Why All Summer Long is better rock music than Rubber Soul

David Thomas makes the claim that rock music is the voice of American folk culture and, because of that, non-Americans can't make rock music. I'm not sure that I believe him, but I do think he's onto something. It does seem that there is a major - I'd even argue central - feature of American rock that did not travel with the music when it was picked up by British bands. Whether or not this feature is more or less valuable than those that were successfully exported is up for debate (I'm beginning to suspect more), but the fact that it's tied to a specifically American context strikes me as being an empirically sound observation.

So - what exactly is that feature? In private conversations, I've been using the phrase "geographical naturalism" to describe it, but that's a bit obscure shorn of any other context. What I mean though is that there are many American rock songs that are grounded in specific details of a place and time (and, because of that, in the specific details of a society, a culture, a history), but there are very few non-American rock songs that are geographically grounded.

Compare the songs of Chuck Berry and Carl Perkins to those of Lennon and McCartney, their overseas followers. There are only one or two Beatles songs a sense of place that can rival "Dixie Fried" or "Johnny B. Goode" ("Eleanor Rigby" is one of them), but that kind of geographical naturalism was the norm for Perkins and Berry - not the exception. The vast majority of Lennon and McCartney's work consists of self-expression: expressing feelings for someone else or expressing what it feels like to go through an existential crisis. In their own way, Perkins and Berry do these things, too, but it's almost as if they can't help but do more. The stories they tell aren't merely personal: they're geographical, cultural, historical.

You can find similar stories throughout American rock music. On the Precise Modern Lovers Order live album, Jonathan Richman introduces "Roadrunner" as "our geographical song involving Route 128", which is where I got the "geographical" part of "geographical naturalism". The "naturalism" comes from the lyrics of the song: a story about a guy listening to WOR while driving down Route 128 past the industrial park and the Stop 'n' Shop. As far as I know, there is no British rock song that expresses a culture through these kinds of specific but mundane details in the way that "Roadrunner" does. (Although I'd be glad to hear any suggestions in the comments.) When British rock does deal with geography, it's usually imaginary and often (as in "Jumping Jack Flash" or "Crossroads") a mythical version of America. Greil Marcus (I think) called the Beatles "imaginary Americans" and, if they are, the America they're from is imaginary, too: a homogeneous export product, not the actual places where the people who invented rock lived.

Side-by-side comparisons of a few more songs will further illuminate this lack of a geographical and historical sensibility in British rock. The world traveling in Rod Sewart's "Every Picture Tells a Story" seems positively fantastic next to the details of the cross-country travels in "Tangled Up in Blue". The alienated subject of Gang of Four's "At Home He's A Tourist" seems (perhaps appropriately) that he could be living anywhere, but the alienation in the Talking Heads' "Don't Worry About the Government" is less theoretical because it's grounded in a recognizable (if obliquely described) place.

I'd also point out that there are American rock musicians who write these songs almost exclusively: Bruce Springsteen, Stan Ridgway, John Cougar, Brian Wilson, and, of course, David Thomas.

The importance of these kinds of songs is that they do more than just capture what it feels like to be a teenager in love: they reveal the mysteries of a culture and a nation, as well as their promises, prophecies, and betrayals. They force us out of our own egos, into an awareness of a larger history. They tell us our story.

That's why I've begun to balk at the idea of the Beatles as the greatest rock band. Right now, I'd give that honor to the Beach Boys, who were s accomplished musically (and who aced the whole self-expression thing on Pet Sounds), but, on albums like All Summer Long and Surf's Up, also gave us a stories of a place and a culture

I Heart "Free Bird"

Maybe Sean T. Collins thinks he can get away with his comments that "'Free Bird' sucks" by calling "Stairway to Heaven" the "greatest rock song ever" - well, not on this blog, baby.

"Free Bird" is one of the greatest American rock songs and probably the greatest "Southern Rock" song.

Why?

To start with, it's the contrast between the opening slide guitar licks - reaching for transcendence - and the driving, down-to-earth boogie of the guitar battle at the end. For me, that's part of the contradiction at the heart of great rock music: the search for something greater tied up with a recognition of the limits of what is actually possible. (My half-assed, overly-generalized theory, drawn from all the Greil Marcus and Dave Marsh books I read while in college: The great rock songs usually resolve in favor of the "search for something greater", while the great soul songs usually end up making a reconciliation with those limits).

"Free Bird"'s lyric is, I think, the weakest part of the song, but, as with lots of other rock lyrics, it gains resonance through its context. Looking at it from a cynical POV, the singer is trying to cop out of making a commitment with his lover: he's rationalizing bad behavior and (a) doesn't have the courage to stick it out or (more probably) (b) gives the same line to all the women he sleeps with. I don't think this cynical take is wrong - see "What's Your Name" - but I think it's only one aspect of what's going on. What gives it more of an emotional impact (for me, at least) is the contrast between the singer's rootlessness and the down-home boogie traditions of Skynyrd's music - the whole transcendence/limitation thing again.

One of the things that arts & culture buffs/critics don't talk about too much are the various "lifestyle" reasons people are drawn to careers as musicians/writers/actors/etc.. Or, rather, they'll make a joke about it - talking about joining a band to get girls, say - but they won't delve more deeply into the issue. Musicians will make jokes about it, too - again, see "What's Your Name" - but they don't really seem to like to talk about it either. (I'm thinking of the moment during one of the interview scenes in The Last Waltz where his band mates start to talk about some of the perks of going out on the road and Levon Helm says something like "I thought we weren't going to bring that stuff up." Which, of course, makes it kind of joke, too.) There's a tendency to treat creative artists as prophets - that is, to take what they're saying as a kind of revealed truth and ignore the personal, idiosyncratic, and potentially self-serving reasons they might be saying it.

"Self-serving" brings us back to the cynical reading of the "Free Bird" lyric, but the singer's excuse - he can't stay with her because he's a drifting bohemian and can't be tied down - is balanced with what sounds to me like a real sense of regret and, in terms of the question he asks in the opening line, real fear that the answer might be "No." It's a song lamenting the rooted life that you leave behind when you head out on the road, even while it celebrates the freedom that the road brings.

(Looking at the song in its album context, which, admittedly is not the way most people experience it, "Free Bird" takes on even greater resonance as a follow up to "Simple Man".)

Well, 600 words on "Free Bird" is enough for now, but the short version is that I think it's a really beautiful song and one of the few of those really long classic rock standards that deserve their length - it's America's "Layla".

"Free Bird"

I read through a number of movie reviews of The Devil's Rejects while I was working on yesterday's post, and it struck me that a lot of them went out of their way to take a swipe at Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Free Bird". I know the song has become kind of a punchline, but do pop culture buffs really not like it? My guess is that the negative reaction to "Free Bird" - like the one to "Stairway to Heaven" and "Hotel California" - has less to do with the song itself and more to do with what it represents: white guy classic rock that has worn out its welcome.

Maybe it's just because I'm young enough to have missed their FM dominance (or maybe it's just because my taste in rock is fairly mainstream), but I've always liked these three songs, even though their status as near-jokes makes it hard to talk about them seriously. "Free Bird" is, I think, the best of them, and, I'd argue, it's just about as good as rock gets. I find it achingly beautiful and moving: a song about rootlessness from a band whose music has always emphasized their roots (although maybe this take on it just shows I've been listening too much to the Drive-by Truckers and reading too much Daniel Larison).

Currently...

What I'm Watching: The Sopranos, of course, and Heroes, now that it's back on. Other "must watch" TV in our apartment: the Food Network programs Throwdown with Bobby Flay and Dinner: Impossible, which is probably my second favorite show right now. My favorite is Tim and Eric's Awesome Show - Great Job!. I liked Tom Goes to the Mayor, Tim and Eric's first Cartoon Network show, quite a bit, but I think the Awesome Show format - more gags, less story - suits them better. Awesome Show seems to have solved the major problem of Mr. Show: it's too short to ever feel like it's gone on too long. Oh, also: trying to keep up with as much televised motor racing as possible.

What I'm Reading: I'm almost done with The Flying Inn by G.K. Chesterton, and, I have to admit, it's been a bit of a chore. I like Chesterton's mystery stories and I love his essays, but the combination of whimsy and philosophy here is almost too much. I'm also in the middle of VernorVinge's A Fire Upon the Deep, which I really like: there are about half-a-dozen "Big Ideas" here, each of which could serve as the basis for a single sci-fi novel. The writing is a little clumsy, but I've read worse novels that have been far less inventive. I'll probably post more about it when I'm done.

What I'm Listening To: Ever since I signed up to Rhapsody 3 1/2 months ago, I've been trying to keep up with "new music". In general, though, I find keeping up with "the scene" to be pretty tiresome. There seems to be so little difference between these new indie bands and the ones that were new when I was in college, and all of them sound like The Replacements (who were derivative to begin with). So, anyway, I have been listening to lots and lots ofLoudon Wainwright III, little bits of the Mountain Goats, and various kinds of film music (Goblin and John Carpenter and the Death Proof soundtrack). I've also been trying to find morepodcasts to listen to.

What I'm Playing: NASCAR 06: Total Team Control on my X-Box. I didn't get the most recent entry in this franchise partly because I'm in the middle of a season in this one and I was a little disappointed that this one wasn't that much better than the one that came before it. Hopefully my schedule will open up a little and I'll get someRPGing in soon. I don't think a regular game is anywhere in my future, but I'd like to try to work something out.