All right, here's a bootleg offering for you folks: the best band in America, Yo La Tengo, doing a blistering cover of Brinsley Schwarz's "(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love And Understanding" on the first night of their series of Hanukkah concerts in Hoboken back in 2001. (Okay, it's really Elvis Costello's cover version they cover here.)
Earlier this year I was driving up and down Interstate 80 from San Francisco to Davis and back and was overly conscious of the "No War On Iraq" bumper sticker on my car. I have to admit that, at the height of my paranoia (and anger and confusion), I was a little worried every time I'd step out to get gas; I looked different, and my politics were probably different too. But no matter: when this song came on my car stereo, practically at the beginning of Yo La Tengo's set, I felt oddly... invincible. Like the war would never begin and everything would be all right. Or something like that.
(It's not the clearest recording, but it's still a great version, and anything Yo La Tengo performs is still tops in my book.)