Five Ways in which Of Montreal's "The Past is a Grotesque Animal" was the most Conservative Single of 2007

Wednesday, cigarette #1
Outside Sterling Memorial Library

1. "Things could be different/But they're not" is Burkean.

2. Any allusion to Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? is conservative, not so much because the play takes cheap shots at "progress" ("You're the one with all the chromosones or whatever they are who's going to make everyone the same?"), but because it puts the lie to every liberal ideology that relies on "narrativization."

3. Of Montreal developed out of the Athens quirk-rock tradition by change so slow and organic that it would have done Oakeshott proud; they didn't spring fully formed from Pitchfork's "New Band to Watch" laboratories.*

4. "None of our secrets are physical now" is clearly an endorsement of Ann Coulter's "new McCarthyism" which would blacklist people not only for passing state secrets to Communists, but for empathizing with Communists, ever agreeing with Communists, or looking like Communists. The lyric is an endorsement of HUAC-style witch-hunts.

5. "It's like we weren't made for this world,/Though I wouldn't really want to meet someone who was."

*A brief word about Pitchfork: After their straight-faced coverage of Camelstonegate ("We, the undersigned independent record labels wish to share our indignation regarding Rolling Stone's November 15th pull out editorial, which featured the names of our artists in conjunction with an ad for Camel cigarettes..."), I have taken my hits elsewhere. I don't need to be reminded that I live in a universe where a label called "Lovepump United" is embarrassed to be associated with tobacco, not the other way around.