{"id":8894,"date":"2011-09-28T08:25:23","date_gmt":"2011-09-28T12:25:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/?p=8894"},"modified":"2011-09-28T08:24:50","modified_gmt":"2011-09-28T12:24:50","slug":"music-that-makes-you-or-me-at-least-feel-inadequate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/music-that-makes-you-or-me-at-least-feel-inadequate\/","title":{"rendered":"Music That Makes You (or Me, at Least) Feel Inadequate"},"content":{"rendered":"<iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/hCT9xnlhldM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>&#8220;Blackbird&#8221; came on\u00a0Pandora &#8220;radio&#8221; the other night,\u00a0as my wife and I drove home from a long road trip to Central Pennsylvania. I cringed. I&#8217;d just cringed for the previous song, an REM song, I believe. For my wife, this second cringe was one cringe too many. &#8220;What&#8217;s your problem with this song?&#8221; she made the mistake of asking, as I reached for the SKIP button. In an extraordinarily\u00a0rare moment of \u00a0compassion and maturity I left my answer at, &#8220;I don&#8217;t know, that&#8217;s one of my least-favorite Beatles songs.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Of course I know <em>exactly<\/em> why this essentially solo, fingerpicking, tender love song by McCartney ranks among my <strong>5 Least Favorite Beatles Songs<\/strong> (excluding throwaways like &#8220;Wild Honey Pie,&#8221;\u00a0which aren&#8217;t worth ranking): It makes me feel inadequate.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wORwlCy3JDI?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><p>I never took the time to learn much fingerpicking, and &#8220;Blackbird&#8221; was a song most young guitarists took the time to figure out. As with harmony singing and writing love songs, I found it easier to skip working on the song&#8217;s intro and, instead, consider those who were working on it\u00a0a bunch of\u00a0&#8220;kiss asses.&#8221;\u00a0In retrospect, this was not a good move on my part.<\/p>\n<p>Guys who did take the time to figure out the intro to &#8220;Blackbird&#8221; took great pride in their work, which in retrospect and from my current state of maturity, was well deserved. They had a habit of wanting to show off their accomplishments whenever in the unexpected presence of an acoustic guitar, frequently pulling a chair out in front of me, resting their right foot on it, and propping the guitar on their knee as they leaned forward and looked me right in the eye, desparately seeking my approval. I&#8217;d do my best to feign appreciation and even wonderment, but an inner sense of dread grew as each fingerpicked measure proceeded.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ll never take the time to figure out this song,&#8221; I&#8217;d think.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I don&#8217;t even like it,&#8221; I&#8217;d remind myself.<\/p>\n<p>Then the the thought that always came to mind popped into my head, the thought that made me feel completely inadequate: &#8220;Girls seem to like that song. This asshole&#8217;s going to impress a girl by having learned that song. What girl is going to be impressed by my ability to play &#8216;Clash City Rockers&#8217;?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Thirty years later, even with my wife of 20 years sitting beside me, a woman who just a few years after having developed this inadequacy was impressed by my ability to play Buzzcocks and Stooges covers with my friends, I still feel inadequate in the presence of &#8220;Blackbird.&#8221; It represents too many avenues I simply chose to avoid.<\/p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/oRLSmFdunK8?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;Blackbird&#8221; came on\u00a0Pandora &#8220;radio&#8221; the other night,\u00a0as my wife and I drove home from a long road trip to Central Pennsylvania. I cringed. I&#8217;d just cringed for the previous song, an REM song, I believe. For my wife, this second cringe was one cringe too many. &#8220;What&#8217;s your problem with this song?&#8221; she made the <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/music-that-makes-you-or-me-at-least-feel-inadequate\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[133],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8894"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8894\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8894"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8894"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8894"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}