Like A Rolling Stone
If I get one more e-mail from some pompous asshole taking umbrage that I said no more covers I’m going to explode. Don’t you get it? IT’S A BABY BOOMER/CLASSIC ACT CHEAP SHOT!
You used to be somebody. Maybe you’ve still got people who’ll come to see you live. But you can’t get arrested with your new music. Probably because the muse dried up.
Yup, you’re just not as hungry as you used to be. But, you’d like to pay for your kids’ college education, you want to feel like you still count. But your last album stiffed. You blamed it on the label, on radio. You’re still living in the seventies, like they still count. Whereas today it’s every man for himself. You’re your own cottage industry, it all comes down to YOU!
But you don’t want to believe it. You want to believe some semblance of the old system remains intact. You can’t believe they don’t want to hear your lame ass ditties. But you listen to NPR/KCRW, you don’t realize that Clear Channel features 22 minutes of commercials an hour, that overall listenership is declining, that listening to over the air radio is akin to watching over the air television, it’s a vast wasteland inhabited by losers, who can’t afford satellite radio, who can’t afford iPod hookups.
And those majors you decry, this is all they know. These radio stations and their TV partners. But, with five hundred channels and YouTube, your appearance on Jay Leno delivers no spike in sales. You used to be triple platinum, now you can’t even go gold, you can’t come close. So you’re looking for insurance. You decide to release a covers record. It’s the last refuge of the artistically bankrupt.
You should be working with Rick Rubin. Another producer with independent ears. Who’s willing to tell you your new material sucks. But you can’t handle that, the same way you couldn’t handle your ex sticking up to you. You divorced her. But the alimony added to your running expenses, forcing you to put product into the pipeline. Which no one cares about, which the majors won’t even give you an advance for.
I’m not saying covers are a bad thing. Where would Joe Cocker and Bonnie Raitt be?
But Joe’s take on "With A Little Help From My Friends" was radically different from the original. And Bonnie is famous for resurrecting the obscure, she doesn’t go for the cheap shot. Except maybe for "Runaway" back in ’77. Which got some airplay but didn’t save her career. It was only when she wrote a heartfelt original, the title tune of "Nick Of Time", that the audience was truly interested. Not that she required originals. Have you ever heard the title track from her follow-up, "Luck Of The Draw"? You can FEEL both the heartache and hope!
And here’s where I give you instruction. From a dead man. Who never really made it. Whose legend has not grown since his passing, but has only contracted. But he’s a star in my pantheon. I’ll still be playing HIS covers long after JT’s lame renditions of famous tracks evaporate from my memory bank.
I’m speaking, of course, of Michael Hedges.
You’ve got to hear his cover of Peter Gabriel’s "Come Talk To Me". He covered everything from "I’m Into Something Good" to "Holiday" to "If I Needed Someone". But the absolute best is "Like A Rolling Stone". The supposedly uncoverable Bob Dylan classic. Hedges wrings new meaning from the song, he slows it down and makes it three dimensional. He implores us, he asks us…HOW DOES IT FEEL? To be on your own. Like a complete unknown. Surfing the Net, trying to figure out what to listen to. The artists are not the only ones who are lost, the consumers are confused too. Mightily.
Why did I search on "Michael Hedges" in the original Napster? Because of an album of originals, entitled "Watching My Life Go By". I didn’t leave home without that cassette. I found live takes of all its songs. And a cornucopia of covers.
Once upon a time you dressed so fine
You threw the bums a dime in your prime, didn’t you?
People’d call, say, ‘Beware doll, you’re bound to fall’
You thought they were all kiddin’ you
You were a star once. And it lasted longer than you ever dreamed. You didn’t have to give up and work in your father’s business. You put out albums and people bought them, you got royalties, people wanted to see you play live. But suddenly, it all disappeared. You want to blame somebody. Shawn Fanning. Bill Clinton. The Internet. You want things to be the way they used to be. You still want to be school president. But everybody graduated and went his separate way. Into nooks and crannies where you can’t even FIND THEM! How can this be? How can no one care about your new music any longer? They’re lazy. No, they’re busy. With lives that are more important than the lame platitudes you’ve been spouting for so long.
How does it feel
How does it feel
To be without a home
Like a complete unknown
Like a rolling stone?
You no longer need a bodyguard. Sometimes you go to the supermarket and nobody even bothers you, comes up to tell you how much they love your music. You’re only better than your audience in your own mind. They grew up, you didn’t.
You’ve gone to the finest school all right, Miss Lonely
But you know you only used to get juiced in it
And nobody has ever taught you how to live on the street
And now you find out you’re gonna have to get used to it
You said you’d never compromise
With the mystery tramp, but now you realize
He’s not selling any alibis
As you stare into the vacuum of his eyes
And ask him do you want to make a deal?
That’s the school of rock. Where you can get high and fuck everything in sight and get paid for it. But now, even you can’t party all night. Rehab finally took, you can’t snort cocaine any longer. If David Crosby can lose everything, so can you. And you’ve got no idea how to live in the new world, on the street of dreams known as the Internet. You liked it better when it was controlled. When you had a permanent pass. But now your laminate is worthless, meaningless.
You said you’d never compromise, never whore yourself out to the man. But James Taylor premiered his album on QVC. It’s not about your music, but the money it can generate. You’ll sell yourself to the highest bidder. You’re everything you used to rail against, you’ve become a caricature of yourself. At least your great records are frozen in time.
Princess on the steeple and all the pretty people
They’re drinkin’, thinkin’ that they got it made
That’s the TMZ/PerezHilton crowd. Equating fame with talent. In a world where anybody can be famous, where you can be forgotten overnight and be working as a waiter and waitress, ridiculed in the process.
When you got nothing, you got nothing to lose
That’s how it used to be. You’d try anything. Run on instinct. You gave up the straight life for the circus. You weren’t protecting anything, you didn’t own anything. Like today’s new acts. That’s why they can get traction and you can’t. Because they NEED IT! They’re not playing safe. They’re not worrying what’s in the past, only the future.
You’re invisible now, you got no secrets to conceal.
You used to prosecute bootleggers, now you’d be thrilled if everybody stole your album, if anybody CARED! It’s like you don’t even exist. Your only way out is to reveal your truth, which you used to do so well. But you’ve been lying to yourself for years, telling yourself you still count, that your new music is good. But nobody’s buying it. You’re delusional.
The two YouTube clips referenced below are not as good as the MP3 in my iTunes Library. But if I post it online, with its high note flourishes, some lawyer representing the publisher will slap me with a writ instantly. So, these YouTube clips will have to suffice.
Michael Hedges’ rendition resembles the original in lyrics only. If you want to do this kind of cover, I might care. If you want to innovate.
But when Michael Hedges was doing this eleven years ago, you were still hoping your original opus would get added to MTV, at least VH1. You employed song doctors, you lost weight for the video. Cutting covers now is your last shot. A cheap one at that.
