If I can find an excuse to spotlight a particular music video, then I try to take advantage of it. This is one of those days. Today is the anniversary of the beginning of the Gulf War. This song happened to be the first one played on Armed Forces Radio when that war began. Apparently since then all sorts of nonsense has been piled onto the shoulders of this song. I really didn’t need to know that this is apparently considered to be one of the most “Conservative Rock Songs”. Sure, that makes perfect sense. The music video shows both a Muslim and a Rabbi running around, having a good time, and then going to a concert by The Clash. They also throw in capitalism, consumerism, oil, and immigration. Yes, it’s very political. It’s a song by The Clash, but it turns my stomach to think that it has been co-opted like it has for such a purpose. Can we perfect that green goo from Re-Animator (1985), bring back Joe Strummer, and let him tell people what he thinks about it?

The thing I love about this video is its’ interesting tie to Texans. I remember many years ago when I saw a Pop-Up Video on Rock the Casbah. According to it, the shoot for this music video was rather popular with Texans at the time who showed up to watch. Not necessarily because they were fans of the band, but because despite being native to Texas, few Texans had actually seen an armadillo alive instead of roadkill. I like to remember this music video for that rather than what has been done to the song since then. I really didn’t need to know that had happened, but came across it while doing a little research for this post.

That said, I’m not sure what’s worse. That this song is considered conservative, or that Men At Work were successfully sued over the flute portion of Down Under. That’s for another day. Enjoy!