Murphy's Law

I’m so proud of my Pops.

Last night, quite out of the blue (or, out of the black as the case may be), he said he had to ask me a “technical question”.

I braced myself, prepared to disappoint him. A “technical” question had to mean he was going to ask about computers and I would have to remind him that, despite working closely with them for almost two decades, I probably know less about the inner workings and mechanics of these things than the average ten year old.

To my considerable relief, it was a question about music.

To my considerable delight, it was a question about Black Sabbath.

“So I heard a Black Sabbath song on the radio the other day…they were actually a really good band huh?”

“Are you kidding? They were a great band.”

“But I mean, they were seriously good musicians…”

“Arguably some of the best, instrument for instrument, in all of rock.”

“That drummer…he is pretty impressive!”

“Bill Ward is a very bad man.”

I asked him what song he had heard, assuming it had to be “Iron Man” or “Paranoid”, as those are the only two Sabbath songs I’ve ever heard on the radio. I dared to hope that maybe, somehow, some station had sagely determined that “War Pigs” would, in fact, be a very welcome addition to the heavy rotation so many other lesser songs enjoy on classic rock channels. He could not confirm what song it was, and I remain intrigued, because I’m pretty certain he would recognize the first two songs. And other than “War Pigs”, I can’t think of another song that seems commercial enough for even more progressive-minded classic rock station to consider. But there are certainly plenty that could be.

And therein lies the rub. There are tons of Sabbath songs that could peacefully exist with the largely underwhelming and predictable numbers you hear every time you listen to the radio. (The other issue, of course, is whether or not anyone actually listens to FM radio anymore. Well, my old man does.) It’s not a quality issue; if that were the case, we could discuss the dozens of bands who get little to no airplay (King Crimson, Captain Beefheart and Peter Gabriel-era Genesis, to name a few). And it’s not an issue of accessibility: even the acts who do get plenty of airtime (Yes, The Doors, Rush, Neil Young), it’s for the most part a surface-level shuffle of their half-dozen most successful and/or “popular” songs. I think I’d drive off the road if I ever heard Neil Young’s “Powderfinger”, but at least when the firemen showed up to pull me from the wreckage I would have a smile on my face. The point, then, is not that FM radio, for mostly understandable (if ceaselessly self-defeating) reasons, plays it safe and consistent; that could be an entire discussion in and of itself.

Give this one a whirl and see if it doesn’t make almost everything you hear today, and a great deal of the good stuff from back in the day, sound safe, generic and half-ass:

No, the issue here is of and about the band Black Sabbath. A case could be made (and I have made it) that Sabbath is by far the most misunderstood and underrated band. Ever.

I wrote (in a piece I now notice went live on my father’s birthday last year, causing me to consider if larger forces are at work here) that the band’s name, which certainly caught people’s attention, also has always worked against them:

The all-too-easily disparaged (and, for the easily offended, objectionable) appellation Black Sabbath ensures that the band could never really be taken all that seriously. Not only is this a damn (albeit not a crying ) shame, it is enough to make one wish they had simply stuck with their original name. Earth, as the band was initially known in industrial Birmingham, England, is, incidentally, a much more appropriate word to associate with this very blue-collar and bruising band. Earth is the opposite or air, the ground is not ethereal, and water turns it to mud; if ever a band basked proudly and beautifully (and always unabashedly) in the mud, it is Sabbath. And despite all the silly mythmaking, the only thing demonic about this band was its proclivity for employing the musical tritone (also known as the Devil’s Interval) in its music.

Sabbath, not Zeppelin, had more to do with establishing what came to be known (however lazily) as heavy metal. And that is not a slight on Zeppelin; indeed, it is a compliment. To pigeonhole their blues and folk-based sound, as well as the possibly unrivaled virtuosity of Jimmy Page and severely under-appreciated compositional acumen of John Paul Jones is a disservice on several levels. More to the point, there is little, if anything, on any Zeppelin album that sounds like what most people call (or called) heavy metal.

Sabbath, on the other hand…

Like Zeppelin, their early material was heavily grounded in blues, and both of their debuts were recorded virtually live in the studio without overdubs. Both bands were restless and productive, and within a few years each had cultivated a sonic template that substantially exceeded –and improved upon– the uncomplicated formula of their early work. Where Zeppelin began incorporating folk, country and even reggae into their increasingly technicolor albums, Sabbath found its sweet spot in the black and white riff-centric blitzkrieg. That sound, raw and hungry on the first album, irresistibly flowed with the current into heavier and darker waters, culminating in the visceral assault of Vol. 4. After the transitional, and experimental (and quite successful) Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, the band upped the ante on Sabotage and in the process, created a song that launched a thousand imitations. Behold, the birth of thrash metal:

To plagiarize again from the earlier piece:

And yet—and this is the larger and often overlooked point—the music this band made was, for the most part, dead serious: from the live-in-the-studio cauldron of blackened blues debut album, to the riff-heard-round-the-world title track from their follow-up Paranoid, this was an act with a considerable chip on its shoulder, and few punches were pulled until Ozzy, muddled and miserable, was asked to leave in ’79. From their eagerness to take on tough-talking politicians who can never quite find the courage to fight in the wars they start (“War Pigs”), to the dangers of hard drugs (“Hand of Doom”), to the pleasures of soft drugs (“Sweet Leaf”), to the ambivalence of drug-induced oblivion (“Snowblind”) to proto-thrash metal (“Hole in the Sky”) to all-encompassing attacks on the system (“Over to You”), it is ignorant, even a bit hysterical, to dismiss this group as a simplistic one-trick pony.

Consider “Cornucopia” from Vol. 4: it only takes the band four minutes to distill the entire message that much heralded fin de siecle flick The Matrix tried to impart. Bonus, it’s actually enjoyable, and it does not feature Keanu Reeves. But seriously, check out those 20 seconds that begin at the 1:44 mark: the sludgy static of guitars, bass, cymbals and gong smashes simulate the surreal and unsettling frenzy of postmodern life as well as any movie or book; indeed this song anticipates the information overload chaos connecting computers and our minds by about three decades. Granted, their music is not for everyone, but in this iPod age it would be a compelling experiment to cue up a track list that includes “Planet Caravan”, “Orchid”, “Embryo”, “Laguna Sunrise”, “Don’t Start (Too Late)”, and “It’s Alright”, then give an uninitiated listener ten guesses to name that band.

Indeed, if you can’t play “Air Dance” — a truly moving song (!) about an aged ballerina (!!) – for your significant other, it might be time to reconsider that relationship. A more sustained – and entirely subjective – analysis of Sabbath’s magnum opus, Never Say Die! is overdue, but for now, this track can represent the whole. ”Air Dance” features some truly astonishing work by Tony Iommi, who was increasingly able to add nuance and texture to his multi-tracked guitar parts (check out the jazz guitar and piano interplay, and then the calibrated frenzy of the final solo, and then…is that brass being deftly applied to embellish the coda? You better believe it is.) Simply put, as brilliant (and in some ways innovative) as Sabbath’s blues-drenched debut was, the growth and expansion demonstrated between 1970 and 1978 is as impressive and ambitious as just about any other band’s, including you-know-who.

Finally, from my previously mentioned piece, I conclude thusly:

Once Ozzy exited the picture, it is fair to assume that the band would have faded into the void if they had made the courageous decision to soldier on with drummer Bill Ward assuming vocal duties (the aforementioned “It’s Alright” and the last song on the last album, “Swinging the Chain”, offer evidence that this experiment may have worked out quite nicely). It was never going to happen, but they would have arguably made better albums in the Ozzy aftermath if they had given it a shot. Instead, with the very unsatisfactory Ronnie James Dio grabbing the mic, the good old bad days stayed in the ‘70s.

Looking back, one wishes they had just pulled a Brian Wilson and gotten Ozzy his own sandbox, or let him work the wet bar in the caboose of his custom-made crazy train. But then, he had to leave; it had to end so we could have the subsequent Behind The Music special. Without Ozzy hitting rock bottom there would be no rebirth, no Randy Rhoads, no PETA protests, no reality TV show. The Sabbath singer had worn out his welcome, but Ozzy’s work was not yet done: there were ants to snort, dove’s heads to decapitate, and most significantly, the Alamo to urinate on (and let’s face it:  someone had to urinate on the Alamo).

And so, in the end, it is as it should have been: one band, one decade, one legacy—everything that came after comes with an asterisk. Nevertheless, the records need to be set straight: Sabbath is one of the very few bands that is actually better than it sounds.

So, in sum, what Sabbath do you need? Eventually, you’ll want all of the stuff from the ’70s, but most people start with Paranoid and go from there. And remember, Never Say Die!

I can think of a lot of rock bands who have written some laughably awful lyrics.

So can you.

Part of rock and roll’s infectious (and mostly innocuous) appeal is the no-brainer element of its intellectual import. From it’s earliest days when rock lyrics were mostly an unimaginative contest to see who could say I love you without saying the words I love you (of course The Beatles broke the mold here, shamelessly cutting out all pretense and wallowing in the very shallow depths of the literal, from “She Loves You” to “Love Me Do” to “All My Loving” to…you get the picture). Eventually, the pop sensibility evolved to the point where if you substituted “rock” for “fuck” this constituted a secret decoder ring to figure out what 90% of the songs were about. Particularly ambitious bands were able to multi-task, as the eternally sophomoric Kiss epitomized when they crafted their anthem dedicated to the proposition that one could not only rock and roll all night, but party every day. 

(Long story short: somewhere between the first hit of acid and the last ray of light from the disco ball, rock music got ambitious. Rock music got serious. And make no mistake, rock music got pretentious. And, for the most part, this was a wonderful thing. The aforementioned Beatles began imitating Bob Dylan and then (in less than two years) came into their own as unique wordsmiths. Love it or loathe it, “Norwegian Wood” is a million miles away from “Please Please Me” (thanks LSD!) and “I Am The Walrus” is a million miles from…anything (thanks LSD!). In short order, The Rolling Stones began to take things a tad more seriously, and real contenders like Ray Davies and Pete Townshend starting crafting miniature pop masterworks that engaged the mind as well as the gut. And then, emboldened, or inspired –or both– wide-eyed songwriters followed their muses, and their thesauruses, and all bets were off by the early ’70s. What some of us still refer lovingly to as progressive rock held sway over the sonic landscape: with side-long suites and literary allusions in overdrive, prog rock became an enterprise that launched a million karaoke performances. These songs (these albums) were of their time in every regard and invoke inextricable connotations of the decade itself: bloated, hazy, earnest, misguided, visionary, awkward, awesome . Eventually the four horsemen of the pop culture apocalypse came calling: Punk, Disco, Drug Overdoses and Rehab blew into town and burned down this overgrown forest…only to see it grow back harder and longer in the shape of a mullet less than a decade later. Regardless of how it did or should have played out, it’s impossible to imagine prog rock existing in the ’80s, just like shag rugs and Battle of the Network Stars only really exist –in our minds if not actuality– in the ’70s. And the ’70s is when rock lyric ridiculousness reached its full flowering, pulling up from strong roots in the ’60s and stretching toward the sun, leaving a shadow we exist under even today.)

So, when it comes to identifying truly awful lyrics that are the result of neither idiocy nor ambition, it’s best to consider the soft and gooey center between those two poles. It’s not terribly fun, or rewarding, to pick on the pointy headed prog rockers or the boneheaded pop posers, unless stepping on ants is enlightening. Put another way, I defend the bands who tried a little too hard and could care less about the entertainers who are genetically incapable of insight. Put yet another way, as it pertains to the sublimely awful rock lyric, sometimes having a tiny brain is worse than having no brain at all.

When it comes to worst ever, I can think of a lot of lyrics that might compete for the crown.

So can you.

I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

For starters, I can’t bring myself to beat up on the bands who crawled out of the primordial ooze in the early ’70s, hash pipe in one hand and “Lord of the Rings” in the other. I won’t even name names; I’ll simply wave my magic wand and exonerate King Crimson, Rush, ELP, Jethro Tull, Genesis, Pink Floyd, The Moody Blues and Santana (for starters) from any alleged sins, real or imagined.

But one group should be singled out (with love and squalor) for elevating ardent yet inane lyrics to a level of…real art. Of course I’m talking about Yes, whose work between 1971 and 1975 is the Rosetta Stone of our prog rock apotheosis. The jester in this court (of the crimson king) is, of course, Jon Anderson who –depending on one’s perspective– would be responsible, or guilty, for writing the lyrics. Here’s the thing: he sings them so effectively (so indelibly — yeah I said it), it doesn’t much matter what he is babbling about. And babble he does. Here is but a brief sampling of his ouevre:

Battleships confide in me and tell me where you are,
Shining, flying, purple wolfhound, show me where you are,

Lost in summer, morning, winter, travel very far,
Lost in musing circumstances, that’s just where you are.

Move forward was my friends only cry,
In deeper to somewhere we could lie.
And rest for the the day with cold in the way,
Were we ever colder on that day, a million miles away?

A seasoned witch could call you from the depths of your disgrace,
And rearrange your liver to the solid mental grace,
And achieve it all with music that came quickly from afar,
Then taste the fruit of man recorded losing all against the hour.

Wish the sun to stand still.
Reaching out to touch our own being
Past a mortal as we
Here we can be
We can be here,
be here now.
Here we can be!

(From “Yours Is No Disgrace”, “South Side of the Sky”, “Close to the Edge” and “Awaken“.)

Yes has earned an unrivaled place in the pantheon, but there is no hating, here. Listening to Yes is not unlike listening to opera: the words are –or may as well be– in a different language; it’s all about the sounds: that voice, those instruments, that composition. This is ecstatic stuff and I’ll hoist my air guitar with clear-eyed pride and wonder.

Enough. Let’s get down to business.

What song contains the worst lyric of all time?

I’ll give it a shot. But again, it’s as important to eliminate the pretenders as it is to celebrate the contenders. Therefore, it’s ridiculous to consider anything filed under Hair Metal because picking on that genre is like making fun of kids at the Special Olympics. Ditto the Top 40 status seekers: that claptrap is like bad electronics, it’s designed to fall apart and be discarded after it’s been sold. And we should not confuse atrocious lyrics with unlistenable songs. There are tons and tons of terrible songs that don’t necessarily have bad enough lyrics to merit consideration (and again, bad enough meaning lyrics that weren’t written by an imbecile or someone trying to shoot higher…and that incidentally eliminates would-be prime candidates Oasis and Creed because, again, the songs have to be by bands actually worth listening to).

10. Let’s come out of the gate swinging and take aim at one of the most beloved radio anthems of all time: “Stairway To Heaven”. Remember that time (hopefully before 6th grade) when this song contained all the deep and murky depths of the universe? This song was about nothing less than existence, and who was that dude with the light on the inside cover? God? The Devil? Did it make more sense if you played the nonsensical lyrics backward? In hindsight, maybe.

If there’s a bustle in your hedgerow
Dont be alarmed now,
It’s just a spring clean for the may queen.
Yes, there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There’s still time to change the road you’re on.
And it makes me wonder…

It makes me wonder, too. Is that a bustle in your hedgerow or are you just happy to see me? To be a rock and not to roll? I have no idea, to this day, what that means, but it uses the words rock and roll, so it’s got that going for it. Led Zeppelin, despite Robert Plant’s early Tolkien obsessions, did grow in brisk, dramatic leaps like The Beatles post-Rubber Soul. Nevertheless, the ascension of ”Stairway To Heaven” is, come to think of it, not unlike the ’70s: you had to be there to appreciate it but you can’t really explain why it’s so great.

9. Sticking to the ’70s (literally), a rather obscure known tune by a beloved band demands attention. It’s bad (if true) enough to point out that Kiss kept to a strict regimen of pussy songs throughout the ’70s (and I would say after, but who listened to Kiss after the ’70s?). It’s worse (and true) to point out that this was all for the better. When they attempted to think outside the box (so to speak), things got ugly in a hurry. Exhibit A is “Goin’ Blind” by noted poet and philosopher Gene Simmons. If taken at face value, the lyrics convey a self-pitying farewell from a 93 year old man who has been inexplicably banging a 16 year old girl. Creepy? Check. Weird? Check. Improbable? Check! Senior citizen statutory rape, or Simmons envisioning his post-rock, Viagra-rolling golden years?

Little lady, can’t you see
You’re so young and so much different than I
I’m 93, you’re sixteen
Can’t you see I’m goin’ blind…

In fairness, and consistent with the criteria for this list, the song is still quite worthwhile, and features one of Ace Frehley’s better early solos. (The tune was also covered in all its muddy glory by the great King Buzzo on Melvins’ incredible album from 1993, Houdini.)

8. Respect of irony prevents me from quoting any of Alanis Morissette’s signature song. Suffice it to say, yes, it is ironic (if unintentionally so) that a song about irony uses examples that illuminate the songwriter’s inability to understand what irony is. Don’t ya think?

7. Domo. Arigato. Mr. Roboto.  (Enough said.)

6. Artist: Lenny Kravitz. Song: Whichever.

5. Bono and Sting could have a battle royale (with cheese) to see who committed the more greivous sins in the ’80s but since Bono has been more prolific, and more self-righteously insufferable, in the decades since, we may have to give him the Edge (take him, please).

Bono!

I cant believe the news today
Oh, I cant close my eyes and make it go away…

Sting!

Hey, mighty brontosaurus,
Don’t you have a lesson for us
Thought your rule would always last,
There were no lessons in your past
You were built three stories high
They say you would not hurt a fly
If we explode the atom bomb
Would they say that we were dumb?

Bono!

I want to run
I want to hide
I want to tear down the walls
That hold me inside…

Sting!

Don’t think me unkind
Words are hard to find
The only cheques I’ve left unsigned
From the banks of chaos in my mind
And when their eloquence escapes me
Their logic ties me up and rapes me…

4. Poet laureate of semi-retarded rap rock, Anthony Keidis! Everyone knows this clown was known for wearing a sock over his dick. Many people would agree that his dick could probably write better lyrics. Possibilities are endless but the perusal is too painful, so let’s go with what we know:

What I’ve got you’ve got to give it to your mama

What I’ve got you’ve got to give it to your papa

What I’ve got you’ve got to give it to your daughter

You do a little dance and then you drink a little water…

3. Duran Duran. Boy did these guys make some terribly great songs (and videos) in the early ’80s. And like those commercials from the early ’80s say, “It doesn’t get any better than this” :

Her name is Rio and she dances on the sand
Just like that river twisting through a dusty land
And when she shines she really shows you all she can
Oh Rio, Rio dance across the Rio Grande…

2. The list, to this point, has not necessarily been in any particular order, although the final two candidates are, for my money, unassailable representatives of lyrical suck. First up is Steve “Guitar” Miller who is also known as Steve “Lyrics” Miller by exactly no one. And there is ample reason for this. He is a one man tour de force of farcical phraseology. Let’s start with the pompatus of love. Actually, let’s leave that alone: if you are cool enough to make up a word and feature it in a hit song that everyone who listens talks about, you’ve more than maximized your fifteen minutes of fame. And that was only the beginning. His 1976 classic Fly Like An Eagle is a clinic of lazy lyrics and shoehorned rhyme schemes. It could be the basis of a successful workshop (once again, there is no hatred here: it’s a very good album and the title track captures that ethereal ’70s vibe as well as any other rock tune). On that track the lyrics are facile but his heart is in the right place: I want to fly like an eagle, to the sea/Fly like an eagle, let my spirit carry me. “Rock ‘n Me” is another innocuous FM radio staple, and it is one of the “replace rock with you-know-what” testosterone anthems. No harm, no foul. Where the proceedings really take flight (so to speak) is on the other radio favorite, “Take the Money and Run”. This is one for the ages, where we get “watch the tube” rhymed with “cut loose” and “great big hassle” with “his castle”. Nothing to see here. But then it happens: the sine qua non of rock non sequiturs. Take a deep breath and enjoy the magic:

Billy Mack is a detective down in Texas
You know he knows just exactly what the facts is,
He aint gonna let those two escape justice
He makes his livin off of the peoples taxes…

Texas, facts is, justice, taxes. What more is there to say? (Other than this: “Take the Money and Run” is probably the single song from the ’70s that no fans were tempted to play backwards because there was absolutely no conceivable way it could get any better than it already was; fans were afraid it would make more sense if it was played back in backward gibberish).

Miller was not done with us yet. Honorable mention could go to “Jungle Love” or “Swingtown” (Come on and dance/Let’s make some romance/You know the night is falling/And the music is calling), but special attention must be paid to “Abracadabra”:

Every time you call my name/I heat up like a burnin’ flame/Burnin’ flame full of desire/Kiss me baby let the fire get higher.

That’s nice, but this is where Miller stakes his claim for immortality. Ready or not, here it comes:

Abra-abra-cadabra
I want to reach out and grab ya.

Okay, that is bliss. That is miraculous. But it gets better. How could you possibly top rhyming cadabra with grab ya? Easy. Rhyme cadabra with…Abracadabra!

Abra-abra-cadabra
Abracadabra

1. So, it can’t possibly get better than that, can it? Oh it gets better. For their invaluable contributions to the unintentionally atrocious lyric, I nominate America for a lifetime achievement award. It’s hard (some might say impossible) to knock Steve Miller off this throne but bear with me. America did a lot with just a little and they are the gift that giveth much. (One sentence description: blending folk influences with “socially-conscious” songs, America had a string of indelible –and ubiquitous– hit songs in the first half of the 1970s.)

Exhibit A: “Ventura Highway“:

The whole song (irrepressible as it is) is dead-on-arrival, lyrically, with such gems as Joe/Snow, sunshine/moonshine, name/same. But in move that should make rhyming dictionaries illegal, America anticipated “Take the Money and Run” with the rarely-attempted four-line grand slam:

‘Cause the free wind is blowin’ through your hair
and the days surround your daylight there,
Seasons cryin’ no despair
Alligator lizards in the air…

Alligator lizards. In the air.

Or should I say: ALLIGATOR LIZARDS. In The Air!

Exhibit B: “Sister Golden Hair”

In addition to a riff ripped off from George Harrison’s “My Sweet Lord” (which itself was considered a sufficiently brazen reworking of The Chiffon’s “He’s So Fine” that it generated a lawsuit), the lyrics achieve the ideal balance between half-assed inspiration and typical rock-star laziness:

Well I tried to make it Sunday, but I got so damn depressed
That I set my sights on Monday and I got myself undressed,
Now I ain’t ready for the altar but I do agree there’s times
When a woman sure can be a friend of mine…

Exhibit C: “Tin Man“:

But Oz never did give nothing to the tin man
That he didn’t, didn’t already have,
And cause never was the reason for the evening
Or the tropic of Sir Galahad.

I’m loathe to infringe upon the perfection above, so I’ll simply add my name to the list of folks who have wondered: what the fuck is the tropic of Sir Galahad? And can I find the pompatus of love there?

Exhibit D: “Horse With No Name”.

Oh God. Hold me.

What can anyone possibly say about this song that the band does not already say in the song itself?

(Editorial note one: “Plants and birds and rocks and things”. Editorial note two: “The heat was hot”.)

I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain
La, la …

(Editorial note one: “In the desert you can remember your name”. Editorial note two: “CAUSE. THERE. AIN’T. NO. ONE. FOR. TO. GIVE. YOU. NO. PAIN”.)

After two days in the desert sun
My skin began to turn red
After three days in the desert fun
I was looking at a river bed
And the story it told of a river that flowed
Made me sad to think it was dead

(Editorial note: “After three days in the desert fun”.)

You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain
La, la …

(Editorial note: “In the desert you can remember your name” –in case you had forgotten, the lyrics or your name. Oh, and by the way: There. Ain’t. No. One. For. To. Give. You. No. Pain.)

After nine days I let the horse run free
cause the desert had turned to sea
There were plants and birds and rocks and things
There was sand and hills and rings
The ocean is a desert with its life underground
And a perfect disguise above
Under the cities lies a heart made of ground
But the humans will give no love…

(Editorial note: Still plants and birds and rocks and things.)

You see I’ve been through the desert on a horse with no name
It felt good to be out of the rain
In the desert you can remember your name
cause there aint no one for to give you no pain…

To recap: in the desert, you can remember your name. ‘Cause there ain’t no one for to give you no pain.

My work here is done.

So, what did I miss?

Let’s get this party started.

Surely I can’t be the only baseball fan who has noticed the rather astonishing similarity between NL Cy Young winner Tim “The Freak” Lincecum and Mitch “The Kid” Kramer from the movie Dazed and Confused?

Check it out:

   

 

 

 

 

 

Wow:

   

 

 

 

 

Let’s go to the videotape…

 

Someone should write a song about this…

God I miss mixed tapes.

(Which begs the question: Is it mixed tape, mix tape or mixtape? I say all of the above, and shall use them interchangeably.)

I know this is an old school skill that everyone boasts about; people have even written books about it: some of the stories are successful, some are very good novels that were inevitably made into very mediocre movies.

You can, of course, approximate the experience via iPod and playlists. Anyone can do that. And that’s the problem: anyone can do it. It’s too easy. It might even be easier to create superior product, because when the entire world is your library (also called iTunes), there are no limitations a quick download can’t conquer. But a mixed tape, aside from being an art unto itself (which songs would, assembled in the appropriate order, come as close as humanly possible to 45 minutes per side, often requiring a calculator and album credits to ensure individual song lengths), demanded effort and considerable deliberation, all based on songs already available to the mix-maker. Thus, it was truly a reflection of one’s personality; these were songs the individual had cared about enough to own the album (or, ahem, the CD) in the first place.

For a mix of one specific band, it was a wonderfully excruciating exercise in mixology; the methodology was distinctly Darwinian: only the strongest would survive. Therefore, if you were making a 90-minute mix for, say, Led Zeppelin or The Doors, you had to necessarily eschew some of the longer (and better) tracks to ensure maximum bang for the proverbial buck. Not much point in taking up half of one precious side to ensure that “When The Music’s Over” and “The End” made the cut; or, while it’s hard to argue that “In My Time of Dying” and “Tea For One” don’t belong on any Zep mix, you could fit in “I Can’t Quit You Baby”, “That’s The Way”, “Down By The Seaside” and “For Your Life” in the same space. Of course, mixes for the ’70s prog supergroups were difficult, (think Genesis or King Crimson), to impossible, (think Yes or Pink Floyd.) Sometimes, you simply had to get creative: for a semi-encompassing summation of Rush’s oeuvre (understanding that at minimum two tapes were necessary: one for their first decade and one for their second), you had to cut and paste the old fashioned way. Can’t fit 2112 on, but it has to be included, so perhaps you just put in “Discovery” or “Oracle: The Dream”, or (like I did) just do a several minute pastiche of all the guitar solos from the entire opus. With Pink Floyd, you had to have the epic side-long suites represented in some fashion, so you just took the magisterial opening section from “Atom Heart Mother” or perhaps Part One of “Dogs” (or perhaps Part Two) and, obviously, you had to use your best judgment regarding “Shine On You Crazy Diamond”. It goes without saying that the type of band mix differed depending on the target audience: if it was for personal use, anything was allowed. For friends, particularly ones uninitiated with the artist in question, it was incumbent upon the mix-maker to ensure all the essential tracks (i.e., the ones that did or would show up on a greatest hits album) were chosen (whereas those invariably didn’t make it onto the personal mixes, for a variety of functional and aesthetic reasons). Mix, play repeat: Practice made perfect.

The primary M.O. for mix tapes, of course, was for the intrigue they added to relationships. A mixed tape was de rigueur for establishing, assessing and understanding the various levels of any serious romance. The first mix was as important, in its way, as the first kiss: too early and you could blow it; too late and you may have missed an opportunity to send the right signal at the right time. This ground has been covered ad nauseam and everyone who ever gave or received a mixed tape will recall the rules of engagement. If you remember mixed tapes you received without the slightest pang of remorse, enthrallment or unforced sentimentality, either the relationship or the tape sucked. Probably both. (My condolences.) I know I ended up missing some of the mix tape miracles I gave away more than I missed the women I made them for (which is not necessarily a commentary on the enthralling women who tolerated me for any amount of time so much as an unapologetic appraisal of the one thing I always got right).

Intermission: If this guy wasn’t on one of your mix-tapes, your problems exceeded simple musical myopia:

It occurs to me that I’m probably the only person who believes some of his finer mixes should be enshrined in The Smithsonian.

If obliged to select a few for canonization, among the first inductees for my mix tape Hall of Fame ballot would be Say It Once Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud Vol. 2 (Volume One covered off some of the more readily accessible (i.e., car-friendly) material from mix tape MVP James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, Sam Cooke, et cetera, while subsequent volumes covered the bases and the outfield with everyone from Otis Redding and Louis Jordan to Johnny Ace and Sly Stone). Vol. 2 was the sum of its parts, which means it was an embarrassment of riches. It started with Marley’s “Natural Mystic” and ended with Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ “I Put A Spell On You.” Songs with words were not always necessary; for instance, Herbie Hancock’s “Speak Like A Child” melted into Shuggie Otis’s ”Rainy Day” and then Young Holt Unlimited’s “Soulful Strut” to round out side A. Flip that sucker over and business gets taken care of courtesy of Aaron Neville, Jerry Butler, The Shirelles, Isaac Hayes, Etta James, Elmore James, The KINGS (B.B. and Albert), Lightnin’ Hopkins and Vernon Reid’s Lightnin’, Dennis Brown and Black Uhuru, The Gladiators and The Chantelles, Bessie Smith, Abbey Lincoln and Fela Motherfuckin’ Kuti. I could say more, but I’ve told you too much already.

Another epic mix that is at once too arduous and too awkward (for the author) to detail is the self-explanatory “Some of the Future Mrs. Murphys” series. This title referred to some (but not all, hence the “some”) of the female artists I would eagerly marry, purely on the basis of what their music did to me. More about them another time, maybe. For now, a handful of sirens who enjoy Emeritus status are lovingly represented, below.

       

Forward progress, particularly in technological terms, is seldom an unfortunate scenario. Letters are almost instinct now that we have e-mail, canned vegetables have mercifully been supplanted by aisles of organic goodness, clunky video cassettes have been replaced by online pirating, I mean DVDs. Even big, energy inefficient monstrosities (cars, as well as TVs) that once signalled American predominance are quickly becoming cuckoos of the 21st Century. These are all welcome and overdue advancements.

And yet…

Not to get all Ray Davies or anything, but the old ways ain’t ever coming back. So it’s seems respectful and perhaps more than a little necessary to let out a little howl for the way we used to roll. What we’re left with now when it comes to mixmanship is, by default, an exercise in onanism: we make playlists for ourselves. The sound quality and song selection are unquestionably superior, but the impetus for creativity and the urgency of the interaction is lacking. A playlist listened to with headphones on the morning commute can never compare with the indelible memories an effective mixed tape could inspire. It was always a fundamentally human exchange: it was an unspoken act of love. Giving was often as good as receiving. There was a specific message that only a mixed tape was capable of conveying, and once we lost that, we all lost a small but irretrievable portion of our souls.

29 May 2008

Nothing Golden God Can Stay

Aside from the requisite stints in rehab, the Botox and the damage done, and the increasingly profitable reunion tours, not a lot of memorable music gets made after age 30.
Nothing gold can stay, wrote Robert Frost. And believe it or not, he wasn’t actually talking about the Greasers and the Socs, or even Ralph Macchio’s ability, post Outsiders, to convincingly play high school kids well into his mid-20s (making the other ageless wonder, Family Ties era Michael J. Fox look like Methuselah by comparison). Frost, of course, was speaking of more poetic matters, like springtime and flowers and innocence and all that CliffsNotes crap.

What he was not talking about, since it had not yet been invented, was rock and roll. So he could not have known that he was providing a very prescient epitaph for what is often the rule and seldom the exception with every great rock band: they age poorly. Aside from the requisite stints in rehab, the Botox and the damage done, and the increasingly profitable reunion tours, not a lot of memorable music gets made after age 30. Consider how many groups have blazed like fevered comets into the public consciousness, then flamed out, leaving a body of work—and sometimes their bodies—behind.

Not counting the careers cut short by death (think Hendrix, Morrison, Cobain or Clapton…wait, Clapton didn’t die? Never mind), and not cherry-picking the no-brainers like the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and the Who, it’s actually easier to identify the groups that have managed to produce work worthy of their salad days—much less work that is worthwhile. The very recent efforts by Portishead and the Breeders, as well as the fairly recent masterpiece by Sleater-Kinney (please come back!) prove that it can be done. The fact that those three bands are fronted by females is noteworthy, and fodder for further discussion: women rock harder and make better music, after 30, than men? It would seem so. Then again, King Buzzo might have something to say about that, although he is probably too cool to even be considered human, much less a man.

But why is this so rare? Certainly the impetus of lean and hungry desperation (not to mention drugs) inspires rock music in ways not especially amenable to other types of art, like literature. Robert Frost was 49 when he dropped Nothing Gold Can Stay; Pete Townshend was 20 when he wrote “I hope I die before I get old”. By the time he was 49, The Who were already recycling their better days on the arena rocking chair circuit.

There are still some legends thrashing about in the mud and the blood and the beer: Tom Waits, Bob Dylan, Neil Young, for instance. Their best days are undoubtedly far behind them, but at least they’re still trying. And yet, the issue isn’t really about trying, it’s about an end result that passes the smell test (mosh pit or mothballs?), regardless of intent or integrity. Perhaps it’s appropriate that one elder statesman who is defying the trend is the golden god himself, Robert Plant. While the world waits to see if the mighty Zeppelin will glide again, Plant paired up with the beguiling Alison Krauss to create Raising Sand, an effort that, not so ironically, sounds better with time. In fact, it surpasses just about anything Plant’s peers have been able to manage since John Bonham died (doing his part to ensure that the best band of the ‘70s would not embarrass themselves in the ‘80s). Granted, Raising Sand is not (nor is it pretending to be) rock music. Perhaps that is the entire point. To be a rock and not to roll? Perhaps this is what Plant meant, way back whenever. Or perhaps it is just the forests, echoing with laughter.

TO BE CONT’D.

http://www.popmatters.com/pm/post/59127/nothing-golden-god-can-stay/