BY BUSTER SOUTHERLY
"Now how many people must get killed? For oil families' pockets to get filled?", ask the Beastie Boys in the new anti-war song "In a World Gone Mad". The song was released on March 11 on the group's web site (<http://www.beastieboys.com>).
Adam Yauch of the Beastie Boys said the song was more than a protest song. The band wanted to send a message to the rest of the world that not every American backed the foreign policy of US President George Bush.
"A big part of wanting to do the song was just hearing Bush make these speeches, seeing how the rest of the world was reacting to it and feeling like Bush doesn't represent us", Yauch said. "One of the purposes is to let people in other parts of the world know that the messages he's sending out aren't necessarily the view of all Americans. And it's also to say to people in the US who might be uncomfortable protesting that it's all right to do that. One thing that the US administration has been trying to do is give the feeling that it's un-American to protest."
The song mixes lyrics advocating nonviolence and multilateral disarmament with the band's sense of humour: "They're layin' on the syrup thick/We ain't waffles, we ain't havin' it."
From Green Left Weekly, March 19, 2003.
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