OK, I've been asked to comment on "The Last Song (Love Needs to Be Loved". I will accept this honor, and I commend Hrrundi for his fine characterization of our charter RTH Rock and Roll Foyer of Fame member.

As Hrrundi suspected, this song plays into my hippie sympathies. I love the intro, with the muted, funky bassline and distant fuzz guitar. Listen to Seger's passionate vocals, man. Then those angelic backing vocals come in, stating the obvious and redundant messages that only the mildly stoned might arrive at. What better than the obvious for a groovy chorus? Then that little guitar riff re-enters. Dig it!

I do have problems with the eventual similarities to "Joy to the World". I don't know which song came first, but that bit of music sucks either way. You know what, thought? Without the outright lousy part, Seger may not be standing in the Foyer of Fame. This song will stick in my head for seconds after it ends. I look forward to discussions of the other songs you have presented. I truly hope our other SUMMONED Townsmen will step forward, as well as those who were not directly SUMMONED.

Congratulations, Bob!

Thanks, Mod. And you're right -- I should've made it clear that not only is RTH's patro saint of well-intentioned rock mediocrity Bob Seger the namesake of this Partial Lifetime Achievement Award -- he's also its first winner. As you say, congratulations, Bob!

Now, fellow RTHers, who is fit to walk in Bob's footsteps? Remember, we're looking for folks who really delivered some fine goods, *for a short while*, and then pretty much sucked the bad part of Rock's ass.

While you're pondering this offshoot of Captain Oats' "One and Done" thread, I remind those of you who have been SUMMONED to stand forth and deliver!

HVB

Excellent critique, Mr Mod. Now that you have said your piece, can you now do what you promised Chickenfrank and I? We're waiting! Don't make me come down to Conshohocken and pry it out of you

I love the first song by the way. It's very rare indeed when the snare is panned to one side and the bass drum is panned to the other.

I dropped a “Last Song (Love Needs To Be Loved)” reference back in that Last Man Standing: Songs That Sound Like Nothing Else a Band or Artist Ever Did or Would Do thread and have been patiently waiting until it had its day in the Hall. My extensive research at the time seemed to conclude that Seger either actually came up with the “Joy To The World” thing first, or both songs were created independently at the same time. Like the printing press.

I will retire to my Detroit Room to give “2+2=?” its proper inspection at first opportunity today. I wish I hadn’t shaved this morning, to be in a more Segerian state of mind, as per my normal critical evaluation process.

Love the title of your post, hvb. I will listen to all of the songs as soon as time permits.

I'm thinking that Rod Stewart may be a worthy second member of this moderately esteemed group, although were his early highs too high for consideration?

Man, some of these totally sound like lost Autumn Carosel tracks. Did Seger have an unofficial co-write going on with "Soul Blossom"?

Hey, Mod -- Rod Stewart would make an *excellent* nominee! That's exactly the kind of Great Rock Disappointment the Foyer needs to honor.

REMINDER:

We still need to hear from Topwnsmen Saturnismine, General Slocum, 2000 Man and Alexmagic. Your thoughts are of vital importance!

"Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" is great because it is like the perfect distillation of Segerism: husky vocals, a good groove, simple but catchy lyrics.

And that's it. No attempt to write a chorus, which always fails him. The other songs are either mediocre or, in the case of "White Wall," fail to capitalize on a solid riff.

"Ramblin' Gamblin' Man" then stands as the collective realization that it is time to stop hoping that Seger could ever rise above his station. And so we can savor this fine moment, appreciate it, and Seger, for what it is.

Dr. John, I appreciate your opinion, but I advise you not to nail Seger's coffin lid shut just yet. There are others to be heard from -- and I, for one, think all the songs I decided to share are first-rate (well, except maybe for that "Love Needs To Be Loved" number). I mean, how on Earth can you deny the righteous, bitterly angry, rockin' excellence of "2+2=?"

HVB

Well, if no other band had written an anagry anti-war song during that time, perhaps I might give this a higher grade. But compared to a song like "Fortunate Son," it just sounds like a cheap imitation.

Alexmagic, you're on deck to tell us what you think of this song. Do you agree? For me, it's a toss-up between "2+2=?" and "Fortunate Son." Seriously. Seger's number sounds so much more desperate, which is probably closer to how draftees in the Vietnam era actually felt about their predicament. But the CCR tune packs pretty angry wallop, too. Still, something's gotta be said for that harsh, riff-centric producion on 2+2. And those drums! Fuck!

Hrrundi, I'm trying my hardest to lay out on commenting on the other songs so far, but I've gotta say: I was moved by Dr. John's summation of "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man"!

“Now, get seven million five hundred thousand votes to declare that two and two make five…you will not have advanced a step.” Victor Hugo, 1852

Released in 1968 as the first single by the newly-formed Bob Seger System, “2+2=?” is arguably the centerpiece track of The Tales of Lucy Blue, the album that would later be re-titled and released as Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Man in April 1969. Dubbed a “ferocious antiwar song” by critics such as Stephen Thomas Erlewine and often compared to other songs of its day that questioned and decried the Vietnam Conflict, the truth behind “2+2=?” actually extends further and deeper into both history and the troubled genius of its author, Robert Clark “Bob” Seger.

To simply place “2+2=?” alongside fellow 1968/1969 releases like Creedence Clearwater Revival’s “Fortunate Son” and later efforts (such as Jeff Lynne’s triumphant Vietnam disquisition “Kuiama”) robs the song of both its history and insight. The hard-driving number was not written as one of many end-of-the-decade responses to the armed hostilities in North Vietnam, but instead pre-dates pop music’s response to the faltering American war on Communism and confronts greater systemic ills and dangers that Seger’s generation unknowingly faced.

In 1965, following the recommendation of the National Security Council, Operation Rolling Thunder commenced. The three-year bombing campaign was intended to break North Vietnamese support of the National Front for the Liberation of South Vietnam and provide a morale boost for the South Vietnamese forces by breaking the back of the North’s Air Defenses and leveling its industrial base. That same year, an article in the Ann Arbor News reporting the death of a friend overseas would spur a young Bob Seger to pen “one of the first anti-war rock songs.” Journalist Gary Graff would later note in a Detroit Free-Press article published in 1986 that, alongside Bob Dylan, Seger was “…perhaps the first pop performer to actually question what the United States was doing in Southeast Asia.” Graff would also make note of how Seger’s legendary “knack for putting feelings into songs has often run ahead of popular culture.”

Indeed, with “2+2=?”, Seger had succeeded in taking one of the first shots against the mounting horrors of the Indochine war effort. But commentary on the fighting was only part of the songwriter’s aims.

Of course, it is easy to understand why only the war aspect is mentioned in Seger’s piece. Listen to the machine gun roll of the drums the :47 mark. Reflect on the song’s evocative lyrics describing a high school teen left weeping at home over the fate of her sweetheart, an “average friendly guy” forced to travel to a “foreign jungle land” and meet his fate “buried in the mud.” Yes, the Vietnam Conflict was clearly a starting point for Seger’s soul searching, but it was hardly the true focus. Opposition to war and bloodshed alone did not drive Dearborn’s favorite son, as he notes that he could kill if he must, and more tellingly, that “It's the rules not the soldier” that he found “the real enemy.”

Instead, “2+2=?” is Seger’s way of illuminating a greater problem. George Orwell wrote that “freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four...If that is granted, all else follows.” Orwell would later warn that what truly frightened him “much more than bombs” was the danger of a corrupt leadership damaging not only “the validity of experience, but the very existence of external reality” by announcing that “two and two made five.”

“No statesman, no general” he, it was this increasingly real threat to innate nature of truth within the mind of the individual which drove Seger during the composition of “2+2=?” Listen to the snarling repetition of the guitar riff that weaves around the song, pinning Seger in as the tempo gradually increases and the intensity of the relentless drums refuse to yield, both chasing him and closing in until the tension becomes too much and snaps, stopping the song dead at 2:20. 2:20? 2+2=0?

Throughout the song, Seger continually returns to the touchstone phrase “2+2 is on my mind.” Certainly, the questions posed by Seger’s unbalanced mathematical equation are those which worried Orwell: “…how do we know that two and two make four? Or that the force of gravity works? Or that the past is unchangeable? If both the past and the external world exist only in the mind, and if the mind itself is controllable – what then?”

The breaking point at 2:20 is merely a false ending. After an almost maddening pause, Seger returns alone to declare that “2+2” is still on his mind, only to be joined once more by the aggressive, snaking guitar, pounding drums and a haunting Greek chorus mocking him with his own question. And then the song fades out, implying that Seger has become lost forever in this cycle.

Note the title of the song, “2+2=?” The question mark begs the listener to ask whether Seger had ever come up with a solution for his dilemma. Was he merely sharing his troubled thoughts with us, asking us to question the intentions of a system that would seek to pervert logic and eradicate the individual? Or did he initially hope to answer the question posed by his title? Consider the name of the band formed to eventually release the song. Merely a catchy title for a collection of musicians, or did Seger intend to provide an answer to the machinations of an archaic and corrupt system with a something else: new system, a greater system, a Bob Seger System?

We may never truly know. The Bob Seger who wrote “2+2=?” appears to have been, on the surface, a very different man than the heartland rock megastar who would re-emerge in the 1970s and earn his way into the Rock ‘n Roll Hall of Fame and the RTH Rock and Roll Foyer of Fame. Graff, in his 1986 Free-Press piece, noted that “quite a bit happened in the intervening years,” reporting that Seger had given up music at one point, “opting for psychological counseling.”

Some Seger historians (www.youtube.com/watch?v=8a9LEijVCLk) specifically cite “2+2=?” as proof that Seger’s earliest work was superior to the hits he would eventually become known for, and openly wonder why this phase of his work can no longer be heard on mainstream radio. In 2003, the British band Radiohead would release “2+2=5”. Not only in title, but also in its unusual, driving build, the song recalls the plaintive question that Seger musically demanded the world answer 35 years prior. In the later song’s first line, as the band asks “Are you such a dreamer, to put the world to rights?” they may as well be addressing Young Seger directly.

What happened to Seger? Did he solve the intellectual arithmetic of “2+2=?”? Like Orwell’s Winston, was he gotten to, compelled to see five as the sum of two and two? This author would argue: No, that – though necessarily obscured – The Bob Seger System lives on, and no one’s gotten to him yet. No matter how much those in power would like to have silenced their inquisitor, we must remember the man’s own words:

Every time they were sure they had you caught
You were quicker than they thought
You’d just turn your back and walk.

Aim high, Bob. Aim high.

Aww man...here I get summoned and I spent the day wishing everyone that's scared of snow had just called off and let me drive in peace.

Down Home sounds pretty cool on first listen. For the negatives, I think the stereo separation is weird and goes back and forth too much, but that might just be me. I don't like the backing vocals at all. The arrangement is okay, but it sounds like Bob backing up Bob. That's really a little too much Bobness for me.

For the positives, it's good ol' Detroit/Midwestern garage rock n' roll, which is what I cut my teeth on here in Cleveland. So I'm a bad person to ask, because I can usually overlook most of the faults, like double barrel Bob, and just dig the groovy guitar and enjoy the hell out of that drum sound. Is Bob trying to be Captain Beefheart at the beginning and then finding his inner Bob part way through the first verse? Is the fake ending and fade back in totally cool or what?

Hell. I like it HVB. It's kind of a foreshadow of the mostly fun but readily forgettable music Bob made before Turn the Page on the live album made him the Bon Jovi of his generation. But at least Bob had the good sense to stay the Bon Jovi of his own damned generation and left subsequent generations alone. I'm gonna keep listening. I think that's a good find, and that's a real clean record.

And now, to butt in where I wasn't summoned...

White Wall is pure awesomeness when it skips trying to be pretty. I guess the indie rock kids can be spared for the pretty shit some of them keep spitting out. Apparently it's been going on for a long time. The jammy middle part is even cool. The whispery "whi-hi-hi-hi-te wa-wa-wa-ah-ah-al" is dumb, but I give it a thumbs up for not caring if it's dumb or not.

2+2 is yucky. Thanks for not giving me that. The stereo makes me dizzy in a bad way. One fake ending per album, please.

The Last Song starts off okay but man does it get bad fast. That is one awkward song.

Rambin' Gamblin' Man is fantastic. They actually used to play that on the radio here all the time. I remember hearing it on my little DYN portable AM transistor radio. One of the things that makes it so great is that the drums sound HUGE. They even sounded huge on my little radio. It's like one of those awesome party songs like Louie, Louie with all the cool hand claps and that organ. I love how it's got a sparse sound, but if you listen closely it sounds like it took thirty people to make that song. I can give Bob a lot of slack because of that one. I think it's just one of those perfectly put together songs. I can remember in Jr. High when I was trying hard to meet girls thinking of that line, "ain't afraid to look a girl, huh in the eye" and thinking that's got to be at least half the battle. That's one kick ass song, that is.

Alexmagic, that was stunning. For the moment, I am rendered speechless.

Mod, are you watching?

2000 Man: I also enjoyed your direct, succinct summary of "Down Home," as well as your heartfelt (and insightful) observations re: "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man." A coupla follow-on thoughts:

1. I had you pegged as one of those dudes who places the value of the well-crafted, heartily-bashed riff above almost all else. On that score, I think "Down Home" is a major winner. Interesting to read your comments on other relevant issues, though.

2. YES! I *still* think "...ain't afraid to LOOK a girl... (huh) in the eye..." is one of the great lyrics of teenaged, pimply-faced, frustrated testosterone empowerment. Shit, I *still* find it empowering. To draw a larger point, the theme that precedes/connects with this line ("I ain't good LOOKIN'... but you know I ain't shy...") is mirrored in more serious fashion on "2+2=?" Note Bob sings: "I ain't sayin' I'm a genius..." before he utters the declamation "two plus two is on my mind!" in much the same way. An everyman, indeed.

More on this kind of "bloke-ism" in a later post, by the way. But this is some A-1, prime grade bloke-ism on display here, used to great effect. Now you know why the guy is in the Foyer.

Oh, also, an administrative note: this is the first Thrifty Music find that I didn't rip myself. I assure you, my Korean thrift store copy is real clean, but I was so enthused about the discovery that I thought it justified to furnish you all with some .mp3s I found out there in InterWeb land after being so bowled over with what I heard on my vinyl copy. I think the source material was the CD that was issued for a few months, many years ago, before Capitol withdrew the album from circulation (again).

Just wanted to be clear about my thrifty integrity.

Hrrundi, you ask if I'm watching? You bet I am! Townspeople clearly are uniting behind the Foyer's first selection. This is fantastic stuff. The songs you have chosen perfectly represent the values the Foyer celebrates. I've been thinking that this album is what MC5's excellent second album (I just blanked on the title - something in the USA???) aspired to.

Speaking of MC5, perhaps I will nominate my beloved Steppenwolf when it's time to select a second member of the Foyer of Fame.

Saturn and Slocum: you were asked to contribute for a *reason*. Please share!

Sorry, I need to get to my other computer, where I can download and listen. But I shall, in a short while today.

I do love the riff, HVB but I'm really more about how songs make me feel. One day we can get the Hall's therapist to tell me why I seem to like reinterpretations more than the original things. I like The Stones doing blues songs far more than I like blues masters. I hate Led Zeppelin (and always have) but I love bands like Black Mountain or The Raconteurs, obvious followers of Zep. So I have no idea why I like what I like, but I think it has to do as much with space around sound as sound itself.

I'm glad I didn't read alexmagic's article first. I'm sure I'd have listened to that song differently, and I will go back and listen to it differently now, but I still don't think I'll like it.

alexmagic, a very insightful post.

I still, however, would go with "Fortunate Son," because it more directly indicts the leaders for the war. Now, perhaps, Seger is more subversive (I couldn't hear all the words, as the vocals were buried in the
mix), but for me his "message" as it were gets lost.

Still, we ought to look at the real deal-breaker: the crappy guitar tone. In its lack of dynamics and tonal color, I think we may have a precursor to the "Sam Ash" sound here.

I'm just listening on crappy laptop speakers, but are they really panning the drums maniacally back and forth on 2+2? That must be weird in headphones. I like the song, but the title always makes me think of Love's Seven & Seven Is.

Now that I hear Ramblin Gamblin Man again (like 2000 I remember this one from the radio, but maybe from underground radio rather than AM), I know why years later I still though Seger was primarily an organ player. I kept wondering why his big hits didn't have organ on them.

Dr. John -- no, no no, no NO on that Sam Ash thing. The Sam Ash sound is chock-*full* of over-hyped dynamics, all over the EQ spread. Booming lows, crispity highs, crunchy middles -- and the net effect is that *nothing* sounds good. It's all fake, like a 1980s Scholz Rockman porta-amp. In contrast, this guitar sound is all about ONE thing: knocking a hole in your skull with its insistent, ball-peen hammer attack. It may not sing, but it sure as hell does a great job at barking.

But my point is: isn't that clumsy fuzztone a logical precursor to the Scholz Rockman and Sam Ash sound? Surely, it takes away from the definition of the notes and squashes the frequencies.

I mean, it would be okay if the guitar on 2+2 deliberately was meant to sound ugly, but to me it sounds too middle of the road. You want to hear a REAL ugly sound, check out the Monks or Zappa (circa Uncle Meat).

Let me clarify: the fuzztone is as fake as the sounds I argue it came before: it tends to be attractive to the unskilled, seen as a substitute for the difficult and trying process of finding a good sound, and it makes everything sound the same, which makes it "fake"--as if everyone using it were a 16 year old in their parents' garage.

“Attractive To The Unskilled” – that right there should be the inscription on Seger’s Foyer of Fame plaque.

I'm totally unskilled and wholly devoid of talent, but I'm not exactly "attracted" to Bob or his music. I don't care if an effect is used to cover up a lack of talent, but if it's done right even if by mistake, then I think it's great. I don't think I'd ever have bought that album if I'd have heard some of the other songs, even though I really love everything about Ramblin' Gamblin' Man. It's kind of cool to not know how music happens sometimes, and just sit back and enjoy it or turn it off.

Did you guys watch the video? Watch how high the drummer has to get the sticks up to get the megaforce necessary for his Rock.

Dr. John, I see what you're saying about the fuzztone on this Seger record being a precurssor to the Sam Ash Sound in terms of concept/approach rather than actual sound. Pretty cool idea.

I'm with HVB on the benefits of this approach, however. In fact, I am a major subscriber to this exact approach. It's typically my favorite lead guitar sound. It's not that "deep" or "broad" in scope, but it's money in the bank for my ears. Like Hrrundi says, it pummels the skull in a way that I find very pleasing and even emotionally charged.

wow, hvb...it's hard for me to wrap my head around this song. here's why.

seeg's voice is so familiar to me as a classic rock staple that it just seems entirely out of place in this spooky jam. the guy who sang this could have walked down the hall of the studio to 1980, and gotten the vocals for "Strut" in one take!

but i'll try to maintain a "period ear" and pretend that this is NOT the same guy sang "strut", "main street" or (gulp) "makin' thunderbirds". essentially, he's not the same guy, since he hadn't become that guy yet.

the panning is lovely. even though there's something weird about the drums (all kick drum and hardly anything else in the right speaker?), i don't mind it, because it's a nice drum sound.

i hear the lament over and over again from people rock fans of all generations who really like to listen: today's music doesn't take full or creative advantage of stereo; approaches to panning are often too conservative. and this song from way back when makes today's adventures in "stereo" seem pansy-assed.

i've always been a fan of thin guitar sounds like this, too. it *really* sounds like the guitar sound that syd barrett got on the "piper" era recordings, and the live bootlegs i have from that era. alot of guys were experimenting with leaving the wah wah on for that ultra-mega trebly sound, including syd, hendrix, and page. and this is no exception. i think the song's signature riff was probably cut this way, and then the offensive treble was knocked out in the tweaking phase.

it's some nice guitar playing, too.

you must've known i'd have a bit of an affection for the panned simultaneous solos, too. the one on the right is VERY brittle.

the whispered vocals are also *very* "piper" era floyd.

but of course, this is a much more blues-y affair than that.

the song ends in a puddle of itself...not knowing where to go.

and in the end, none of it really seems to add up. it's a nice jam, though.

i'll leave it on shuffle and hope it comes up again.

funny....speaking of iTunes shuffle, on two separate occasions since i downloaded this song, iTunes has played Rye Coalition's "White Jesus of 114th St." (from their split with Karp). FYI, their a hardcore band that owes a big debt to faith / void..nothing like seger...but this song by them begins with similarly obtuse chords (with "flat 5ths!" "the Devil's chord!"). and the drum sound is very much the same. so the seger tune doesn't sound all that out of place with hardcore, if only for a few nano-seconds, out of random possibility.

thanks for turnin' me on to this, hvb!