For reasons I hope to make clear later this year, I’ve been thinking about songs featuring the phrase “all right.” The “And it was all right” coda in The Velvet Underground’s “Rock ‘n Roll” is one of the two “all right” songs that most often run through my mind. I’ll let you list my other favorite featured “all right” in a song and all the other instances that may follow in this sure-to-be comforting Last Man Standing!
The time is yours…
The recent shooting rampage in Arizona has me tuned in more than most current events stories tend to do. The fact that the 9-year-old granddaughter (same age as my youngest boy) of one of the most iconic figures in Philadelphia Phillies history, 1980 World Series manager Dallas Green, was shot and killed by this sick, young man especially brought the story home for me, but I’d already found too much troubling regarding our lax handgun laws and stores like Walmart, which are cool selling ammunition for semi-automatic handguns but won’t sell Eminem CDs with the dirty bits left in, not to mention those who choose to use handguns for reasons other than official police and military business.
My goal with this potentially inflammatory Last Man Standing is not to get on my soapbox and pound my fist over my particular opinions on gun laws and usage but to share songs and lyrics—from any angle of this debate—that might at least help someone think about these issues. Likewise, this is not the space to get on your soapbox and pound your fist. I am confident we can let the songs do the talking and let the tunes carry whatever messages they may for any of us as we eventually mount our particular soapboxes in venues that encourage such activities. There’s room for the full spectrum of views on these issues, but I also encourage you to stick to songs that resonate on some meaningful level. Resist, if at all possible, being a wiseass and simply posting songs and song lyrics that justify gun laws based on the need to rid the world of Don Henley, you know what I mean?
I’ll start with Neil Young’s impressionistic “Powderfinger.” I’m never sure exactly what’s going on in this song, but this verse in particular gives me a sense of what it might feel like to shoot a gun for the first time.
Daddy’s rifle in my hand
felt reassurin’
He told me,
Red means run, son,
numbers add up to nothin’
But when the first shot
hit the docks I saw it comin’
Raised my rifle to my eye
Never stopped to wonder why.
Then I saw black,
And my face splashed in the sky.
Recently, in a completely unrelated thread, a Townsman thought he could “get me” regarding my longstanding dismissal of that the music on Love‘s supposed masterpiece Forever Changes as “bullfighting music.” I guess some wounds take longer than others to heal.
As 2010 winds down, feel free to use this space to air any ongoing, unhealed beefs you may have with me that you feel may still need to be addressed, be it my dismissal of Forever Changes, why we moved Rock Town Hall from our private Yahoo Groups list to this blog format, how I can possibly prefer George Thorogood to ZZ Top, or some other burning question that refuses to cool off no matter how much wisdom and reasoned arguments I have applied to your blistered sense of perspective. I will do my best to answer your questions—once and for all—and, more importantly, to apply a healing balm before we enter the New Year.
The airing of your ongoing, unhealed beefs may even benefit me. Every 5 or 6 years I come to the realization that an opinon I was certain of requires an adjustment. I’m probably due for one of these moments.
Comments for this thread will be closed at the strike of midnight, January 1, 2011.
You dare think a Townsperson can't come up with a second example?
Can you think of any situations in which an album and song by a band have the same title but the song is not on the album and the album is released first? The only example that I can think of is Houses of the Holy. Houses of the Holy (the album) was released in ’73 but “Houses of the Holy” (the song) appeared on Physical Graffiti in ’75.
More examples would probably crop up if you consider instances where the title was used as a song first rather than the album but, again, I can’t think of any examples aside from live albums, greatest hits collections, and anthologies (eg, Rock And Roll Never Forgets: Bob Seger’s Best!”).
I thought about doing this as a Last Man Standing but this might be a one-off.
In a recent comment Townsman alexmagic, always one of the Hall’s finest conceptualists/commentators if not the Main Stage trailblazer we all know he could be (we’ll chalk it up to humility), hinted at his desire to discuss a Once and For All topic that developed from a “weird haircut experience,” in which, as he puts it:
…someone was playing a Stones collection that only had late-period songs on it…
The Once and For All topic is this: Reissues, remixes and live songs excluded, what is the best Rolling Stones single from 1984 on? It is crucial that we settle this issue, which has been implied on numerous rock discussion blogs through the years but not once tackled head on!
The broader, possibly more telling topic that needs to be discussed, however, is that of the rock-themed weird haircut experience. I’m sure I’m not the only one curious to know the details of The Magic Man’s rock-themed weird haircut experience, and because I’ve had two of my own rock-themed weird haircut experiences I know alexmagic is not alone in having such an experience. It’s likely you’ve had one too. These experiences usually aren’t discussed in polite circles, so FUCK YOU – let’s drop all pretense of being polite and come clean. I’m sure we’ll find the trading of our experiences extremely healing. Then we can go back to watching what we say at the dinner table.
I’ll start: Continue reading »
