In ‘Prescription,’ the multiple interpretations of the word impressions prepare the listener to view humanity from various viewpoints, i.e., intuiting, imagining, impacting, indenting, impersonating, interpreting, and imprinting. However, in a world where so many are deliberately kept uncultivated, the possibilities of new awakenings fade away like mere worthless facts. This vision of our contemporary society is so demoralizing that if, before the pandemic, one-out-of-ten Americans were taking antidepressant medication, I wouldn’t be amazed if the number had doubled or tripled.
The song also confirms a suspicion I’ve held for a long time: we’ve become a civilization reliant on citalopram and technology, each imprisoned in the self. Hence, everything has become part of a collage of memory —our values, morals, and sense of self-worth— to the point where we opt to turn our gazes inward and refuse to question any type of authority despite knowing what’s just. We’re left with individuals with empty sentiments who find it easier to pretend and surrender through blunt mimicry and capitulation than have the stomach to confront.
I, too, feel like following in the footsteps of vocalist Chris Dodd and showering the world with clamors of defiance on the stage of everyday life. I’ve grown too tired of conforming to the numbing synthetic, the melted PR, and the ersatz hymns, as expressed in the drums of Ashlea Bennet. I don’t bother to live in spent echoes of the past because the well-worn route to dissent is the way forward. I refuse to flog my soul away to the stale circus that are the innate ramblings of leaders like Boris Johnson.
If anything, I’d like to borrow a guitar from Charlie Rose or Matt Toll. At the set’s climax, I’d like to come down like verbal thunder on the establishment as I refuse to swallow the prescription. They can take back their supposed “trickle-down” economics, monetary annihilation, and hollow sense of safety. One percent would not have as much in a truly free market as in the subsequent ninety-nine. I’m tired of the plastic cries of the poor, the oppressed, and the stress-ridden, recycled into meaningless votes that amount to nothing more than empty promises.
Bad Breeding’s ‘Prescription,’ the second single released from their album Human Capital, is a poetical-punk work of genius and a true hymn of awakening. Suppose their album is anything like the two songs they’ve already made available on the band’s YouTube channel. In that case, I can’t wait until its launch this July 8.
SUN 26 JUL 2022
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Cover photo by Michèle van Vliet via OLI Records
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