Is the Flaming Lips’ Michael Ivins a Communist?!?
First the good news: “Do You Realize?” by The Flaming Lips is now the Official Rock Song of Oklahoma.
Now the back story… during Amy Goodman’s interview with John Scripsick on Democracy Now yesterday, they played “Do You Realize?”. Goodman was broadcasting from Lawton, Oklahoma. Scripsick’s son Brian…
died in a suicide bombing in Anbar province on September 6, 2007. He was just three weeks shy of returning home. Since then, his father John Scripsick has become a leading opponent of the Iraq war here in Oklahoma.
What an appropriate song to play, I thought, and I got teary eyed listening to the lyrics in this new light.
Do you realize that everyone you know someday will die?
And instead of saying all of your goodbyes
Let them know
You realize that life goes fast
It’s hard to make the good things last
You realize the sun don’-go down
It’s just an illusion caused by the world spinning round
What a beautiful song by an Oklahoma band, and what a lovely sentiment for an Oklahoma father. Then Goodman said:
Flaming Lips, here on Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, the War and Peace Report. This is a headline that’s just breaking from “Rock and Roll Daily,” Rolling Stone Magazine, about this song. Oklahoma will finally name the Flaming Lips’ “Do You Realize?” the official state rock and roll song at a ceremony tomorrow afternoon in the psych-rock group’s home state, Oklahoma, where Governor Brad Henry will sign an executive order confirming the selection. This follows a controversial few days for the band. The Oklahoma House of Representatives sought to overrule the Senate’s unanimous vote when the group’s Michael Ivins showed up at the Capitol last month wearing a T-shirt emblazoned with the imagery of a sickle and hammer. Lips frontman Wayne Coyne insists the whole thing was blown out of proportion. Ivins didn’t have any subversive intentions, said the “Rock and Roll Daily” from Rolling Stone.
‘Didn’t have any subversive intentions.’ I like that. Anyone who has been to a Lips shows knows better. I recall seeing them at Coachella in 2004 and Wayne Coyne leading 50,000 fans in a chant of “Fuck Bush.”
