Rock and roll is a religion.\u00c2\u00a0 The records constitute a Bible, which provides a roadmap for living.\u00c2\u00a0 Illuminating what has come before, and delineating how one should proceed in the future.<\/p>\n
This is not the rock and roll of corporations, bastardizing tracks to tell tales of consumerism.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the rock and roll of the bedroom, played in isolation, as one gains just enough insight, just enough power, to get through.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s magic in sound, "Back In Black" can make you feel powerful when you’ve been oppressed, but it’s the lyrics that deliver the code, that point the way.<\/p>\n
They don’t all come from the classic age, some of the most poignant wisdom is contained in Jay-Z’s "Can I Get A…": Then the point is driven home directly and succinctly: The "bus pass" reference delivers an element of humor, but the message is dead serious.\u00c2\u00a0 If you want first class pussy, you don’t have to be somebody, but you’d better WANT TO BE SOMEBODY!<\/p>\n I’m not talking about sitting on the couch, complaining about the people on TV, saying you can do it better, but hitting the streets and trying to make something of yourself.<\/p>\n And not everybody can be a famous rapper or big time baller.\u00c2\u00a0 What have you got besides hot air?<\/p>\n These are universal truths.\u00c2\u00a0 Delivered in a first class way on wax, they stick with us, forever.\u00c2\u00a0 Which is why lyrics do matter.<\/p>\n Not quite a week ago, Jim Carroll died.\u00c2\u00a0 People speak of the Leonardo DiCaprio movie and that one famous song, "People Who Died". But that track is a novelty cut.\u00c2\u00a0 The true rock and roll burner on that album is on the other side, "City Drops Into The Night".<\/p>\n An alternative "Jungleland", sans the romance, "City Drops Into The Night" is the story of scoring.\u00c2\u00a0 The writhing body that needs drugs, that needs another hit, delivered on the dark side of life, in order to live for another day.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the flip side of living is dying.<\/p>\n But it’s not the story that entices here, that enraptures.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the ripping guitars, the howling sax, it’s the sound that sends the message of danger.<\/p>\n And at the very end of the song, nearly seven minutes in, Jim drops the definitive lyric:<\/p>\n I’m just a constant warning, just a constant warning to take the other direction<\/span><\/p>\n Just like the religious nuts, we rock and roll believers also take words out of context.\u00c2\u00a0 This is the paean of the drug dealer.\u00c2\u00a0 But to listeners, it’s a restatement of the sixties ethos, however many years later.\u00c2\u00a0 In a world of supposed winners, what to do with the alternative thinker, the person willing to take a stand for what’s right, not what’s expedient, not what everybody else believes.<\/p>\n Everybody buys dot com stocks.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody buys real estate.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s a new economy, investments never go down, until they do.\u00c2\u00a0 I can remember my father vividly saying "If everybody jumped off a bridge, would you too?"<\/p>\n If everybody else says the number one record is good, do you buy it and say you love it?<\/p>\n Ditto with movies?<\/p>\n Are you a member of the group, a follower, or a leader?<\/p>\n Oh, there’s nothing wrong with masses, they’re not inherently bad, but too often they’re built on hysteria, fueled by unquestioning zealots fearful of a deviation from the status quo.<\/p>\n I quote this Jim Carroll lyric all the time.\u00c2\u00a0 Even in my writing just a couple of days before he died.\u00c2\u00a0 It reminds me of the power of rock and roll, that with the music in my head, I have the strength to question what is presented to me so definitively, that I have the power to come to my own conclusions.<\/p>\n And you do too.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Rock and roll is a religion.\u00c2\u00a0 The records constitute a Bible, which provides a roadmap for living.\u00c2\u00a0 Illuminating what has come before, and delineating how one should proceed in the future. 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How we gonna get around on your bus pass?<\/span><\/p>\n
Ambition makes me so horny<\/span>
Not the fussin’ and the frontin<\/span>
If you got nuttin’, baby boy, you betta’<\/span>
Git up, git out and get somethin’, shit!<\/span><\/p>\n