Dan Bern: Cure For AIDS
[purchase]
Highly political folk rocker Dan Bern presents a typically bitter-yet-hilarious condemnation of the sexually uptight fear society through portrayal of an alternate universe of orgies and acceptance that follows the invention of a simple little pill that cures AIDS.
The song, first published in 1998, still rings true; it may not be front page news any longer, but AIDS remains a gigantic killer, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, where it has a significant impact on economic growth, keeping entire countries from being able to garner the resources and attention they need to join the 21st century. But the sense of sexual urgency Bern pretends would follow such a solution seems improbable and dated, pointing to just how deeply our own culture has internalized AIDS and its subsequent social effects as perfectly normative.
