My fellow music fans, when this nine-member geriatric group shambles out of its chambers and onto the stage, plopping themselves down to sing for their supper, get ready for these Supremes to rock your world.
Wearing old timey black, ankle-length robes like a band of Colonial fire-and-brim-stoners, the sedentary songsters rip right into their increasingly far-right discography.
Without a doubt the right-wing Supremes are in charge up there, will be for decades to come. Just check out their song choices.
Their new album showcases ten of their docket-topping antediluvian anthems. The collection won’t be going viral because it’s only available on vinyl. Here’s a sampling.
“Stop! In the Name of Originalism” laments that 2022 is not 1788, when almost everything that was fun was illegal, when women couldn’t vote —or own property in much of America. This tone-deaf nostalgic dirge will make you weep.
The second cut on the album is “My World is Empty without the Federalist Society.” Six of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices are current or former members of this conservative/libertarian organization, and it’s a big reason many of them got nominated for the high court. BTW six of the nine also are Catholics. Saints preserve us!
FYI to Supremes’ fans: the band soon will be recording a cover of Elvis Presley’s blues rocker, “That’s All Right, Mama,” changing the title slightly to: “We’re All Right, Mamas, Get Over It!”
One of their all-time bestselling ballads is next on the album: “Love is Here and You’re Under Arrest.” It’s a throwback to the time when gay marriage and contraceptives were illegal. At least one of the Supremes has mused openly about revisiting the court decisions that made them legal.
What about the other justices, what are they thinking about overturning the 21st Century? No ones knows even when after they are asked direct questions under oath at their confirmation hearings. Eels are less slippery. Once they’re on the bench, however, the band members totally rock out.
The group’s recent 45 (remember them?) is a feisty two-sided polemic that bluntly addresses its approach to long settled case law. “River Deep, Stare Decisis a Molehill” is a saucy ditty proclaiming the willingness of the current Supremes to go where earlier justices would not tread. Hey, Rock N’ Roll is all about pushing the limits.
On the flip side you’ll flip over “Baby Love—Where did Our Precedents go?” This sarcastic single mocks left-leaning critics of the slew of recent reversals of established law promulgated by the band.
To the tune of “I Hear a Symphony,” the 1966 oldie-but-goodie by Diana, Mary and Florence, the new Supremes belt out an exuberant “I Smell a Permanent Conservative Super Majority.” The meter is all wrong, but the message is clear.
In that same triumphalist vein is “Someday We’ll be Together Again (NOT!).”
No review would be complete without mentioning the group’s decidedly creepy “Love is Like an Itching in Our Robes.” They’re only human, after all. Who knew?
Unless I miss my guess, you’re already on your way up to the attic to look for your Victrola.
David Holahan is a freelance writer in East Haddam.