"I was thinking about Baader-Meinhof. Patty Hearst. Tompkins Square. This a song about living in Alphabet City."

So said David Byrne, explaining his song "Life During Wartime." I'm thinking about that song today because I'm reading Greg Mitchell's blog — OccupyUSA — in The Nation:

Today's song pick for Occupyers everywhere: Talking Heads' classic "Life During Wartime."

Here are some of the lyrics to the song:

Heard of a van that is loaded with weapons,
packed up and ready to go
Heard of some gravesites, out by the highway,
a place where nobody knows
The sound of gunfire, off in the distance,
I'm getting used to it now...

Heard about Houston? Heard about Detroit?
Heard about Pittsburgh, P. A.?
You oughta know not to stand by the window
somebody might see you up there

So... what kind of mood are you going for there, Greg? Creepy? Paranoid? Genuinely threatening violence? Or just stupid?

Now, "Life During Wartime" is a great song. I played it all the time back in the 1970s when it first came out. Like Greg Mitchell, I'm old. (I was born in 1951, and he was born in 1947.) Unlike Greg Mitchell, I can't imagine telling young people today to adopt one of the great old songs of my youth as their present-day music to protest by.

I like to think that young people today have built up plenty of resistance to the nostalgia of Baby Boomers. The Revolution Chic of my generation-mates is not cute and not cool. It's embarrassing and dumb.

Think for yourselves, people.