Inca rock and Aztec boogie

We all know "Cortez the Killer". Right up there in the Top 3 Neil Young songs ever (right next to "Powderfinger" and something as yet to be settled in my head).  A song that makes a mystical connection between the fate of the Aztecs and the fading of a love. 

But did you know ol' Neil wrote a second song that references the indigenous civilizations of pre-Columbian America? "Like An Inca", one of the least electronic tunes on Trans. 

Not Top 3 material, for sure - possibly not even in the Neil Young Top 300.

Wonder why he returned, even glancingly, to the subject? 

I can empathize, having been fascinated by the Aztecs and Mayans and Incas as a budding 8-year-old archaeologist (one of my first ambitions, soon to vaporize when I witnessed an actual dig and saw how much tedious painstaking graft was involved. But later on I did do a school project on the Aztecs. Also did one on Vlad the Impaler, switching to red ink for the gruesome bits of the text) 

Talking of grue... "Cortez the Killer" is a bit of an idyllic romanticized view of Aztec society, which did after all practice human sacrifice.  

Still, that doesn't make the conquistadors look any better -  at all. (I started reading a book on the European conquest of the Americas ... the cruelty and avarice of the first waves of invaders is mindbogglingly horrific).

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 There is a probably an essay to be written on rock and its fantasies and projections vis-a-vis Native American folkways - spirituality, connection to the land, tribal intimacy, warrior honor, freedom etc.  

 Starting with this fellow.... 

Then there was Ian Astbury, an earnest student of Native life and lore, who fashioned his own bone necklace out of  chicken bones from KFC. Southern Death Cult were named after a particular tribe's belief system and sacred rites. 

And of course before that Adam Ant 

"A new royal family, a wild nobility

We are the family

I feel beneath the white

There is a red skin suffering

From centuries of taming"

Well, you couldn't get away with it, now, could you!

Not forgetting the Ants's severed twin - Bow Wow Wow 

And for this one, Annabella and crew would get doubly cancelled 

Talking of KFC (Astbury's chicken bone necklace), in "Go Wild in the Country" fast food is referenced as the anti-Natural thing Annabella and the Wow boys are fleeing in search of naughty frolics 'n' fun amid rusticity

I don't like you, I don't like you, town

I don't wanna like you, I'll shop around

I can get a train, I don't need no hamburgers

No take-away, I want my own game

No bake and take, no strawberry milkshake, I wanna kick it

I'm sick of seeing signs to eat walking down these lonely streets

Wild, go wild, go wild in the country

Where snakes in the grass are absolutely free

Swing from the trees, naked in the breeze

I want no boiled chicken, I wanna go hunting and fishing

I can get a plane, I don't need no suitcases, 'cause truth loves to go naked

I wanna picnic, 'cause I get sick

Got no boiled chicken, I wanna go hunting and fishing

Rousseau 'n Roll innit - "I don't like you, town"

My favoritest groop, they were - during that period from My Cassette Pet to the See Jungle album. On the wall of my college room, I had an enormous album promoting poster that I'd ripped off a hoarding in London by cover of night. 

Bow Wow Wow were also the subject of my very first published (if a college arts magazine counts as "published") piece of writing on music (and no I'm not exhuming for public view-  no way no how!) 

Yes it does all seem, now, more than slightly silly.... and yes there are some very questionable aspects to McLaren's marketing of the band and to his managerial practice

but, but the music remains such fun 

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Many further examples of rock and pop fetishism of Native American culture in the comments

here's a couple I just remembered from the technotronic community

This has what sounds like wardance samples 

there's another Spiral Tribe track that has MC Simone reciting some 19th Century lament from a defeated chieftain: "I am a savage and I can't understand, how the beauty of the earth can be sold back to man"

update 12/12

a more recent example of flirtation; the hypnagogic pop duo of Pocahaunted, who put out late 2000s releases with titles like Hunted Gathering, Peyote Road, and Moccassinging 

snippet from a Tiny Mix Tapes interview with Amanda and Beth 

With the aesthetic -- the vision quest kind of native Indian vibe you have going on -- I was wondering if you have any personal connections with the native Indian culture or anything like that?

B: Nah, I took a few native anthropology courses and got really into the culture, rituals, imagery... We have drawn some of our song titles and art from what I've learned, but we're trying to move away from ‘moccasins' or the pun of our band name.

A: Native Americans have amazing traditions, and their storytelling rituals through chanting are absolutely mesmerizing and something we would love to emulate. But now I don't know. Now I guess we're into Africa, haha. Northern Africa at this exact moment.

update 12/ 20

via Philip Sherburne's shoegaze revival piece - "moccasin-gaze" 

"Toronto, Indigenous artist Daniel Monkman, aka Zoon, crafted a gorgeously ethereal take on shoegaze rooted in his Ojibway heritage, which he calls “moccasin-gaze.” "

Update 12/22

And another unexpected one, Charlie Drake, comedian turned hitmaker

He did the aboriginal peoples inspired but probably too offensive (he does "voices") to play here "My Boomerang Won't Come Back" (produced George Martin), a hit on both sides of the Atlantic (cleaned up a bit in America, apparently) 

Drake also drew on Native American folklore for the character of "Puckwudgie"  - varying from tribe to tribe, but generally a gnome-like creature, someone best  not to get on the wrong side of, but for the most part benign, if mischievous