Bob Mould chimes in with some inspiring words in The Big Takeover #57. Reading this quote gives me even more hope because it comes from a guy who lived in a very similar climate in the 1980s:
"It's gotta change. And it will change. And I tell my younger friends-people that are in their late-20s to mid-30s, when they get panicked and worried-we went through this before, 20 years ago, in the Reagan years. We got out on the other side. It took awhile, and a lot of damage got done, and a lot of lives were lost in a different way in the '80s, but you get through it, you know?"
I was born in '79 and was very oblivious to what was going on in the world. I kept hearing about "Star Wars" on the news, but I always thought they were talking about my favorite movie. I remember being very annoyed that I couldn't watch cartoons one morning because some guy named Oliver North was giving testimony. I remember lampooning Reagan's voice in a talent show in elementary school and seeing the man be lampooned in videos like Genesis' "Land of Confusion". I heard about AIDS and was aware of super-rich people, but everything else that the '80s "stood" for (greed, poverty, AIDS, bad hair, tacky clothing, synth-pop, hair metal) were not big deals for me.
Seeing so many trends these days take a cue from trends in the '80s, I often think that we are reliving the '80s. Whenever I hear somebody around me or read someone's writing somewhere fearing for the worst about where our culture is supposedly headed, Bob's quote comes with a great degree of comfort. Our climate is not gonna change overnight, but it will change.
"It's gotta change. And it will change. And I tell my younger friends-people that are in their late-20s to mid-30s, when they get panicked and worried-we went through this before, 20 years ago, in the Reagan years. We got out on the other side. It took awhile, and a lot of damage got done, and a lot of lives were lost in a different way in the '80s, but you get through it, you know?"
I was born in '79 and was very oblivious to what was going on in the world. I kept hearing about "Star Wars" on the news, but I always thought they were talking about my favorite movie. I remember being very annoyed that I couldn't watch cartoons one morning because some guy named Oliver North was giving testimony. I remember lampooning Reagan's voice in a talent show in elementary school and seeing the man be lampooned in videos like Genesis' "Land of Confusion". I heard about AIDS and was aware of super-rich people, but everything else that the '80s "stood" for (greed, poverty, AIDS, bad hair, tacky clothing, synth-pop, hair metal) were not big deals for me.
Seeing so many trends these days take a cue from trends in the '80s, I often think that we are reliving the '80s. Whenever I hear somebody around me or read someone's writing somewhere fearing for the worst about where our culture is supposedly headed, Bob's quote comes with a great degree of comfort. Our climate is not gonna change overnight, but it will change.
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