In certain corners of the Internet, there has been much talk about the absolute state of Americans. This can be heard especially from Europeans, who feel as though the United States is actively hindering them from addressing the crucial problems suffered by European countries and indeed all Western nations. We here at the OGC stand in solidarity and brotherhood with our European friends. We wish them success in these dark times.
The Old Glory Club was begun in part to address the concerns and criticisms of European friends who were lamenting the state of affairs. We were tired of hearing about how we were the problem, and we wished to create the organizations that we will need in order to reclaim our rightful homes — as success for us equals success for them. But we see ourselves as equally powerless in current year, equally as adrift in the tides of history.
The great desire to find authenticity in our postmodern hellscape is one which will require a renewed sense of rootedness. The feeling seems to be that we have all run into a dead end. Naturally, when a dead end is encountered, the only way out is the way back, until a new path can be taken. It’s like a basic flow chart, or tree model, really.
The rejection of Boomer Truth will require, to a certain extent, a rejection of what it has meant to be an American for the past few decades. But the greater sense of rootedness that we desire will require a re-mooring to what we are (i.e., descended from European stock).
But what exactly will be left behind as the cost? What has to be cast aside for us to RETVRN to a more authentic sense of ourselves? If we are a musical civilization, then the deepest cuts will be to music. How much of Boomer Radio was black-influenced? Let’s take a few examples. First, Elvis’s original big hit is arguably “Hound Dog.” “Hound Dog” was performed in a slightly different way a few years earlier by “Big Mama” Thornton. The song “Black Betty” was a Lead Belly tune and work song before Ram Jam sang it. Ultimately, the musical influence on a stereotypically Boomer genre such as Rock n’ Roll is not just one of backwoods Scots-Irish and Anglo folk tunes like Led Zeppelin’s “Gallows Pole.” It also includes quite obviously blues-influenced riffs like George Thorogood and the Destroyers’ “Madison Blues,” “One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer,” and “Delaware Slide.” Not to mention Stevie Ray Vaughan’s “Pride and Joy,” “Texas Flood,” etc. Oh, and how could we forget that the most iconic of Boomer musical references, Jimi Hendrix of Woodstock fame, first sang “Little Wing”? SRV later covered it. The musical overlap is far too much to describe comprehensively here. Even modern country artists now collaborate with rappers, to create a new genre called country rap, or, as I like to call it, crap. Modern artists like Dorothy or Adele sing basically black music marketed to largely white audiences.
We must return to a more authentic cultural form of ourselves. The Faustian Man is musical. So, when our European friends criticize, it is the music that they hear which is most enthralling yet grating to them. What is America to non-Americans? It is its music. At the height of America’s economic, political, military, and cultural power, these are the cultural forms which are perceived as uniquely American. For those outside of America, there appears to be no meaningful difference in culture between the constituent groups inside these United States. We must try to remember how European we really are. If our civilization is to escape the mind trap of Boomer Truth, it is likely that we must free it of everything the Boomers ever stood for. Everything.
Baby please don’t go
Baby please don't go
Baby please don't go
Down to New Orleans
You know I love you so
Baby please don’t go
Baby, your mind done gone
Well, your mind done gone
Well, your mind done gone
Left the county farm
You had the shackles on
Baby please don’t go
The fusion of various musical styles is one of the great triumphs of America. Having grown up with Boomer music, I find this influence to be rich and interesting, especially those influences from black communities. Aretha Franklin, Michael Jackson, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles. Such great talents. In my own community, I collaborate with black Christians and have sung gospel music at black churches. I think we can appreciate our own cultural influence and heritage without disparaging others’.
If we “de-Africanize” music we will lose most modern genres of music: rock, Jazz, blues, most folk genres not to mention all of the Latin American styles and dances. European culture has no syncopation pre African exchange. We have hymns, classical, plain chant, and proto-folk old time music. I love those genres but what you are describing is a radical impoverishment of the human musical lexicon.