The beginning of many books and movies is “Based on a true story”, just to alert the reader and the viewer that the work is fictional, but it contains - or it is inspired by - real events.
“Based On Lies” is instead the current world according to the definition given to it by Cheap Wine, through the lyrics of their new album.
A world based on deceit, dominated by mass media that manipulate reality, providing it to the people in a distorted, biased and misleading way.
What the American philosopher Noam Chomsky called “Strategy of manipulation”, finds its most complete and effective application in this time of deep economic crisis: the weakest part of the population, overwhelmed by the “flood” of a recession that is taking catastrophic dimension, is bombarded by messages that tend to distract and then to scare her, reinforcing the sense of guilt, leading to resignation and supporting the impunity of those who have generated and continue to foment the outbreak of the crisis.
There is no future, but only a fate: humanity sank into an ocean of false information that have weakened the ability to react and the mental lucidity, destroying any reference point and leaving us alone with ourselves, to face a daily war between the poor that has made dramatically prophetic the seventeenth-century philosophical theory by Thomas Hobbes that man is a wolf devouring every other man (“homo homini lupus”). The man is a wolf, nay, a vampire who draws sustenance from the blood of others: the oppression of the weak ones, the arrogant triumph of the most powerful.
It just came true what has been claimed by the capitalism and the unruly liberalism, that have created an inhuman social model, condemning millions of people to a stunted survival with no prospects.
What’s the answer? How do you rebel against that? It’s not a rock band who can answer this question. But if a song, as well as it lifts your spirits, also can be a cause for reflection, then it has a good reason to exist.
The lyrics of “Based On Lies“ don’t describe a “filtered” reality, they are not fictional, they don’t take inspiration from “literary” visions: they’re are strictly autobiographical, personally experienced, authentically real. They’re not imagined sensations: they’re lived sensations.
What happens when a man, in just a short time, loses everything he has? When he loses his job.
When he has no more strength to support himself financially. When he loses the serenity, the sleep, his self-esteem, the desire to face a new day. When he loses the will to live.
So many people are experiencing these awful feelings. It’s to them that we want to be close with this album.
...we’ll play this song all night long, sing with us and we’ll get along...