{"id":167078,"date":"2025-04-01T18:14:45","date_gmt":"2025-04-01T18:14:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/american-history\/americanstudies-april-1-2025-foolish-texts-wont-get-fooled-again\/"},"modified":"2025-04-01T18:14:45","modified_gmt":"2025-04-01T18:14:45","slug":"americanstudies-april-1-2025-foolish-texts-wont-get-fooled-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=167078","title":{"rendered":"AmericanStudies: April 1, 2025: Foolish Texts: \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

\n

[For this
\nyear\u2019s April Fool\u2019s series, I\u2019ll be AmericanStudying cultural works with \u201cfool\u201d
\nin the title. Share your thoughts on foolish texts, with or without the word,
\nfor a fool-hearty crowd-sourced weekend post!]<\/p>\n

On AmericanStudies
\nlessons and limits from an English classic rock anthem.<\/span><\/p>\n

In one
\nof my early posts<\/a>, nearly 14 years ago, I wrote about the Australian rock
\nband Midnight Oil (whose excellent latest album I included in this much
\nmore recent post<\/a>), and the limits but also and especially the possibilities
\nof the transnational turn in AmericanStudies. Since I\u2019m writing about a song by
\nanother rock group from outside of the US, England\u2019s The Who, in today\u2019s post, I\u2019d
\nask you to check out that prior one (the first hyperlink above), and then come
\non back for some thoughts on that transnational band and one of their biggest
\nhits.<\/span><\/p>\n

Welcome
\nback! The Who\u2019s \u201cWon\u2019t
\nGet Fooled Again<\/a>\u201d (1971) is very much a product of its early 1970s moment,
\nand specifically of a rising sense of pessimism and even cynicism about the
\nprior decade\u2019s social movements and efforts to change the world. That tone is
\npresent throughout the song, but most especially in the chorus: \u201cI\u2019ll tip my
\nhat to the new Constitution\/Take a bow for the new revolution\/Smile and grin at
\nthe change all around\/Pick up my guitar and play\/Just like yesterday\/Then I\u2019ll
\nget on my knees and pray\/We don\u2019t get fooled again.\u201d A lot has been written
\nabout how Watergate<\/a>
\ncontributed to an erosion of trust and shift away from 1960s idealism in the
\nearly to mid-1970s, but this song (featured on the album Who\u2019s Next<\/i>)
\ncame out nearly two years before that scandal began to break, and despite its
\nEnglish origins I have to think it can be contextualized in similar perspectives
\nin the US as well. The transition between decades is never a singular nor
\nlinear one, but that doesn\u2019t mean that there aren\u2019t moments of demarcation, and
\nI\u2019d say this Who song can help us identify one between the 60s and 70s.<\/span><\/p>\n

At the
\nsame time, it\u2019s fair to say that a bunch of English white men aren\u2019t going to
\nbe the best judges of what did and didn\u2019t take place for disadvantaged American
\ncommunities, and I think this Who song also features some less apt moments
\nalong those lines. For example, there\u2019s the second verse: \u201cA change, it had to
\ncome\/We knew it all along\/We were liberated from the fold, that\u2019s all\/And the
\nworld looks just the same\/And history ain\u2019t changed\/\u2019Cause the banners, they were
\nall flown in the last war.\u201d Maybe that last line is an anti-Vietnam War
\nsentiment, in which case fair enough on that score, but when it comes to
\nAmerican domestic history I think it\u2019s impossible to argue that the world
\nlooked just the same after 1960s changes like (for example) the Civil Rights
\nMovement, the women\u2019s movement, the Great Society programs, and more. I\u2019m not a
\nhistorian of England, and maybe less had really changed across the pond during
\nthis turbulent decade; but here in the US, I think it\u2019d be foolish to suggest
\nthat \u201chistory ain\u2019t changed\u201d over that time. <\/span><\/p>\n

Next
\nfoolish text tomorrow,<\/span><\/p>\n

Ben<\/span><\/p>\n

PS. What
\ndo you think? Foolish texts you\u2019d share?<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[For this year\u2019s April Fool\u2019s series, I\u2019ll be AmericanStudying cultural works with \u201cfool\u201d in the title. Share your thoughts on foolish texts, with or without the word, for a fool-hearty crowd-sourced weekend post!] On AmericanStudies lessons and limits from an English classic rock anthem. In one of my early posts, nearly 14 years ago, I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12032],"tags":[13299,4759,36213,60796,30458,11231],"dealstore":[],"offerexpiration":[],"class_list":["post-167078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-american-history","tag-americanstudies","tag-april","tag-fooled","tag-foolish","tag-texts","tag-wont"],"yoast_head":"\nAmericanStudies: April 1, 2025: Foolish Texts: \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u201d - Som2ny Network<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=167078\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"AmericanStudies: April 1, 2025: Foolish Texts: \u201cWon\u2019t Get Fooled Again\u201d - Som2ny Network\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[For this year\u2019s April Fool\u2019s series, I\u2019ll be AmericanStudying cultural works with \u201cfool\u201d in the title. 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