Those Times of Revolution

in los lobos’s 1996 “revolution,” the words say one thing, the music another.

When Los Lobos sang about revolution in the 1996 song of that name, the lyrics describe a sense of loss: “Where did it go? Can’t say that I know.” We are a far cry from the Beatles’s similarly named song from 1968, the year of the barricades, when they urged everyone to cool out a bit. Now, thirty-odd years later, the flame has burned out, the fists have come down, and fatigue has set in.

At least in the lyrics. The music says something else. The slow-groove drums, the cowbell (more cowbell!), and the tom tom, suggest a persistent propulsion, slower than a flashpoint explosion of revolution, but nowhere near exhausted. The bass can’t stay still and cycles around and around, keeping us wondering. One guitar snarls and snaps with a bluesy riff, the other brings a little James Brown funk chording into play. An organ whispers at the edge of consciousness. What I believe is a melodica arrives with the haunting, reverb ghosts of the past, but also a melody that repeatedly raises its eyebrows if not its fists.

Where did it go, those times of revolution? The song’s music answers the singer’s question. It went into the sound of the song itself. It is preserved there to this day, in the groove, in the pulse, with time itself in the mix, ready to be lifted up again when the right moment arises.