This Was Supposed To Be The New World!

Happy Election Day, everybody!

Honest to goodness
The bars weren't open this morning
They must have been voting for a new president of something
Do you have a quarter?
I said, “Yes,” because I did
Honest to goodness, the tears have been falling
All over this country's face . . . .

I’ve seen X live five or six times since 2016. It’s rumored that some of the four band members are . . . let us say . . . populists. I had the great pleasure of meeting John Doe at his Folk Trio gig in L.A. a couple of weeks ago, and though the meeting was brief, he was a prince among men. He’s a populist, too, but in an anachronistic sense. He plays this song all the time and plays it well. But I think it has a different meaning for him. I wish I could have asked him about it.

At an X gig a while back, though, Exene Cervenka probably said it best: “The lyrics to this will be as true 60 years from now as they were when I wrote them.” She wrote the words sometime in 1982 or ’83. I suspect Exene knows something her ex-husband, John Doe, does not.

Happy Election Day! And shine, perishing Republic!