Comments: 8

• Ursula from Alberta CanadaToo bad we are almost in the same place. How pathetic that we still let these Bolcheviks make us fight useless wars. You think we would know better by now. I’m personally sick of these “Lawyers” and bankers running our lives and destroying our societies. Time for a Revolution. Time to rise up against the planners of the Great Reset. Over my dead body commies. Lol
• Ruthless from The Deep SouthGood song. Funny how the marxists ended up in the US and not Russia.
• Zameb from LimaWell, the lyrics doesn't have much sense to me. Yes, I think it is interesting to think what happens when an enemy disappears. Some sense of emptiness may remain. That's the interesting part, but I think the lyrics are too much for saying little else than that.
  Lirically, is a very simple song with an interesting point of reflectiveness.
  Maybe Jackson is right and I'm not profound enough to get the message.
  But, musically, I think this is a beautiful piece of upbeat pop song. I had it on my mind without knowing the author, the name or any lyrics. But I was trying to identify it. Finally, I heard it in a 80s compilation and was even better than I remember.
• Susants from San FranciscoWill see him w James Taylor tomorrow!!
• Rnmorton from West Chester PaI just heard this on 80's on 8 and it reminded me that this was the dumbest song I've ever heard. For me, this eternally pushed Jackson well into the meaningless Pop category. The video was equally un-entertaining. Finding out the "message"(?) of the song on songfacts doesn't help me. Arrogant, smarmy, yet stupid all in one.
• Sdps from ErrfHe's wrong about his own premise.
  
  Nobody in America at that time thought that "there would be nothing in the world if there were no Russians." That makes absolutely no sense and I'm at a loss to understand where in the world such an idea came from. And to refer to it as some sort of mass, majoritarian "delusion" at that, is even more nonsensical. There certainly is a delusion at work here, but it is not among the American people or their society at this time. Perhaps this all really was solely a social critique and Browne came up with this political angle after the fact to attain some sort of desired relevance or cache he thought he needed in interviews. Or perhaps this really was his own honest premise turned outward on the world and misapplied to the whole country at the time. As Browne himself admits, NOBODY interpreted the song in that political way, signaling an attempt at artistic communication that failed due solely to the fact that its message was stupid and wrong. "Political affairs are also much less clear to the younger generations than I thought". As are the methods of using effective metaphors and artistic communication to the musician/songwriter, much less clear as well, eh?
  
  The mention of the russians (soviet union e.g. bolsheviks, trotskyists, MARXIST communists) was a common device in pop music from this time period. This was because a certain group of influential rootless cosmopolitan types were very very upset at the looming eventual failure of their grand experiment on the earth in the soviet union which everyone could see was nothing more than a poor, brutal, terrible, satanic God-less regime--unless they were delusional, of course. This came out in the music (99 luft balloons--nina; gods of war, def leppard; 1999 & let's go crazy, prince; land of confusion, genesis and many many other titles) and other pop-culture nomenclature of the time. In its purest and most overt sense, this anger manifested as the outright hysterical fear-mongering of an all-encompassing nuclear annihilation of us all, and the clear demonization of the "stupid old man" (Ronald Reagan) who was single handedly going to bring it about, along with anyone who voted for or supported him.
  
  Well, as we all know there was no world annihilation (not thru nukes anyway). Seven years after this song hit the charts, the soviet union was a memory, ending not with a bang, but a whimper. It all just eventually collapsed, as it had to. Just as any 21 year old east german border guard across the wire from you at checkpoint charlie during a slow period at 0300 hrs in 1973, would've told you. And did.
  
  Good tune though, anyway.
• Eric from San Francisco, CaThis album does not seem political to me, probably his least significant. Although I find Cut it Away to be an unbelivably gut wrenching son. Lives in the Balance and World in Motion are more poltical/social
• Mary from Phoenix, AzHa! I totally remember this video! It brings me back to my MTV teen years!

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