{"id":370916,"date":"2026-01-15T07:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370916\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T07:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T07:35:10","slug":"who-is-general-smith-from-geeses-100-horses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/370916\/","title":{"rendered":"Who is General Smith from Geese’s ‘100 Horses’?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Geese<\/p>\n

(Credits: Tim Nagle \/ Geese)<\/p>\n

Thu 15 January 2026 2:00, UK <\/p>\n

As ever, it\u2019s never easy to untangle Geese<\/a>\u2019s cryptic lyricism.<\/p>\n

But fans wouldn\u2019t want them any other way. A major allure of Geese\u2019s hectic, ramshackle energy is frontman Cameron Winter\u2019s suitably collaged songwriting, expertly unleashing a poetic splatter across their disparate canvass. Throwing hints and clues like chum to water, hardcore fans can spend an inordinate time and attention pouring over Winter\u2019s surrealist diary confessionals, a strange balancing act of painful honesty and artful misdirection.<\/p>\n

\u2018100 Horses\u2019 offered fans plenty to chew on. The third single from Getting Killed \u2013 Far Out\u2019s top album of 2025<\/a> \u2013 presented a completely inside-out take on rootsy blues rock. Bristling with jumpy and shifty energy, \u2018100 Horses\u2019 feels coaxed from Beggars Banquet or Let It Bleed, charged with The Rolling Stones\u2019 golden era air when the entire studio feels teeming with a whole cast of characters beyond just the band. There\u2019s a busy mob hanging out with Geese in Los Angeles\u2019 Putnam Hill studios, some weird aura spiking \u2018100 Horses\u2019 nervy swagger with a deliriously crowded galumph that only Geese can crumple into something coherent.<\/p>\n

Such busy bluster illustrates Winters\u2019 apocalyptic visions. Bottling the political febrility hanging in the air, \u2018100 Horses\u2019 adds an extra 96 on top of Aphrodite\u2019s Child\u2019s biblical stallions<\/a> for a Boschian whirlwind of ruined terrain serving both as battleground and dancefloor, imploring a cynical smile and nihilistic boogie in the gargantuan face of political collapse and end times capitalism. What\u2019s a Gen Z kid to do? Faced with a bleak economic future and right-wing cultural grip, may as well live for the moment and take sanctuary in the immediate pleasures of today.<\/p>\n

For whatever reason, Winter imposes himself, or some alter-ego, in the midst of the unfolding conflict between two generals by the name of Smith and Adam, the former telling the shellshocked protagonist \u201c\u2026I would never smile again, but not to worry \/ For all people must stop smiling once they get what they\u2019ve been begging for,\u201d and the latter informing \u201c\u2026one day you will die scared, but not to worry for all people must die scared or else just die nervous.\u201d<\/p>\n

Just exactly who these high-ranking officers are sits in Geese\u2019 confounding songbook as another knot in their mysterious body of work.<\/p>\n

So, who is General Smith?<\/p>\n

Of course, there\u2019s not going to be any easy answers.<\/p>\n

General Adams has been posited by fans to simply illustrate US heritage and its political institutions. Adams was a common surname around the time of the Founding Fathers and the revolutionary generals, forming a major political dynasty with the second US president, John Adams, and his son, as the sixth president, John Quincy Adams. Is Winter talking to America\u2019s mythos and strained narratives?<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s General Smith. It can\u2019t be certain, but a theory that Winter has woven in Scottish economic theorist Adam Smith into \u2018100 Horses\u2019 historic vignette is an intriguing one. Considered \u2018the father of capitalism\u2019 and pioneering the principles of classical free-market mechanics, what better way to vent your alienation with the neoliberal hellscape than summoning the spirit of Smith against a backdrop of the capitalist excess he had cautioned against over 200 years ago?<\/p>\n

Perhaps we\u2019re getting ahead of ourselves, but such lyrical nuggets are all part of Geese\u2019s evocative magic, clamouring for answers among the simplest lines but only unearthing more questions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Topics<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credits: Tim Nagle \/ Geese) Thu 15 January 2026 2:00, UK As ever, it\u2019s never easy to untangle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":370917,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[105738,96,72373,128,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-370916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-cameron-winter","tag-entertainment","tag-geese","tag-music","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=370916"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/370916\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/370917"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=370916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=370916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=370916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}