1. Megadeth’s “Holy Wars…The Punishment Is Due”
Maybe it was gradual, but Dave Mustaine has transformed from the thinking man’s thrash of the ’80s into a conspiracy theory-spewing crazy uncle talking about moving if Barack Obama is re-elected. And while the closest MTV comes to politics these days is Snooki’s friendship with John McCain because Obama would tax tanning beds, there was a time when they covered political conventions. 20 years ago, Dave Mustaine covered the Democratic National Convention for the network. While you’d be more likely to see him covering a UFO convention or a libertarian one these days, he’s still pretty political.
“Holy Wars…” is more of an anti-war/anti-religion song than a straight-up political one, but given that it’s 22 years old, a song about killing for religion definitely makes sense today, with the Israel/Palestine battle still going on. It also seemed precient, predicting September 11 a good 11 years before it happened. If you look at more recent lyrics like “Washington is Next,” Mustaine has moved more towards Zionist conspiracies, which makes sense given his recent outbursts to the media.
