Regarding the pandemic, some of them applied a lifetime of mistrust in authority, corporations etc, which may have served them well in a range of scenarios in the past, in a stupid way that did not serve the realities of the pandemic at all well.
Some of them got bitter and twisted by what the pandemic did to their ability to tour etc.
Some of them blended these thigns together in very ignorant ways. Even if we think its fair enough for them to be so heavily influenced by their own circumstances, the sensible thing would then have been to see vaccines as the exit strategy from that nightmare, offering the prospect of a return to the sort of normal where you can do gigs again.
For every musician that said stupid, dangerous things in the pandemic, there were plenty who condemned the shit and got a handle on the reality of the situation. What I didnt hear was much in the way of lyrics that told all the other stories of peoples lives that were there to be told in the pandemic. I dont recall hearing authentic working class stories of people who kept food in the nations belly by continuing to work in meat processing factories even before the vaccine era arrived, put in harms way with little say in the matter. Perhaps that stuff is out there and I just dont know where to look for it because Im not young anymore, but I have my doubts. I suspect we heard most from people who were actually in a position to weather the storm, a shock to their system that tested how full of shit they were but mostly did not seriously imperil them, other than testing their ability to take some temporary sacrifices for the sake of others, that they didnt actively choose to suffer, on the chin. If they were any good as messengers at this stage of their lives they could have taken those feelings and applied them to people who were in much more dangerous circumstances, whose sacrifices were equally not the product of individual choice, but carried far higher risk and far greater rewards for the benefit of all.
