When I was in college cool people were listening to Nirvana, Radiohead, and GnR. Great bands. But then contemporary. Things weren't like that in Suite 604, perched high up there on the hill with colored strobes and blacklights shining through the Jolly Roger, tie dies, and gypsy tapestries in the windows. Everyone thought that place was full of complete maniacs.
People up at all hours, music pouring forth. Music that you couldn't identify, other than to know it wasn't just obscure Greatful Dead (most of the time.) That was where I lived.
More after the crease.
We were a bit more archival than our peers when it came to music. We liked to dig for our music... back one decade, or two, but mostly into the late 60's and early 70's. You know, that great big orgy that my generation gets painfully reminded they totally missed out on every time the subject comes up.
Anyway, it was Poppy Bush and Desert Storm time, so while we didn't get the group sex, and the drugs were considerably harder to come by, we had two of the essential 60's elements. We had the Rock and Roll, and we had the war. No, we didn't have the draft, but if you think the average 18-year-old was politically educated enough to know the draft was unlikely, well, you vastly overestimate public school social studies classes. The worry was there. All the grinding letdown of a world gone insane without the hippy chicks to stick flowers in our hair. We valiantly had our fun anyway.
Our treasures were tapes, much of the time older than we were, found in a used record store and bought in a pattern that resembled gold mining -- we would follow a vein to the nuggets. (Remember -- early 90's. No iTunes. No allmusic.com. No Napster.) Many were the disappointments as we followed the wrong bandmember to the next group, but on the whole a highly successful endeavor.
Occasionally we would pop one in the boombox and be astounded -- "man those lyrics sound like they were written for today."
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
Steppenwolf -- Suicide
I never understood people who listen to music but make no effort to understand the lyrics. If lyrics are there, their meaning is an important part of the artwork. But I digress. Some of this time-traveling commentary was biting:
You say you don't like what your country's about (yeah)
Ain't you deep
In your semi-first-class seat
You picket this and protest that
And eat yourself fat
Ain't you deep
In your semi-first-class seat
Funkadelic -- If You Don't Like the Effects, Don't Produce the Cause
Some of it simultaneously silly and bonechillingly crass:
Kill, kill, kill for peace
Near or middle or very far east
Far or near or very middle east
Kill, kill, kill for peace
Kill, kill, kill for peace
If you don't like the people
or the way that they talk
If you don't like their manners
or they way that they walk,
Kill, kill, kill for peace
The Fugs -- Kill for Peace
Yes, despite your best efforts to keep the LPs locked away in that little drawer under the coffee table, we did find your dirty little secret The Fugs. Nice try, but we were bored and persistant.
Hey you, Whitehouse,
Ha ha charade you are.
You house proud town mouse,
Ha ha charade you are
You're trying to keep our feelings off the street.
You're nearly a real treat,
All tight lips and cold feet
And do you feel abused?
.....! .....! .....! .....!
You gotta stem the evil tide,
And keep it all on the inside.
Mary you're nearly a treat,
Mary you're nearly a treat
But you're really a cry.
Pink Floyd -- Pigs (Three different ones)
These are just a few small examples. We were the ultimate in music recyclers. We had some good things going on in our own generation's music scene for a few short years about then, but hardly enough to be generationally defining. So we supplimented. Often I wish the rest of my age group had done the same.
Of course a lot of the lyrics that actually WERE written for that day usually came in another form: Public Enemy. Cypress Hill. NWA. Slick Rick. We listened to them as well. That probably threw folks even further for a loop than the incense and backlit Jolly Roger, because that was well before the days of "wiggers." Most white people only listened to Beasty Boys back then when it came to rap, at least up until it mellowed with De La Soul. Oh, and one of these contemporaries was a one-album wonder called The Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy, which along with timely commentary on current issues, gave us a good dose of cold hard reality.
AMERICA
has an image of a young one
fast livin' not givin' an expletive
no respect for his
or the lives of those around him
Suicidal, homicidal or at very least
extremely unbridled
How convenient for those
who would like to destroy him
The problem has never been our political logic
but the way we enact it
We can imagine a perfect society
but can't maintain a decent relationship
The failure found in the luxuries
not in the hardships
Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy -- Hipocrisy is the Greatest Luxury
Time to tack towards a point to all this. Some lyrics are relatively timeless, drawing on perrenial shared experience. Some unfortunately, are quasi-timeless despite having been written disposably. Compare here 1972 with 1992...
Who would sacrifice the great grandsons and daughters
Of her jealous mother
By sucking their brain
Until their ability to think was amputated
By pimping their instincts
Until they were fat, horny and strung-out?
Funkadelic -- America Eats Its Young (1972)
T.V. is the place where phrases are redefined
like "recession" to "necessary downturn"
"crude oil" on a beach to "mousse"
"civilian death" to "collateral damages"
and being killed by your own army
is now called "friendly fire"
T.V. is the place where the pursuit of
happiness has become the pursuit of trivia
where toothpaste and cars
have become sex objects
where imagination is sucked out of children
by a cathode ray nipple
T.V. is the only wet nurse
that would create a cripple
Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy -- Television, Drug of the Free. (1992)
...and the question is... why?
Why when I pop in that same 1992 album do I feel like some of the songs were written about 2004/5?
It all seemed so idiotic all the accusations of unpatriotic
The fall we'll always remember, capitulating silence
election November before the winter
of the long hot summer
Somewhere in the desert
we raised the oil pressure
and waited for the weather
to get much better
for the new wind to blow in the storm
We tried to remember the history in the region
the French foreign legion, Imperialism,
Peter O'Toole and hate the Ayatollah
were all we learned in school
Not that we gave Hussein five billion
Not of our new bed partner the Syrian
and of course no mention of the Palestine situation
It was amazing how they steamrolled
They said eighty percent approval
but there was no one that I knew polled
No one had a reason for being in the Gulf
We waited for congress to speak up illegal build up
But no one would wake up
Disposable Heroes of HipHoprisy -- The Winter of the Long Hot Summer Lyrics
If anything the lyrics are getting more timely, not less. Let's go back to the first song. This time I'll let you see the verse that came before the one above.
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
Steppenwolf -- Suicide
Is it just a rut? Can we jump the side and be done with this? Will there ever be a time when I go back to an old favorite album and don't have this ongoing "vuja day" thing going on?
Or was Deep Purple right?
Tell them how it is and they say
No no no we know it all
The washing's getting dirty the air is getting thin
It's all in such a mess that no one knows where to begin
They talk about creating but all they do is kill
They say we're gonna mend it but they never will
Poison in the rain but they say
No no no we ain't to blame
Must we let them fool us? No! No! No!
Have we got our freedom? No! No! No!
Is it getting better? No! No! No!
Do we love each other? No! No! No!
Must we wait forever? No, No, No, Nooooo!
Deep Purple -- No No No
Helpful hint about headbangers. They aren't crazy people. They've just misplaced their brick wall.
Nowadays we are seeing such lyrics travel time in a more formalized manner -- in cover albums like Perfect Circle's eMotive.
So it ain't just me.
Please, please, please, tell me Green Day's "American Idiot" will someday sound dated, and not be a reminder of how very short we have come.