Is the original Prog left-wing?

MoebiusStreet wrote: I'm surprised nobody's mentioned Rush. They're certainly not Progressive - see The Trees for example. Their leaning is at least individualist (as opposed to the Progressive communitarian foundations) - see Anthem, 2112. I don't think you could call them conservative, but at least a little bit libertarian ("his mind is not for rent / to any god or government").

Rush's earlier musical take on Rand, 1975's unimaginatively titled "Anthem," is more problematic [than 2112], railing against the kind of generosity that Peart now routinely practices: "Begging hands and bleeding hearts will/Only cry out for more." And "The Trees," an allegorical power ballad about maples dooming a forest by agitating for "equal rights" with lofty oaks, was strident enough to convince a young Rand Paul that he had finally found a right-wing rock band.

Peart outgrew his Ayn Rand phase years ago, and now describes himself as a "bleeding-heart libertarian," citing his trips to Africa as transformative. He claims to stand by the message of "The Trees," but other than that, his bleeding-heart side seems dominant. Peart just became a U.S. citizen, and he is unlikely to vote for Rand Paul, or any Republican. Peart says that it's "very obvious" that Paul "hates women and brown people" — and Rush sent a cease-and-desist order to get Paul to stop quoting "The Trees" in his speeches.

"For a person of my sensibility, you're only left with the Democratic party," says Peart, who also calls George W. Bush "an instrument of evil." "If you're a compassionate person at all. The whole health-care thing — denying mercy to suffering people? What? This is Christian?"

infandous wrote: ... Quote from Greg Lake:  "'Epitaph' is basically a song about looking with confusion upon a world gone mad.

And I will immediately say ... that Greg, obviously, did not read or pay attention to what he was singing?

What he says that comment, it is a generic comment that fits better the work in 21st Century Schizoid Man, than it does Epitah.

Read this again ...

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams
Upon the instruments of death
The sunlight brightly gleams
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
When silence drowns the screams

Now think of an explosion that just went off and the heck it created, and how many nightmares were created, and how silence drowned the screams (after the explosion and flash of light) ... and if there ever was a better allusion about bombs and explosions ... you and I probably missed them, then!

As clear as can be ...

Confusion will be my epitaph
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back and laugh,
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying,
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying
Yes I fear tomorrow I'll be crying

And this is how you feel, if you lose a special friend in that explosion and moment ... and by the time you make some sense of it, you can't ... and crying is next. You misss your friend, or loved one.

I can not find a better description of loving someone and losing them ... to a senseless war, a senseless bomb, and a senseless idealilsm. And that is what this is about ... plain and simple.

infandous wrote: ... King Crimson had a strange ability to write about the future in an extremely prophetic way and the messages this song contains are even more relative today than they were when the song was originally written." ...

I disagree. KC and many of their lyrics were more about the "here and now" and understanding of the moment of its happening, than our ideas. That these feelings and ideas endup being thought as prophetic, is actually wrong, since there is nothing prophetic about the whole album (ITCCK), but its poetic commentary is more with it and alive, than most ideas!

infandous wrote: ... There is no question that "progressive rock" of the 70's was mostly a product of Liberal ideals and notions.  That doesn't mean that all progressive rockers were Liberals by any means.  I suspect most of them didn't give much thought to their political orientation.

Some did and some didn't. In Germany, a couple of communes were involved in other activities that were not exactly thought of as correct, or proper, and this may have hurt a band or two that we're not aware of. But saying that a republican in America is not smart enough to create a Rolling Stones to expouse their capitalist ideals that allows them to have ... anything they want! Americans would like that!

It went both ways, however, the "so-called" leftist side of things, became known as that, because the "right" side is always the government, but this is a horrible corruption of the terminology, and it ends up placing all of us in a generic mode that is not reflective of the real situation.

However, if you, or I, stated that we intentionally hid the political thoughts to prevent the government or others fro buffing me, as happened in Portugal, Spain and many other places since, then the whole thing changes ... all of a sudden, Peter Gabriel's lyrics are not that scary, or weird, or off center. And neither are anyone else's!

There always is, some sort of social comment, not all the time, but many times ... however, this opens itself up to ridicule and criticism, since the first thing a comedian will pick on is the mania centered on one thing only! And George Carlin, let us have it, let me tell you ... you found out how hippocritical you/I/we were real quick!