{"id":452,"date":"2006-06-20T16:16:47","date_gmt":"2006-06-21T00:16:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2006\/06\/20\/beautiful-loser\/"},"modified":"2006-06-20T16:20:23","modified_gmt":"2006-06-21T00:20:23","slug":"beautiful-loser","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2006\/06\/20\/beautiful-loser\/","title":{"rendered":"Beautiful Loser – Podcast"},"content":{"rendered":"

He wants to dream like a young man
With the wisdom of an old man<\/em><\/p>\n

Standing in the bathroom at the shrink today I was shocked.\u00c2\u00a0 That guy in the full-length mirror.\u00c2\u00a0 That was me.\u00c2\u00a0 My hair had finally decided to give up the ghost, not only had most of it disappeared, but the gray was unmistakable.\u00c2\u00a0 But worse was my skin.\u00c2\u00a0 It no longer had the smoothness of a baby’s bottom.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t quite rugged, but it had crevices, my life was more than half over.\u00c2\u00a0 Where did it all go?<\/p>\n

Funny thing about getting older.\u00c2\u00a0 You do get wiser.\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I’d never want to go back to college.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d never like to revisit any of it.\u00c2\u00a0 Not without knowing what I know now.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s so great when things finally come together, when you start to get yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 But it happens too close to the end.\u00c2\u00a0 And the questions?\u00c2\u00a0 They keep poppin’ up.\u00c2\u00a0 Part of me still believes I’m twenty three.\u00c2\u00a0 But then I start to run and my legs feel like lead.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s so much I still want to do, but so much I’ve missed.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, I got married, but I never had children.\u00c2\u00a0 And the latest research shows birth defects come not from older women’s eggs, but older men’s sperm.\u00c2\u00a0 This is my life.\u00c2\u00a0 How did I do?\u00c2\u00a0 Was I asleep too long?\u00c2\u00a0 Shit, I’m still wrestling with so much, do I have to be ushered out so soon?<\/p>\n

It doesn’t seem that long ago I graduated from college.\u00c2\u00a0 Funny how it’s just like "The Graduate".\u00c2\u00a0 You’re at loose ends, you’ve got no clue.\u00c2\u00a0 I dealt with the sense of loss by going record shopping at Sam Goody’s.\u00c2\u00a0 And over in the corner, amidst hundreds of cut-outs, I found Bob Seger’s "Back In ’72".\u00c2\u00a0 I played it.\u00c2\u00a0 Not that I got it.\u00c2\u00a0 It had been reviewed so highly seemingly only months before, but now it had been abandoned.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, there was this one song that penetrated me, that I played over and over.\u00c2\u00a0 "Turn The Page".<\/p>\n

And then I left home.<\/p>\n

That’s what you’ve got to do.\u00c2\u00a0 I feel sorry for those who’ve grown up in the metropolis, with no need to move on.\u00c2\u00a0 But you can’t really find out who you are until you cut all ties and try to start over somewhere else.\u00c2\u00a0 Finding not only your digs, but your social group.\u00c2\u00a0 Building your life, as opposed to continuing to reside in your parents’.\u00c2\u00a0 And, after two years of loose ends, skiing for a living, more like flipping burgers for a living, I found myself in L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 Going to law school.\u00c2\u00a0 It was great to live in a major radio market.\u00c2\u00a0 With five rock stations.\u00c2\u00a0 There was the choice of soft rock KNX.\u00c2\u00a0 And exploratory KROQ.\u00c2\u00a0 And hard rock KWST.\u00c2\u00a0 But we all started in the middle of the dial in ’76, at KMET and KLOS.\u00c2\u00a0 And in the heat of the summer certain songs started pounding out of the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 Stuff from Bob Seger’s "Live Bullet".\u00c2\u00a0 He’d been around forever, I’d even bought an album and had given up.\u00c2\u00a0 But suddenly, with this live greatest hits album, his career came alive.<\/p>\n

Up with the sun, gone with the wind
She always said I was lazy
Leavin’ my home, leavin’ my friends
Runnin’ when things get too crazy
Out to the road, out ‘neath the stars
Feelin’ the breeze, passin’ the cars<\/em><\/p>\n

On most live albums, the singer oversold.\u00c2\u00a0 He was trying to reach the back row.\u00c2\u00a0 But Bob Seger seemed to be in a therapy session.\u00c2\u00a0 Or on your couch after a couple of beers way past midnight.\u00c2\u00a0 Telling his story.<\/p>\n

Now "Travelin’ Man" eventually portrays the life of a desperado, the same one the Eagles sang about.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, I always resonated with the freedom.\u00c2\u00a0 I didn’t want to be tied down, I didn’t want to sacrifice.\u00c2\u00a0 I wanted to experience, I wanted to live.\u00c2\u00a0 I always heard from my parents I was a lazy son of a bitch, but out here in the new world, trying to find out who I really was, I was fully active, I was fully alive.<\/p>\n

That Bob Seger could get it so wrong year after year in the studio but get it exactly right on stage surprised me.\u00c2\u00a0 After the above lyrics, more of the instruments came in, there wasn’t only the wispy organ, there was a full tilt boogie band.\u00c2\u00a0 That might have been from third-rate Detroit, but didn’t give a shit.\u00c2\u00a0 They weren’t citified, not all slick like their Angeleno brothers, but these guys in the Silver Bullet Band knew how to ROCK!<\/p>\n

And halfway through the song, Bob hung back, the drummer pounded, and the band worked out.\u00c2\u00a0 And suddenly, in the height of the break, the groove changed.\u00c2\u00a0 They sneaked into a whole new number.\u00c2\u00a0 One we’d heard in its studio version on the radio now and again the year before.\u00c2\u00a0 But instead of being poised, this "Beautiful Loser" had the feel of a bumpkin beaming on a country day.\u00c2\u00a0 Of a come from behind local winning the U.S. Open.\u00c2\u00a0 Of a band denied their spot on the national stage for so long finally claiming it.\u00c2\u00a0 Yes, when Bob Seger and the Sliver Bullet Band launched into "Beautiful Loser" you smiled on the inside, you were with them, you shared the joy of their long-postponed success.\u00c2\u00a0 When the crowd cheers when Bob starts to sing the words you tingle, you’ve been there, when you know every note your favorite act plays.<\/p>\n

Beautiful loser
Never take it all
‘Cause it’s easier
And faster when you fall<\/em><\/p>\n

Everybody starts out playing to win.\u00c2\u00a0 But when sometime in their twenties they realize how hard it is to succeed, to fulfill their dreams, they give up.\u00c2\u00a0 They make internal excuses.\u00c2\u00a0 They become fans as opposed to players.\u00c2\u00a0 They become shadows of their former selves.\u00c2\u00a0 With no schoolmarm to push them, and out of their parents’ sight, they’re lost and broken.\u00c2\u00a0 No, you just can’t have it all.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’re entitled to quite a bit.\u00c2\u00a0 But you’ve got to fight for it.<\/p>\n

Suddenly, with the release of "Night Moves", primed by the success of "Live Bullet", Bob Seger was the biggest act in the land.\u00c2\u00a0 He dominated the airwaves.\u00c2\u00a0 And every time I heard the live version of "Turn The Page" on the radio I never forgot where it started for me, "Back In ’72".<\/p>\n

They say that Bob Seger doesn’t want "Back In ’72" released on CD because he doesn’t like his vocals.\u00c2\u00a0 But I never noticed a problem in the title cut.\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of swagger rock absent from the scene today except for the Black Crowes.\u00c2\u00a0 The kind of stuff that used to pour out of the jukebox at the bar after work and on weekends, when America cut loose from its factory jobs.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a power and a soul that’s irresistible.\u00c2\u00a0 And there’s a great cover of Free’s legendary "Stealer", so legendary that if you’ve never heard it buy it immediately on iTunes, to hear why Paul Kossoff’s death was a tragedy.\u00c2\u00a0 But the piece de resistance is "Turn The Page".<\/p>\n

On a long and lonesome highway, east of Omaha
You can listen to the engine moaning out its one lone song
You can think about the woman, or the girl you knew the night before<\/em><\/p>\n

But your thoughts will soon be wandering, the way they always do<\/em><\/p>\n

When you’re riding sixteen hours and there’s nothing there to do<\/em><\/p>\n

And you don’t feel much like riding, you just wish the trip was through<\/em><\/p>\n

Here I am, on the road again
There I am, on the stage
Here I go, playing star again
There I go, turn the page<\/em><\/p>\n

And you wonder why all the musicians do drugs.\u00c2\u00a0 You’re adored by twenty thousand people and then you get in the bus with the same four assholes you’ve known your whole life, onto a new city to start all over.\u00c2\u00a0 "Turn The Page" is the best song about the road I’ve ever heard.\u00c2\u00a0 Because it’s got a sense of desperation.\u00c2\u00a0 Bob doesn’t know why he’s riding the bus.\u00c2\u00a0 Should he give up?\u00c2\u00a0 At this point, in 1973, almost nobody was listening.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like hearing Elton John working out in his flat in London before "Your Song".\u00c2\u00a0 Bob had all the talent, all the greatness, but somehow it all didn’t matter.\u00c2\u00a0 You can hear the fatigue in his voice.\u00c2\u00a0 He’s so tired, he can’t even be desperate.<\/p>\n

Metallica did a great cover.<\/p>\n

And the live version smokes.<\/p>\n

But the best take is still the original, on "Back In ’72".\u00c2\u00a0 And this week, I play it on the Rhinocast.\u00c2\u00a0 You should hear it.<\/p>\n

Bob Seger quit the road.\u00c2\u00a0 To have a life.\u00c2\u00a0 He got it right, as opposed to all those who died living the rock and roll lifestyle.\u00c2\u00a0 His latter day career is marred by too many ballads, but for years he rocked.\u00c2\u00a0 And when I hear that rock I’m reminded of who I once was.\u00c2\u00a0 And wonder if my journey has been the right one.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether I’ve got a blind spot and am really the beautiful loser.\u00c2\u00a0 Whether I’m just not old enough to understand it, to get what life is about.\u00c2\u00a0 I’m still listening to records to find out what life is about.<\/p>\n

\n

You can subscribe to the Rhinocast by searching on "lefsetz" in the iTunes Music Store. Or you can go directly to the Rhino site and listen\/take it\/download it there, Rhino<\/a>, hold down the "control" key to download on a Mac.\u00c2\u00a0 My bit about "Back In ’72" begins at 17:57.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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He wants to dream like a young manWith the wisdom of an old man Standing in the bathroom at the shrink today I was shocked.\u00c2\u00a0 That guy in the full-length mirror.\u00c2\u00a0 That was me.\u00c2\u00a0 My hair had finally decided to give up the ghost, not only had most of it disappeared, but the gray was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-452","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-7i","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}