There is one thing one must always bear in mind when one plays a song that attacks some political or social viewpoint: it will upset certain people.

This sometimes comes as a startling surprise to the performer, since one is usually cruising along in one's own accustomed groove and expecting the audience to relate to it...but the rule in life is dead simple: if you openly attack something, you are going to get someone's back up when you do, so be prepared for a counterattack.

I was quite surprised, for instance, one time when I played a song that has a whole lot of different social comment in it, but I made some off-the-cuff satirical comments linking General Norman Schwarzkopf to one of the verses (a critical one). So this guy who'd been listening to a lot of my stuff during the evening and liking it came over afterward quite annoyed and said that he had served personally under General Schwarzkopf and considered him to be a great man.

I said, "Really? Okay, well, tell me about it." So we talked for a bit and he told me about some of his experiences fighting in the Gulf War. In other words, I gave him a chance to tell me his side of the story, and I showed interest in what he had to say. When he was done, I said, "Well, I can't argue with your personal experiences. You've known the man, and I haven't, so I'm sorry that my comments upset you."

And that, basically was the end of it. It could have been a nasty situation if I'd decided to fight with him about it and try to prove him "wrong", but I didn't, because what use would it serve? Everyone's got their own viewpoint on things, it arises directly out of their own experience, and they usually have plenty of what are good reasons (from their point of view) for them to feel the way they do. I am willing to meet people halfway when it comes to that.

And I mostly avoid singing material that directly attacks someone else who is living in my society...though I do sing about common problems we are all facing.

Let's face it. When you sing those kind of "attack" songs you are singing to the choir. Sometimes whoever is out there listening is not part of the choir. If so, you will have added a little more bad feeling to someone else's day, and I'm not so sure that's a very useful thing to do.