The National Review offers up the top fifty conservative rock’n’roll songs of all time (New York Times via abby). Rock critic Dave Marsh, asked about the list, found it a desperate attempt by the right to co-opt rock music. Seems to me a classic example of how much mileage you can get out of taking things out of context. To say, for example, that the Who are counterrevolutionaries for singing, “Meet the new boss, same as the old boss,” (no. 1 on the list of fifty) ignores both the radical anti-authoritarianism of the overall theme of the song and the cultural iconoclasm of their cultural presence as a whole.

Michael Long, the list compiler, writes in National Review this week about the number two song, the Beatles’ “Taxman”, and announces that he will unveil the entire list of fifty on Friday, complete with iTunes links. But you can bet there will be no anti-capitalist links to free downloads of the tunes from Long!

Update: Here is the entire list courtesy of Left of the Dial.