In a variety of men.
But I also think that that is consequence of a certain hyper-fixation. And to some extent what I care about here also requires the next song for contrast. Ignoring the end of that song - it is the very opposite of the one in focus here. And if we want to play that game of Love - left versus right edition - it strikes me so, that Black Velvet Band is the song of the right, while:



the Nightingale is the song of the left. Although - to the eye - it might yet seem the other way around. Like so is the guy in this song a Soldier. One might focus on that. But he's also a musician, which again might speak of a different set of qualities. And what matters instead is the role given to Love.
I mean, I know people. At least - a set of people. And sure - conservatism and family, to me, is like a bad mix. Where, sure, at some point I also wanted to go on a rant on how "the Nuclear Family" sucks - how it is much to blame for the perils of the modern day. For how we grow further apart while chasing this dream of shutting ourselves off from the rest of the world into our own little oasis of happiness. But that isn't really the issue here.
But still ... "it takes a Village" ... is what people say. And nowadays it would seem as though that Village is the Internet, whether people like it or not - and if we can't get along, well, that means that the Village isn't much of a place for people to grow up in. But is that now a matter of perceived lifestyles on the left or the right?

Well, as for the right - they are the ones attempting to groom kids into being sexist misogynists, which would in turn encourage women to treat men like garbage. On the left, well, we care about individual persuasion and cooperation - within a relationship and outside - and with that, I feel like I have made my point.