Noting the flap about the new Rolling Stones tune “Sweet Neo Con,” Radley Balko complains about the general paucity of good protest music coming out of the Iraq war. I expressed a similar sentiment in this Reason piece about a year back, though I did note a couple of exceptions to the general rule. One I didn’t but should have was Metric on their fantastic album Old World Underground, in particular the song “Succexy” and this verse from I.O.U.:

Every ten year-old enemy soldier
Thinks falling bombs are shooting stars sometimes
But she doesn’t make wishes on them
When she wishes, she wishes for less ways to wish for
More ways to work toward it
Ten year-old enemy soldier
Our falling bombs are her shooting stars

I don’t know how well they work on the page, but the repetition of “wish” fits in with the unusual rhythm of the song in a particularly clever way. Also, on a totally apolitical note, I’m a sucker for this probably-objectively-sappy line from the wistful end of “Calculation Theme“:

Tonight your ghost will ask my ghost,
Who put these bodies between us?

They’re coming around in the fall; D.C.ites will be able to catch them in October at the 9:30 Club.