what is the point of a teenage riot if it gets you OUT of bed??!!

the youth shd do a song called it

(OK maybe I should get the lyrics sheet from some web page and 'study' it)

Well, read the Times article I linked to. That's where I got the idea from.

ie they're not wrong to say, there's a lot of foax out there who aren't in sync with the mainstream, but they somewhat sentimentalise the cohesion of thsse foax, and the objective correlative in their actual play doesn't work (i think bcz it actually excludes THEM: they were applauding observers pretending to be participants AT THIS PARTICULAR MOMENT... what's interesting is how quickly they refashioned themsleves back into being activists and enablers)

(ie what they stumbled on was reverence and awe and hope and wishful thinking)

they (correctly) transvalue the affectlessness, as the idealistic disillusionment it largely is — a good deal more accurately than most of the subsequent slacker blather — but then i think mis-cue the link as a sedimented 60s laidbackness (via lee's dead fandom), which they then fondly — but in retrospect also clumsily and confusedly and unconvincingly — mimic, as a sign of allegiance

on DDN SY said "yay the kids" and the kids have conistently said yay back, but actually i think this mutual admiration loop exactly excludes what SY are good at (which there's more of in sister and in goo)

a film which iconified the "no values" affectless generation pretty early = river's edge (1986)

I don't think is a confusion so much as an aspiration - a daydream, if you will. "Teenage Riot" is poised on the cusp of where teenage alienation turns into action. There is an aching for action, but at the same time, a hesitation and doubt that the action will ever take place: "It better work out/I hope it works out my way" - notice the undercurrent of desperation - "it better work out". The song is not an announcement of imminent revolution, as we would have had in '68 - it is a revery on the state of perpetual revolution that is adolescence: "So who's to take the blame for the stormy weather/You're never gonna stop all the teenage leather and booze".

the thread that got me way into River's Edge

Randomly came across this webpage: https://americansongwriter.com/2015/10/lyric-of-the-week-sonic-youth-teenage-riot/

(the 2nd “comment” is kinda funny)

seems like it's paywalled and I can't see the comments either. Judging from the intro though it would be a good candidate for the terrible music writing thread

Weird, you’re right — it wasn’t like that earlier today.

The writing is fine, when you get past the intro... it’s basically a long discussion/analysis of the song’s lyrics. And the second comment is Thurston himself (posting via Facebook) — plugging a book, correcting “booze” to “cooze,” and posting the song’s complete lyrics.

Anyway, I didn’t know the song was a pseudo-fantasy about J. Mascis running for President in the 1988 election.