Song #56: Bad Religion - "The Resist Stance"

Song #56: Bad Religion - "The Resist Stance" (2010)

The Dissent of Man

"Because passion unabated can be readily conflated with belligerence."

Since I just talked about The Dazz Band's impact on me with their song "Let it Whip," thanks to its inclusion in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (number fifty-seven on "The One-Hundred Songs of Steve Pulaski"), I may as well give Bad Religion's "The Resist Stance" its due, since its inclusion in the video game Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit should not go unnoticed. I don't listen to much in the way of contemporary metal or grunge, but racing down a track in a gorgeous police Lamborghini with this song blaring through my speakers enough times made me addicted to its lyrics, its instrumentation, and its ideas. 

I played the hell out of Hot Pursuit my freshman year in high school, which I've reiterated countless times was a trying, tumultuous time for me, and am currently experiencing the same sort of anxious uncertainty with college beginning in just a bit over two months for me at this point. "The Resist Stance" bears lyricism that just seems so keen and aching for a rebellion you can't ignore it. There's a biting sense of need and satisfaction that must be fulfilled and the band won't take no for an answer. The song's lyrics are rather complex, wordy, and a mouthful, even for rock-and-roll standards, a genre of music often shortchanged in terms of what kind of ideas or messages it can convey.

The song basically describes how rebellion can be born and how one can turn from accepting citizen into committed activist over time. Out of all its lyrics, which could probably help write one college student's dissertation on the importance of citizen action and social justice, is "because passion unabated can be readily conflated with belligerence." To me, this line hits home because it tells how one person's passion, that shows no limited or boundaries, can easily be looked on to other people as a cocky, boastful way at expressing ones deepest feelings of belligerence and arrogance, even if that's not intended. It's the kind of viewpoint held by people either caught up in jealousy or so deep in their own ignorance that they cannot see ones love for something for what its really worth.

But I'd be lying if I said this song's entire impact on me was me sitting in my basement, analyzing its lyrics on my computer. This song, thanks to its whiplash-inducing instrumentation and breakneck flow, makes for an incredible song to fly down the highway to, which I've done plenty of times with my good friend, in his manual Mustang, with this song at full blast. This may be one of the many contemporary teenager anthems for the kinds of teenagers who refuse to be defined by the music they are expected to listen to. You know who you are.

Give "The Resist Stance" a listen, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sykzo1QpSlE