{"id":645,"date":"2007-01-09T08:30:43","date_gmt":"2007-01-09T16:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/archives\/2007\/01\/09\/liar\/"},"modified":"2007-01-09T08:30:43","modified_gmt":"2007-01-09T16:30:43","slug":"liar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/2007\/01\/09\/liar\/","title":{"rendered":"Liar"},"content":{"rendered":"

God gave rock and roll to you
Gave rock and roll to you
Save rock and roll for everyone<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Argent – God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I had one of those days where every song on the radio triggered a memory.\u00c2\u00a0 I got in this mood.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I was thirteen years old.<\/p>\n

I was going to write about "She’s Not There".\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody writes about "Time Of The Season", but really "She’s Not There" was the breakthrough, "Time Of The Season" was just the comeback.\u00c2\u00a0 We were infatuated with the British sound.\u00c2\u00a0 One act after another reached us.\u00c2\u00a0 Not only the Beatles, but Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas and Gerry and the Pacemakers.\u00c2\u00a0 There was a darkness in this music, a resonance.\u00c2\u00a0 Maybe because it was cut across the pond, by the sons of soldiers, some who came back from the war, some who didn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 It wasn’t sunny Southern California.\u00c2\u00a0 They were playing to escape.\u00c2\u00a0 From the factories, from the drudgery.\u00c2\u00a0 But all they could sing about was what they knew.\u00c2\u00a0 They couldn’t sing of being lonely surfer boys, rather just everyday life in a dank, dark country.\u00c2\u00a0 And this music, it was dark too.\u00c2\u00a0 It had shadows.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s what entranced us.\u00c2\u00a0 The sheer humanity.<\/p>\n

MTV with the beautiful people, the posing?\u00c2\u00a0 Completely different.\u00c2\u00a0 What WAS going on in Brian Jones’ head?\u00c2\u00a0 Under that perfect blond coif?\u00c2\u00a0 What had happened to him that he could make this sound?\u00c2\u00a0 What had happened to ALL of them!<\/p>\n

But then I got hooked on "I’m A Believer".\u00c2\u00a0 It’s not like the Monkees don’t get enough ink.\u00c2\u00a0 But unless you were alive that Christmas of ’66, you have no IDEA how big that track was.<\/p>\n

I guess I got started by listening to 20 on 20 on XM.\u00c2\u00a0 All today’s hits.\u00c2\u00a0 I’d like to tell you the tracks are entrancing, enriching, but they truly are crap.\u00c2\u00a0 Have you heard that Nickelback song "Rockstar"?\u00c2\u00a0 Is that a parody?\u00c2\u00a0 Must be.\u00c2\u00a0 And then the African-American music, with the singer and the rapper and the drum machine.\u00c2\u00a0 This shit is meaningless.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s always a guy apologizing for being the crude misogynist player he truly is, and a woman saying she’ll…accept him?\u00c2\u00a0 If this is a snapshot of modern life, we’re fucked.\u00c2\u00a0 And the people listening to this music, they have NO IDEA of the power of the song.\u00c2\u00a0 Desperate fucks running record companies are just trying to make a buck.\u00c2\u00a0 And the Top Forty radio stations who are their partners in crime…\u00c2\u00a0 Like Mediabase COUNTS?\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, don’t e-mail me that the guys back then were interested in money too, OF COURSE they were, but something else was going on.\u00c2\u00a0 Mickey Mantle liked getting paid, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t an iconic baseball player.<\/p>\n

And why is "I’m A Believer" SO magical?<\/p>\n

Is it the organ?<\/p>\n

Or Mickey Dolenz’s vocal?<\/p>\n

Or the cheesy handclaps and percussion?\u00c2\u00a0 Or the background vocals?<\/p>\n

"I’m A Believer" is a MASTERPIECE!\u00c2\u00a0 It might have been conceived as fodder, but it’s like building a Corvette, it might still be a GM car, but the sum of the parts is BEYOND anything else the company has ever constructed.<\/p>\n

Were you a believer?\u00c2\u00a0 I certainly was.\u00c2\u00a0 And I don’t think it was Monkeemania.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s just that this TUNE, you heard it once and you had to hear it FOREVER!<\/p>\n

And I wanted to dissect "I’m A Believer".\u00c2\u00a0 But I couldn’t find the credits.\u00c2\u00a0 Who played what.\u00c2\u00a0 And realizing my MP3 collection was spotty, I fired up my P2P program to complete it.<\/p>\n

And getting a few Monkees tracks at high speed, I looked in the purveyors’ hard drives.\u00c2\u00a0 And started downloading stuff I didn’t even know I wanted.\u00c2\u00a0 Seals & Crofts.\u00c2\u00a0 White Plains.\u00c2\u00a0 Paul Revere’s "Steppin’ Out On Me".\u00c2\u00a0 And then I found a cache of Three Dog Night.\u00c2\u00a0 I HATE "Joy To The World", but some of that stuff is good.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided to complete my collection.\u00c2\u00a0 And checking for duplicates after downloading, I wondered why I had THREE versions of "Liar".\u00c2\u00a0 Okay, one was the album version, and another the single take.\u00c2\u00a0 But why did I need TWO single takes?\u00c2\u00a0 Then, upon closer inspection, I discovered that one was ripped at 256kbps.\u00c2\u00a0 I decided to fire it up. To compare it to the version at 128.<\/p>\n

I won’t ever leave
If you want me to stay
Nothing you can do
That can turn me away<\/em><\/p>\n

I met this woman.\u00c2\u00a0 At a party.\u00c2\u00a0 I hit on her to no avail.\u00c2\u00a0 You see she was there with her live-in boyfriend, OF YEARS!\u00c2\u00a0 But after he chatted me up, after she was done with me, after she returned and truly engaged me, she wanted my phone number, she wanted to CONTINUE!<\/p>\n

I felt numb.\u00c2\u00a0 Something had transpired.\u00c2\u00a0 She left her boyfriend. She moved in with me.\u00c2\u00a0 But it was too much, if she left him, couldn’t she leave ME?<\/p>\n

She stopped me on the sidewalk after I confronted her with this fact, that it was just too weird.\u00c2\u00a0 She turned around and looked me directly in the eye and said I CHOSE YOU!<\/p>\n

I protested no more.<\/p>\n

Hangin’ on anyway
Believin’ the things you say
And being a fool<\/em><\/p>\n

She told me she didn’t want a divorce.\u00c2\u00a0 Yet she never seemed to want to come back.\u00c2\u00a0 Years passed.\u00c2\u00a0 My friends burned out on the story.\u00c2\u00a0 But I was married to her.\u00c2\u00a0 I live up to my commitments.<\/p>\n

You’ve taken my life
Don’t take my soul
That’s what you said
And I believed it all<\/em><\/p>\n

I escaped.\u00c2\u00a0 She was dragging me down the rabbit hole.\u00c2\u00a0 BEFORE she left.\u00c2\u00a0 You see she got me to the point where I accepted her untogetherness, her craziness.\u00c2\u00a0 I stopped drawing a line, it was too frustrating.\u00c2\u00a0 Some of my values collapsed, she didn’t really trust anybody, and I became just like her.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, the disconnection ripped out my heart.\u00c2\u00a0 All that debt.\u00c2\u00a0 All that longing.\u00c2\u00a0 I edged ever closer to the line, and then slid over it.<\/p>\n

We have seen no night
We have seen no day
We are enemies
But you want me to stay<\/em><\/p>\n

I never fought with that woman.\u00c2\u00a0 She wouldn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 If there’s no fighting in your relationship, you’re fucked.\u00c2\u00a0 That just means your partner is afraid of voicing his or her opinion.\u00c2\u00a0 There’s a disconnection in your relationship.\u00c2\u00a0 They’ve got one foot out the door, they’re already existing partially on their own.<\/p>\n

But the person before, we fought pretty good.\u00c2\u00a0 To the point where it would take all day.\u00c2\u00a0 She’d sleep on the couch, or make ME!\u00c2\u00a0 But she never wanted to break up.<\/p>\n

You can believe in me
I won’t be leavin’
I won’t let you go<\/em><\/p>\n

Can you believe in ANYBODY?\u00c2\u00a0 Is EVERYBODY subject to whims?\u00c2\u00a0 Or, if not, are they just staying with you because they’re desperate, fearful of being alone, and it really doesn’t have much to DO with you?<\/p>\n

Tell me when you find out.\u00c2\u00a0 Oh, you might be married, you might think you know.\u00c2\u00a0 I hope that lasts.\u00c2\u00a0 But for so many it doesn’t.\u00c2\u00a0 You’ll find yourself over fifty wondering what the hell life is ABOUT!\u00c2\u00a0 Trusting no one.<\/p>\n

You’ve taken my life
Don’t take my soul
That’s what you said
But who are we to know
I want to be with you
As long as you want me to
So don’t move away<\/em><\/p>\n

You build it in your brain, you construct a map of the relationship, what was said, what it all means.\u00c2\u00a0 I became convinced she didn’t want to break the connection, I didn’t want to press for a divorce.<\/p>\n

Ain’t that what you said?
Ain’t that what you said?
Ain’t that what you said?
Liar!
Liar! Liar!<\/em><\/p>\n

It doesn’t matter what they say.\u00c2\u00a0 It just matters what they do.<\/p>\n

She eventually called me up half a decade on, whilst living with another guy, to ask for forgiveness.\u00c2\u00a0 FUCK THAT!<\/p>\n

I’d like to tell you I’ve got this life figured out.\u00c2\u00a0 But the more I go to the shrink, the more questions I have.\u00c2\u00a0 Like relationships… Are they ever perfect?\u00c2\u00a0 Do I demand that they be perfect?\u00c2\u00a0 Do I have to learn to just hang in there?\u00c2\u00a0 Is it about the person, the connection, or ME?<\/p>\n

I think I was looking for perfection back then.\u00c2\u00a0 In the sixties.\u00c2\u00a0 After some uncomfortable interludes with the opposite sex, after the rejection.\u00c2\u00a0 I depended on the music to get me through.<\/p>\n

The Zombies morphed into Argent, and I was a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 I bought the album with "Hold Your Head Up", but never the one with "Liar".\u00c2\u00a0 I couldn’t afford it and barely heard it.\u00c2\u00a0 And I can count on one finger how many times I heard the Three Dog Night cover.\u00c2\u00a0 But I never forgot the song, it’s that kind of track.<\/p>\n

When I discovered Napster in 2000, the very first track I took was Argent’s "Liar".<\/p>\n

Now at this point, you can buy "Liar" on iTunes.\u00c2\u00a0 But that’s missing the point.\u00c2\u00a0 Because I don’t want only the Argent "Liar", but the Three Dog Night take too, both the album and single versions.\u00c2\u00a0 And I want KISS’ "Lick It Up", and if you add up all the shit I want to own, I can’t afford it.<\/p>\n

God might have given rock and roll to everyone, but the labels want to make sure they don’t have it.\u00c2\u00a0 But, stunningly, SEVEN YEARS ON, there’s a Napster facsimile, that gives you a taste, a waft of the feeling.<\/p>\n

\n

Go to: Liar<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It’s not the version I’m hearing in my headphones right now.\u00c2\u00a0 Not the studio take, but a live one, from YEARS LATER!\u00c2\u00a0 But this is just the kind of shit I scoured Napster for.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t need to SEE these renditions, I just need to hear them.\u00c2\u00a0 You see, music goes in the EARS!<\/p>\n

You said you were protecting the rights of artists.\u00c2\u00a0 That there would be no music if Napster was legalized.\u00c2\u00a0 You said you had to sue traders to protect your rights.<\/p>\n

LIAR!\u00c2\u00a0 LIAR!<\/p>\n

If YouTube can be monetized, P2P can be monetized.\u00c2\u00a0 So more people can own more music, so more people’s lives can be enriched, so they can have tunes to get them through the hard times.\u00c2\u00a0 Toss away a Top Forty world, embrace discovery.<\/p>\n

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

God gave rock and roll to youGave rock and roll to youSave rock and roll for everyone Argent – God Gave Rock ‘n’ Roll To You I had one of those days where every song on the radio triggered a memory.\u00c2\u00a0 I got in this mood.\u00c2\u00a0 I felt like I was thirteen years old. I […]<\/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":[1,2,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-music-business","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s96vPs-liar","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645","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=645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/645\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}