Musicians sometimes paint dreary, unclear picture with tough-to-understand lyrics
On this occasion of my 68th birthday I find myself hopelessly awake early in the morning so I might as well write.
Sometimes I think this is training for the nursing home and getting up really early to wait two hours for breakfast as my mother and her friends always did.
I was going to just post this on Facebook, but why waste a column on people who don’t pay to read it, I thought.
Unfortunately, as I grow older, I don’t have any deep philosophical thoughts, just the same goofy stuff that rolls through my mind and makes me easily distracted. Instead I have snippets from rock and roll music since I am too lazy to even go get my “Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations” and steal from other authors.
Some lyrics do seem eerily prescient. As Tennessee Ernie Ford sang, I’m “Another day older and deeper in debt.” I can feel that debt part.
And as Pink Floyd noted, I’m “Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death.” Hard to argue with that last part. A little gloomy though.
Cheery people those music people. But they are all I have. As Peter, Paul and Mary sang, “I dig rock and roll music.”
But they also pointed out the futility of expecting to get much from that music.
“But if I really say it, the radio won’t play it, unless I lay it between the lines,” they sang in the same song.
I have tried and tried to read between the lines, but all I ever see is white space. I think it is because artists tend to think they are being obvious when they aren’t.
John Lennon said he thought he had admitted to an affair when he wrote “Norwegian Wood,” but nobody caught it. Pete Townsend thought he was coming out as a bisexual when he wrote “Tough Boys.”
He said he was amazed that nobody reacted to the lines, “I want to bite and kiss you.” But everyone just thought it was one of those crazy lyrics.
Rock lyrics not always the easiest to understand
Maybe things seem fuzzy because the words are sometimes hard to understand. It was hard to hear clearly on old AM radio stations. Even now, 50 years later, I can look up the lyrics to rock songs on the internet and realize I have had them wrong all along.
But even if I don’t know the exact words, I can fill in. And besides, it had a nice beat and I could dance to it if I didn’t look so goofy trying to dance.
I always thought Toto said they “Touched the rain down in Africa,” but it turns out they “Blessed the rain down in Africa.” Still doesn’t make much sense.
John Fogerty didn’t sing there was a bathroom on the right but there was a bad moon on the rise. Jimi Hendrix did not want to be excused while he kissed this guy but while he kissed the sky. And Elton John did not want to be held closer by Tony Danza but by his tiny dancer, to mention three classic misunderstandings.
Pete Townsend did write that he hoped he died before he got old, but he meant old in spirit, I think. That’s at least encouraging and a good thought to hold onto as I do, indeed, get old — in age, not spirit.