Once Bitten, Twice Shy
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1
“You didn’t know that rock ‘n’ roll burned
So you bought a candle and you loved and you learned”
Mott the Hoople couldn’t weather the loss of Mick Ralphs. Who surprised us all when he jumped ship for Bad Company and evidenced skills we were unaware he had.
Mott the Hoople debuted with an instrumental cover of the Kinks’ “You Really Got Me” years before it became associated with Van Halen. But even though there was some press and some airplay the band didn’t break through. They put out four albums on Atlantic, and even though the final release, “Brain Capers,” got good reviews, it had no commercial impact, even the devoted hipsters had seen the movie and were no longer interested.
Then the band switched labels to Columbia and set up shop with David Bowie and can you say…”All the Young Dudes”?
“All the young dudes
Carry the news”
They most certainly did. Their older siblings were back at home with their Beatles and their Stones and the young ‘uns dressed up and listened to new, simpler, stripped-down tunes and lived for the music.
“I’m gonna live for the music
Give it everything you got”
What a concept. No one with a brain does that anymore, just the prepubescent, the unformed, because once you get older you get it together and go online and become an act yourself, and it’s very hard to make it in music, you evidence other skills.
As for those in music… It’s ugly, it makes you wince. Cynical baby boomers and Gen-X’ers pulling the strings and uneducated nincompoops performing the songs and it’s a sideshow, a lot of people stop to see the atrocities, it’s a train-wreck on the midway, but if you’re a serious person you don’t even bother. And believe me, we were serious people taking our music seriously, arguing about it, not blind sycophants equivalent to Trumpers, defending our favorites at all costs and decrying those who don’t believe.
But the interesting thing is that first Mott the Hoople album on Columbia not only contained the monolithic Bowie cut, it opened with Lou Reed’s “Sweet Jane, years before it gained prominence on “Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal.” But on the flip slide there was “One of the Boys”:
“I’m just one of the boys
One of the boys
I don’t say much but I make a big noise
And it’s growing, yeah it’s growing”
That was the power of the rock and roll audience. That’s where it was all happening, in music.
And then there was the original version of “Ready For Love,” redone on the first Bad Company album, but sung by the inimitable Paul Rodgers. Whereas on the “All the Young Dudes” album…the writer, Mick Ralphs, sung it with his weak voice and it was so intimate, especially with the instrumental second half, “After Lights,” that it couldn’t help but penetrate.
And there was “Jerkin’ Crocus”…
In other words, the “All the Young Dudes” album was good!
But most people consider the follow-up, sans hits, even better. It opened up with “All the Way From Memphis,” which Marty Scorsese used to open his breakthrough film “Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore.”
And “Mott” also had “Honaloochie Boogie” and “Drivin’ Sister” and…
It wasn’t as commercially successful as the previous album, Ralphs left and was replaced by the inadequate Ariel Bender, and then Mott the Hoople broke up. And Ian Hunter proceeded to make three solo albums for Columbia, none of which were successful.
And then he decamped for Chrysalis. Built on the back of Jethro Tull, the company had been reinvented, with Blondie and Huey Lewis and the News and Hunter dropped “You’re Never Alone with a Schizophrenic,” which was even better than the Mott albums, and contained a monster hit, “Ships,” albeit in the cover version by Barry Manilow, the ultimately iconic “Cleveland Rocks,” which got a renaissance via its use, in a cover version by the Presidents of the United States of America, as the theme song for Drew Carey’s sitcom, and the delightful “When the Daylight Comes.”
But back on that first solo album, when the label still believed, when Ian was finally released from the shackles of a group, there was one song that got traction.
“Once Bitten, Twice Shy.”
And you heard it on the radio, but really most people didn’t know it until it was covered by Great White fourteen years later and became an FM staple, back when radio still played the band, before the Rhode Island nightclub fire.
2
“You didn’t know what rock and roll was
Until you met a drummer on a Greyhound bus
I got there in the nick of time
Before he got his hands across your state line,”
This was before smartphones. Before everybody had a camera in their pocket. Before there was a visual record. When bands were still dangerous, and I don’t mean that in a completely positive way.
Everybody wanted to go on the bus, not only girls, but boys. But boys didn’t have the right ticket, the bands weren’t interested in them, this was long before acts came out of the closet, but if you were a girl, attractive and eager, even unattractive and eager, the door was open.
But there was a price. You just didn’t get to laugh and eat, you had to perform services.
“Well in the middle of the night on the open road
And the heater don’t work and it’s oh-so cold
You’re gettin’ tired, you’re lookin’ kinda beat
The music of the street drive you off your feet”
You didn’t know what you were getting into. Not only the sex, but the drugs. These tours were like Hotel California, if you got in, it was nearly impossible to leave. What, and give up the circus?
But the costs…they were there.
And there was a feeder system. The rock and roll crazies were everywhere.
“You didn’t know how rock and roll looked
Until you caught your sister with a guy from the group
Halfway home in the parking lot
By the look in her eye she was givin’ what she got”
Don’t mistake “Almost Famous” for reality. That’s a fairy tale. In truth the rock acts abused the women, and were proud of it. Not all of them, but the tales are rampant. It seemed that all behavior was tolerated, and if you disapproved you just looked the other way.
“Woman you’re a mess, gonna die in your sleep
All the blood on my hand and my Les Paul’s heat
I can’t leave you home, ’cause you’re messin’ around
My best friend told me you’re the best trick in town”
Sweet Sweet Connie in Little Rock? The Plaster Casters? Pamela Des Barres and her cronies on the Sunset Strip? There was a circuit, lore was passed from act to act, these girls were stars in their own right, but they paid a price.
“I didn’t know you got a rock and roll record
Until I saw your picture on another guy’s jacket
You told me I was the only one
But look at you now, well it’s dark as it’s dumb”
You could jump from musician to musician, but don’t think your ex was happy about it. Most of these rock stars were unformed, oftentimes less than verbal, you were their trophy, and once you moved on, you were anathema, you were the enemy.
And eventually, you wore out your welcome. You had too much experience, you got too old, you were kicked to the curb and if you survived…
Once bitten, twice shy.
3
You followed Donald Trump to D.C. on the 6th. You were sick of the east coast elites and the immigrants stealing your future. You wanted to bite back, but you had no power.
As for the musicians, they were sold out to the man, the same man who’d screwed you, the same corporations that dominated the Republican party and took all the money.
No one was looking out for you.
And then Donald Trump came along. He was showbiz, earthier, more rock and roll than the rest. Sure, he was rich, but so were the rock stars of yore. He seemed not to be beholden to anyone. He said what he thought. And he constantly professed love to you, his fans.
He was crude, used the language of the street. This was someone you could identify with, who would speak for you against…
And your enemy was caught flat-footed, they didn’t see it coming and couldn’t understand it, they thought it was a joke. Just like they thought rock and roll was a joke back in the sixties and seventies. It was pooh-poohed, for children only, worthless.
But now we’ve got elected officials quoting Bruce Springsteen, never mind Bob Dylan.
Suddenly the rockers became the establishment and you were the punks. You were the Ramones, who really didn’t get any respect until Joey was dead, they never had a hit record, not one. But when decades had passed, they were finally safe.
And your enemy, the elites and the denizens of the city, didn’t want to know you, just wanted to ignore you, to the point where you enjoyed their reaction, dug in your heels and stuck with it. Even gained a new hero, Ron DeSantis.
And like the pre-Beatles acts, the politicians got on board with the new sound/creed, or fell by the wayside. They too didn’t know what was going on, but they didn’t want to lose their job, it’s always about your job. Trust the Bob Dylan of politics, James Carville, who famously said “It’s the economy, stupid!” A memorable quip equivalent to the bard’s “He not busy being born is busy dying.”
The rockers, the Democrats, were the establishment, no one was listening to you, you were going to show them a thing or two.
And your hero was above it all. Trump said he didn’t need the money. And he acted with impunity. He was your guy. Until…
You went to jail and he didn’t.
Once bitten, twice shy.
You’ve seen this movie. You’re not going to go to Miami and protest his arraignment. Because you might pay a price, as he skates.
You believe in him like the rockers believed in John Lennon. Don’t kick him out of the country!
But at that point everybody smoked marijuana.
How many are hoarding classified documents in their personal club/mansion?
That’s right, Trump became Frampton, all the other acts who made it and played to their audience. Sure, some true believers stayed on, but to the rest it was creepy, they might have bought “I’m in You” when it came out, but then they moved on.
After all, the big wheel keeps on turnin’.
Proud Mary, er, the country, keeps on burnin’.
The truth was revealed. Trump was a poser.
But the old rockers, the Democrats, never got the message, they were still afraid of Trump like they were of the dirty young rockers of the sixties. They were going to ruin the youth, they would reign forever and the country would be destroyed.
But the audience moved on. And the acts died or grew up.
But Trump doesn’t grow up, he doesn’t evolve, and we all know acts that try to replicate their hit records experience commercial death, relatively quickly. You’ve got to keep on changing, keep on innovating. The public doesn’t want the same thing over and over again. They want to be titillated.
And at some point, unknown by the media, everybody gets the message and turns away. Which is why you can sell out arenas on one tour and have to cancel your tour the next time around because you can’t move tickets.
We’re always searching for the other in the ether. That’s what the audience wants.
Once bitten, twice shy.
They’re not going to get arrested, pay the price again.
