Weekly Finale: Dogma

For this week's musical finale, I am revisiting the industrial rock band KMFDM again (I reviewed their song "Juke Joint Jezebel" a few weeks ago), and specifically their 1996 song, "Dogma" (note the following video is NSFW and quite graphic):


"Dogma" is one of those rare songs where the lyrics are far more important than the music. In fact, I would call this more of a poetry reading set to music.

But what a powerful poem it is. It starts with a head-nodding sucker punch (all lyrics taken from Genius):

"All we want is a head-rush
All we want is to get out of our skin for a while
We have nothing to lose because we don't have anything
Anything we want anyway..."

The rest of the song is filled with clever lines which I wish I had written:

"And all we are waiting for is for something worth waiting for"

"Let's admit America gets the celebrities we deserve
Let's stop saying, "Don't quote me" because if no one quotes you
You probably haven't said a thing worth saying"

"We need something to kill the pain of all that nothing inside"

"We fear that pop-culture is the only kind
Of culture we're ever going to have
We want to stop reading magazines
Stop watching TV
Stop caring about Hollywood
But we're addicted to the things we hate"

"We don't run Washington and no one really does
Ask not what you can do for your country
Ask what your country did to you"

"We owe so much money, we're not broke - we're broken
We're so poor we can't even pay attention"

"...you're terrified you have nothing to offer this world
Nothing to say and no way to say it
But you can say it in three languages"

"Let's stop praying for someone to save us and start saving ourselves
Let's stop this and start over
Let's go out - let's keep going"

"Quit whining, you haven't done anything wrong because frankly
You haven't done much of anything" 

Between all these pithy lines, the chorus is a chant of:

"(Sex, drugs, God, cash
Sex, drugs, God... America)" 

This song could have been just as easily called "Societal Intervention", because that is what it sounds like, until we get to the end:

"Someone's writing down your mistakes
Someone's documenting your downfall"

In the end, this song holds out no hope for America. You can call it the wrong attitude, but can you really call the rest of the song wrong?

That is the last thing for you to ponder for this week. Enjoy your weekend, and I will return for more blogging on Monday.