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Artist: James McMurtry
Track: Cheney’s Toy
This track is available on 
War breeds art. Goya’s The Third of May 1808 and Picasso’s Guernicaho are vivid examples from centuries past.
Just before I was born, it was the work of musicians, including Buffalo Springfield, Edwin Starr, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and John Lennon that left a lasting artistic reaction to the Vietnam War.
For today’s quagmire, we have our own playlist. I’ve added two more tracks to my iPod this month: Kalashnikov’s George Bush Bin Laden One Love One Family and Cheney’s Toy by James McMurtry.
Who is James McMurtry?
The next big thing.
Why do you create?
It’s in my job description.
You are a Texas native speaking out against a Texan president’s war. How do your Lone Star listeners react to your message?
When I first recorded We Can’t Make It Here, in 2004, I ran straight down to KGSR in Austin and the morning DJ spun it during drive time. I had hostile emails on my website before I even got home. I’ve played the song at every live show since. Early on I’d get a boo now and then, not anymore.
Your father is a novelist, your mother is an English professor, and you studied English at university. What does the addition of music allow you to express that words alone do not?
If you’re good at your craft, you can probably express anything through any medium. For me, music is more fun than words. Rarely will a pretty woman dance to an essay.
Cheney’s Toy is available for free on your MySpace page, and you encourage others to create user-generated content with it. Does online activism against the Iraq War have more or less impact on our nation’s political process than the real world protests against the Vietnam War during the late ’60s and early ’70s? Why?
Online activism doesn’t seem to be stopping this war. I don’t know that those “real world” protests had that much of an effect either. Vietnam didn’t stop because Abby Hoffman and his generation wanted it to, it stopped because Walter Cronkite and his generation finally wanted it to. This war will be much harder to end.
My thanks to James for sharing his art. Please visit jamesmcmurtry.com for more.
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