Songs Named After Books: How Faithful Are They? Part Two: "Anthem"

Sometimes people suggest I should read Rand, in a know-your-enemy kind of way, but dude, I already know the plots of The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged, which are the ones people always talk about. The Fountainhead: Howard Roark blows up his building 'cause it doesn't conform to the awesomeness of his vision; Atlas Shrugged: Hank Reardon, John Galt, Dagney Taggart, Ragnar Something, and Whocares D'Anconia show that if you try to tax or regulate Captains of Industry, they'll take their magic metals and infinite energy machines and go home, and then let's see your precious fucking trains run on time! In other words, they're infantile gibberish, and although it's terrifying that people with power consider them philosophically serious, I really don't think there's any good reason for me to waste my time with them.

ANYWAY, Anthem at least has the virtue of being shorter, but I'm still not going to read it. It's some sort of dystopian thing where people have no individuality, blah blah. Like most Rush songs, this one is mostly annoying shrieking. But it features swell lyrics like "well, I know they've always told you selfishness was wrong, yet it was for me, not you, I came to write this song," so it's safe to say that at at any rate it cleaves to Rand's vision and is every bit as sensible and coherent At least "The Trees" is funny.

Was this whole entry just a thin excuse to heap abuse on Ayn Rand? Probably.