Fewer and fewer people use rock ‘n’ roll like I do to refer to popular music in general. But anyhow, whatever the name, whatever it is has been painfully, absurdly ridiculous for a long time.
RIDICULOUS LIST
The early 21st-century variety of rock ‘n’ roll or whatever ya call it most flagrantly, of course. The ridiculous outfits. Twice as many words squeezed into the same old three-minutes. AcCENTS on the wrong SyLABble. “I Am the Walrus” nonsense from songwriters who think they are making sense. Leering sexual pandering. Cloyingly sincere lyrics coupled with leering sexual pandering. Songs about how rich the singer is. Squeaking noises.
Acclaimed singers who can’t sing. Focus-grouped-to-death, hook-jampacked songs that still suck. “Artists.” Hysterical caterwauling alternating with cutesy-wootsey Betty-Boopish cheeping and peeping, cooing and oohing. Merchandise. Gossip the product, the song the lagniappe. The tedious, soul-less, mindless, mechanical, godawful, voice-lesson-hatched “riffing” that renders differing songs similar and similar songs identical. The ridiculous outfits.
I could be more specific. But then I would have to listen to more of it. You see my conundrum.
ALWAYS RIDICULOUS
This is not to say that popular music since the big band era has not always been ridiculous. Think screaming teenaged girls. Moshing. Theater rock. The ridiculous outfits. Rock opera. Devo (self-conscious ridiculousness is still ridiculous; no-one gets off the hook that easy). Little Richard.
And I like Little Richard. So much that I never noticed his ridiculousness until it was pointed out to me.
RIDICULOUS IRONY
It seems apparent, at least in its more recent manifestations, that Popular Music, like the bruited sentient computer, has evolved awareness of its own ridiculousness. Magically turning plain old dumb old ridiculousness into the lovely, supposedly witty, “irony.”
Irony, someone said, is the last refuge of the chuckle-headed.
Irony, at least the rock ‘n’ roll kind, mitigates nothing for me, however. I’m too simple-minded. Too stolid. Too unsophisticated. Plain old dumb old ridiculous is still just plain old dumb old ridiculous to me. Irony just seems like an excuse.
SYMPHONIC ALTERNATIVES
Thus, for a long time now, I have felt a certain embarrassment about engaging in something so ridiculous, or at least so girded round with ridiculousness, as the writing of rock ‘n’ roll songs. You will notice, for instance, that I also write symphonic works, among other things. In part to appease my self-respect. I cannot imagine devoting one’s entire life to nothing but rock ‘n’ roll/popular music/whatever. How—ridiculous.
So why persist at all?
Perhaps I persist because, writing my songs as I do in isolation, I never think of them as popular music. I think of them as little three-minute jewels painstakingly cut and polished and set in my private laboratory. I think of myself as an artisan trying to imbed in each effort some unique little inclusion that might, if he is lucky, bring a smile to the discerning. Songwriting, to me, is arts and crafts.
The song itself, to me, is the thing: the accretions adhering to its packaging do not really obtain. A song’s worth, to me, is to be found in how well it is crafted, and nowhere else. I think I think this way because, when I was young, songs were anonymous. A song would come on the radio and you would have no idea who the band was, where they came from, what their favorite colors were. It was just a son
Better yet is the popular music of the early twentieth century, when quite often all you had to go on was a scratchy record of some utterly obscure musician. Hardly so much as one faded sepia photograph extant (like Charlie Patton). Or not even one (like Geeshie Wiley).
So if you think I wanna be a rock ‘n’ roll star, don’t be ridiculous. All I want is to locate a small group of like-minded people who might appreciate workmanlike attempts at gem-cutting. Which is why I have put my music up on the internet. Do chime in if you are feeling like-minded.