Juxtapositions: the Doobie Brothers' "What a Fool Believes"

Many illusions proliferate about what rock music is and what its’ functions are. The primary illusion rock culture promulgates is that rock is the music of rebellion. In fact, neither commercial nor independent rock music entails much rebellion, nor have they ever. Commercial rock functions like any other industry; its’ highest priority is the creation and dissemination of saleable commodities. Independent (“indie”) rock music is more convoluted in its intentions; ostensibly created as an enterprise to offset and expose the artificiality of commercial music, it has always functioned through the maintenance and enthusiastic enforcement of group norms. The underlying ethos of indie is every bit as corporate as corporate, but functions on the level of ideology: join us, believe what we believe, be who we are, rebel against the system by conforming to our standards. The presumption is always the same: through its purity, innovative angles, and immaculately PC veneer, indie rock goes over commercial rock. The problem is that it doesn’t. Indie rock musicians often have even less formal talent than mainstream rockers; and the concepts they espouse tend to be the products of half-educated minds. What’s worse: to want to make money, or to want to be cool? The Doobie Brothers, for some reason, have never been considered cool. The manner in which their music is produced is unabashedly commercial; their songs are written and played in a technically proficient manner. All of this data is relevant because their late 70s hit “What a Fool Believes” pulls off an interesting trick: it hides monstrous darkness and nihilism behind a surface of such impeccable chirpiness that no one has yet called the two writers (Michael McDonald and Kenny Loggins) out on what they have accomplished. That the song was a blockbuster adds to the curiousness.

Just on the surface, the song falls clearly into the commercial category, because it sounds specifically produced to be a hit. It’s complete and encompassing slickness means that every note is played perfectly, there are no bum notes, the song is sung by a singer (Michael McDonald) with a professional level voice. There are several earmarks, in fact, of musical sophistication that puts this record well above the pop (or rock) standard: the key change from verse to chorus is a step and a half up; from chorus back to verse moves a step and a half down again. The song’s structure is also unconventional: two verses are fitted in before the first chorus. Thus, we get to 1:30 before the first chorus kicks in. The chorus, in pop, tends to hold the “hooks” that make listeners want to hear the song again. Because this is the case, it is risky to place the first chorus this far into the song. The song includes several jazzy chord voicings, and is oriented towards a kind of white funk, or what was called “blue-eyed soul” in the 60s. Musical mastery of this genre isn’t just competent; it’s outstanding. But if this were where the story ended, there would be no story. Simply, the lyrics achieve out and out strangeness by their bleak insistence on telling a story of pointlessness and indifference. If you don’t listen closely, it would be easy to mistake this for another piece of jazzed-up pop funk. As is, the juxtaposition of music and lyrics is startlingly anomalous.

McDonald begins the song, “He came from somewhere back in her long ago/ The sentimental fool don’t see/ Trying hard to recreate what was yet to be created/ once in her life.” In other, the song is written in the third person, but it is difficult not to feel that the singer/narrator is also the “he.” What we immediately notice is the discrepancy of perception: this man is forcing a confrontation with a woman from his past. He thinks he’s recreating for her the love affair they once had; but, in fact, there was no love affair. In other words, he’s a slave to lies and delusions. On the other hand, if the narrator is “he,” he is also fiercely judgmental in regards to himself. That’s why he calls himself, without coyness, a “sentimental fool.” This is psychological war in every direction. This is borne out by his recollection of the encounter itself: “She musters a smile for his nostalgic tale/ Never coming near what he wanted to say/ Only to realize it never really was.” The woman’s smile isn’t natural; she has to “muster” it. She’s giving him her attention, but merely humoring him. As this happens, he has the terrible realization (which evidently didn’t occur to him before) that what he’s saying is hot air. Not only is it based on nothing, he’s allowed himself to be drawn in by his own powers of self-mystification. But the sad part is that we are only one minute into a song that invites us to mishear it; that is packaged in such a way that these vignettes are juxtaposed with a surface that, however sophisticated, borders on treacle. The bridge further elaborates, propels things forward by both giving us background and completing the encounter: “She had a place in his life/ He never made her think twice/ As she rises to her apology/ Anybody else would surely know/ He’s watching her go.” The basic gist is that, even as she’s blowing him off, he insists to himself that his lies aren’t lies. Maybe it’s because she’s at least courteous.

Now, we finally get to the chorus, and a compressed philosophy lesson: “But what a fool believes he sees/ No wise man has the power to reason away.” It’s not the fool/protagonist seeing something; to see implies perceiving a reality; it’s the fool creating a reality that doesn’t exist. What’s implied in these two lines is a stern judgment of the human race; that fools have and will always be more powerful than the wise. Lies and delusions are more compelling than the truth; thus, they are more powerful. Reason is a weak tool because reality is too unrewarding. Or, because “What seems to be/ Is always better than nothing.” That’s how this narrator perceives reality: a nothingness. This chorus out-Sister Lovers Sister Lovers. This leads to the climax/anti-climax of the entire piece, which links the chorus to the next verse: “And nothing at all keeps sending him/ Somewhere back in her long ago.” In other words, for all that a psychological war is taking place, it is perceived to be utterly and completely pointless. That’s nihilism, alright: not only pointless but empty, devoid of meaning, substance, and consequence. And circular: a chain of mesh that never quite lets you out, and wraps around you from every side at each attempted escape. For all that many millions of listeners have heard this song, how many of them have perceived these meanings and anti-meanings? The third verse delivers little new information, and then the bridge and chorus repeat. The song ends on a fade-out, as chirpy and seemingly innocuous as ever.

A song like “What a Fool Believes” proves several points at once: that real substance can be delivered in pop song lyrics, that commercial rock can be as artistically viable as indie, and that it is possible for a song to be enormously popular without anyone noticing the first thing about it. This last point is perhaps the most salient; the idea that pop culture artifacts, in their day, do not inspire real critical appraisal. This is a shame. Pop culture audiences dwell on surfaces; if depths have ever been for the masses, they are not in 2011. However, where there is substance, there is hope: and that if people can get past a surface deemed either “cool” or “uncool,” it might make them stop and think about how to navigate the choppy waters of the Western world during a time of transition and turmoil.

Adam Fieled, 2011

Video Views: Simply Red's "Holding Back the Years"

The early 80s created a drastic sea-change in the way popular music was disseminated. Unlike the current Digital Revolution, it bolstered the existent music industry and its protocols. It wasn’t a threat from every angle. The change was video: specifically, MTV. MTV engendered a music industry in which multi-media engagement was not only advisable but a necessity. Songs released as singles from major record labels needed videos to accompany them. There are sprinkles of multi-media engagement from 60s and 70s performers: the Beatles’ made a video for the “Strawberry Fields Forever/ Penny Lane” single, the Rolling Stones for “Jumping Jack Flash/ Child of the Moon.” David Bowie’s videos bridged 70s and 80s sensibilities before MTV’s birth in 1982. But after 1982, a single without a video was unthinkable. If most rock acts failed to capitalize on the possibilities of multi-media, it may be because record companies were loath to let them get too adventurous. The object, as always, was to sell records. The first decade of music video did not reveal much in the way of artistic handling. One exception was Simply Red’s “Holding Back the Years,” released in ’85 and re-released in ’86. The single was a monster: a worldwide number one. The video did something which at the time was unique: it added a narrative to the song that not only enhanced the song but completed it, doubling its impact.

The song itself is not especially remarkable. Musically, it’s based on little more than a two-chord vamp. The chords are played on a keyboard/synthesizer, a great trademark of 80s pop (and this song, through its gentle breeziness, certainly qualifies as pop rather than rock). Mick Hucknall sings the song with intensity, and there is a trumpet break that sounds rather like Chet Baker does on Elvis Costello’s “Shipbuilding.” Between these elements and the generalized nature of the lyrics, we get a composite portrait of total pop viability. For people without MTV (and it must be said that in the 80s, a substantial number of Americans, including middle-class Americans, had televisions but no cable access), this is what “Holding Back the Years” was. However, the video, filmed in Whitby, UK, takes the package, adds a narrative, and makes it transcendent. The song is about memory and regret: “Holding back the years/ Thinking of the fear I’ve had so long/ When somebody hears/ Listen to the fear that’s gone.” The first frame of the video is a church graveyard— not what we’d expect from a typical unit-shifting device. The protagonist is played by Mick Hucknall himself. He walks around a barren apartment, overlooking the Whitby coast, packing his things for a journey. As the video unfolds, it is clear that what Hucknall is leaving is the place where he spent his childhood. All the images coalesce into a portrait of someone with no options left; and someone carrying a burden of emotional and psychological baggage so heavy it can barely be managed. The succession of images does not seem especially relevant; what is relevant is the interplay between them, and how infrequent delicate interplay like this was in 80s videos.

One of the most striking vignettes occurs in the same churchyard. Young Hucknall (played by someone else), age twelve or thirteen, watches aghast with his chums as a man and a woman embrace between tombstones. They have a picnic bottle and wine with them; it’s a sunny afternoon. On closer inspection, it turns out to be the kids’ teacher. The symbolic effect of the vignette is striking; it’s the protagonist’s first experience of adult sexuality. It might be called the opening up of a new world. Yet this vignette is buttressed by images of this woman having no luck getting her class in order. She looks vulnerable and unhappy; we wonder if the man in the churchyard betrayed her. The protagonist makes prolonged eye-contact with the teacher as everyone else riots. Combined with the pathos in the song, it creates an ambience of despair and foreboding. It also demonstrates the protagonist’s fascination. There’s only one point in the video in which a concrete detail from the song impinges. Hucknall sings, “Strangled by the wishes of pater/ Hoping for the arms of mater.” The line expresses a reality much further back in the psyche than what was encountered in the churchyard. The images that accompany it are strikingly cruel: a young child on a tricycle crashes onto a curb and falls off. As his mother, who is standing with the man we assume to be his father outside a block of row-homes, scoops him up, his father sneers coldly and rolls his eyes. The utter loneliness of the way this is shot heightens the effect: they are the only figures visible on a whole block. We get a claustrophobic sense that this is what is being “held back”: a history of emotional deprivation. We even get a sense of some of the protagonist’s coping mechanisms: we see him, again with his chums at twelve or thirteen, in an arcade. The protagonist sequesters himself on one of the rides in order to dominate everyone’s attention: after humoring his gambit for a time, his chums leave.

The net effect of these images is to transform something unremarkable into something moving. By the time Hucknall boards a train near the video’s end, we have a concrete idea of what he is leaving behind him. What neither the video nor the song answer is where he is going. It might as well be a journey into emptiness. The way the song’s lyrics end are indeterminate: “That’s all I have today/ It’s all I have to say.” The only conclusion we can draw is that this is not a narrative with a happy (or clear) ending. What is fortuitous is that it demonstrated what could be done in pop music using images: how multi-media could give birth to innovations that would lead the music forward. Other videos issued roughly from this: George Michael’s “Father Figure” played on the tensions between images and reality (the narrative hinges on the protagonist’s complex relationship with a fashion model); Madonna’s videos explored similar themes from a female standpoint. By the time two major revolutions shook up the music industry in the Nineties, bands were pursuing ambitious agendas and complex narratives. Of all the major rock acts of the Nineties, Radiohead were the most ambitious about using multi-media to enhance their songs. Songs like “Fake Plastic Trees,” “High and Dry,” “Just,” “Karma Police,” and “Paranoid Android” created new standards, welding complex narratives into political and social allegories. As with their musical moves, Aughts rockers tended to make videos conserving what had been done before them. It has come to pass, in 2011, that there is a natural symbiosis between the songs that get most listened to and the videos that are often their vehicles. It has also come to pass that if both forms seem to have struck an impasse, something may present itself to jolt things forward again. The road home for this is the journey into emptiness.

Adam Fieled 2011

Transgressions: Labelle's "Lady Marmalade"

There is a substantial body of work in literature specifically about transgressions- in pop music, not so much. But once 60s idealism faded into 70s decadence, pop music also drifted into decadence. This manifested in glam, which featured provocative performances by outlandishly attired, often androgynous performers, and eventually disco, a musical form geared towards dancing and night-life. Glam, disco, and the 70s have an association with hard drugs, specifically cocaine- a stimulant meant to enhance and quicken perceptions and sensations. There weren't many attempts to fuse glam and disco sensibilites- when David Bowie came to Philly to record Young Americans, he resolutely left the glam behind. The trio Labelle, also based in Philly, were a more blatant hinge; they wore Bowie-influenced costumes while putting out singles meant for the dance market. "Lady Marmalade" was released in late '74; an outrageous record, with a compressed narrative to match anything in the rock, pop, or funk canon. Still, what makes "Lady Marmalade" intriguing is that everything about the way the song is produced points away from the narrative and towards the sound- it's designed to stimulate bodily movement. Because it works spectacularly on that level, it's easy to forget that the narrative is there. So, let's address the sound first.

How do you put a song together, if you want to make people dance? There's a syncopated bass-line, placed way high up in the mix, that works its way through the duration of the song. Funk music emphasizes bass guitar as a lead instrument- the sound is earthy, visceral, and round. By playing against the beat, rather than on the beat as often happens in white rock music, the bass generates a kind of friction which intensifies the sensuality inherent in its movements. Labelle raise the bass so high in the mix that it almost becomes another lead voice. The beat is emphasized with a cow-bell, creating a kind of parallel to Marvin Gaye's "Stubborn Kind of Fellow" from the early 60s. But the sound is so raw and so (for want of a better word) horny that it goes beyond Motown dynamics. It must be said that musical arrangements of this kind can either attract or repel- you either get them or you don't. That having been said, the story the song tells (and parts of the vocal are difficult to decipher beneath the instrumental track) has enough complexity in it to surprise audiences who might dismiss the track as funky ear-candy. It's a tale of erotic obsession; but told in the third person, and with a light touch- "He met Marmalade down in Old New Orleans/ Struttin' her stuff on the street/ She said, Hello, Hey Joe/ You wanna give it a go?" This isn't particularly strange, but what is interesting is that the deliciousness of the music creates the deliciousness of this (anti) heroine, who is Creole and spices up her come-ons with vernacular phrases- "Getcha Getcha/ Ya Ya Ta Tas," etc. This leads to the most famous repeated passage in the song, one that is often parodied in pop-culture contexts- "Voulez-voux coucher avec moi, ce soir?/ Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?" Part of the instrumental track cuts out for these lines to be sung, which makes an already memorable hook unforgettable. The horns that back the song up, here and in other places, are understated- the piano fills, also, are mixed lower than the bass.

Lady Marmalade is, in a way, a double for the song itself; she comes on to her Joe the way the song comes on to us- struttin' its stuff, enticing us, challenging us to react. It's no more crass than "Lolita" is. And, rather than a circle of abasements, this is a circle of seductions. That the embedded narrative is difficult to follow (low in the mix) may or may not constitute diffidence on Labelle's part- but once you learn the verses (which can be a surprising process), the wattage of the track is upped substantially. The third and fourth verses are presented back-to-back, with no encroaching chorus. The third begins, "Touching her skin feeling silky smooth/ The color of cafe au lait/ Made the savage beast inside/ Roar until it cried, More, More, More..." Lady Marmalade's pick-up instantly falls madly in love with her body. The second verse showed us "black satin sheets" where he "started to freak"; drunk on magnolia wine, he loses his connection to rationality and restraint. By the third verse, he has become hopelessly addicted, a slave to animal lust. But the vivid details and the third person perspective of the lyrics makes the song feel like anything but a lazy wallow; it's even, via these details, a level past pulp.

Part of the detail is psychological, because we begin asking questions about the hapless male victim/predator in the song- why does he have a "savage beast" inside, and what forces are simultaneously stifling him and forcing him into Lady Marmalade's arms? The revelation of female nudity is a torment, because no amount could ever be enough. That Lady Marmalade's skin is cafe au lait could also be significant, as Creole women could be considered a fetish for men in the American South at certain times. The other notable subtext is that this guy is being made fun of; as a prostitute's paying customer, he should be running the show, but instead is being dominated. It's a blatant reversal of power scenario. But our psychological insight is all into him; Lady Marmalade becomes an art object, like a Gauguin or a Picasso. The final verse wraps these threads up tight; "Now he's back home doing 9 to 5/ Living his grey flannel life/ But when he turns off to sleep/ Old memories meet/ More, More, More.." The irony remains; this song is really about him, an average Joe, whose "grey flannel" indicates bourgeois affiliations. He may be an attorney or an accountant- something "grey," devoid of life and energy. Lady Marmalade, in al her colors, remains a fetish, but one who can't be revisited. This is an encounter narrative, that ends in a retreat; rather than imparting a lesson, the encounter imposes a fixation. The protagonist can't sleep for his memories; the big lesson for us is that the "savage beast" remains, cannot be quelled, even if the white-collar tendency is to repress it. It's never far from the surface, either.

"Lady Marmalade" bridged '74 and '75, and was a number one hit- heard and danced to by millions. The disco craze that followed closely thereafter was, lyrically, comparatively vapid; from the Bee Gees to Donna Summer, beats and syncopations rode high over narratives. But what is crucial to note is that the subcultures around different forms of dance music have remained intact, and the impulse behind them the same- physical expression of emotional and sexual instincts. To be blunt, many forms of popular music are still designed to make people horny; and that they serve a facilitating purpose on this level is not necessarily a bad thing. The problem is that a statement like "Lady Marmalade" demonstrates how these forms can be raised to the level of art; and that makes it difficult to hear recent forms of dance music and not hunger to see someone reach beneath the surface and bring something substantial from all sides to light.

To Conserve: The White Stripes "You've Got Her in Your Pocket"

What became of rock music in the Aughts can be summed up in two words: Digital Revolution. The Internet not only revolutionized popular music dissemination, production, and consumption— over the course of a decade, it toppled the effort/reward matrix that was promised for successful performers. Free music online engendered plummeting record sales; it also guaranteed that ancillary businesses (the rock press and their publications, rock merchandising ventures, venues that regularly featured rock performances) suffered. The music business, as it had run in late twentieth century America, decayed towards obsolescence. In this climate, bands and solo artists no longer had workable dreams of stardom to focus on; the new stars of the Aughts attained what would have been considered “cult” status in the 90s and before. Cult status, as the telos of an effort/reward matrix, takes vast material wealth out of the equation— in short, rock music (particularly rock stardom) was no longer a reliable way to make money. A handful of acts emerged in the Aughts who were granted major status (albeit guardedly, and by Boomer-run media sources): the Strokes, the White Stripes, Bright Eyes, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Elliott Smith, Neko Case, Cat Power, and Wilco bridged the 90s and the Aughts and consolidated their position. However, the diminution of the effort/reward matrix seemed to result in music that preserved and conserved, rather than creating an innovative agenda. It might not be a stretch to call it Neo-Conservative rock music; an aesthetic proud of its heritage, loathe to risk a break from it.

Just as country music often manifests the Red, rock overwhelmingly manifests a Blue ethos; but the semi-subliminal influence of the Red may be seen in Aughts rock. Among the artists that have deigned to conserve, the White Stripes may be the purest manifestation— a band dedicated to “roots,” an unsullied engagement with rock’s arguably considerable past. The Zeitgeist dictated the odd combination of circumstances attendant on the Stripes’ public life— that there were no hit singles, or 90s level album sales, but massive press coverage and instant hipster cache. Parts of the business that had fitted snugly together were now at war; the rock edifice was suddenly misshapen. The White Stripes’ 2003 album Elephant may be seen as the height of their public success; a collection of traditional-if-edgy rock songs, cheaply recorded and produced. Jack White, the Stripes’ guiding light, promoted an image of himself in these songs as a vicious naïf, or killer man-child. His persona has tinges of punk imported into it, along with hedonistic angles shared with 70s pub-rock like the Faces. What is most interesting about Elephant is not necessarily what it does, but what it doesn’t do— the lyrical tropes invoked are well-worn, musical moves pat. The White Stripes were in many ways a reactionary force, in a musical arena famed for its novelties. What needs to be said in White’s favor is that what he does, he does very well— primitive formalism and pastiche.

“You’ve Got Her in Your Pocket,” is, in some ways, the most extreme track on Elephant— everything is stripped down to just White and his guitar. Lyrically, the song does a somewhat unique dance around love-as-possession— echoes of “Every Breath You Take” and “Run for Your Life.” The most interesting aspect of what the lyrics do is how they mirror the material avarice of the American government in 2003 (and for the remainder of the Aughts). Red jurisdiction exerted tremendous subliminal influence on American (and Western) consciousness in the Aughts; even on formalist rock lyricists. The song contains no portraits and no encounters— it navigates a narcissistic circle. It begins, “You’ve got her in your pocket/ And there’s no way out now/ Put it in the safe and lock it/ cause it’s home sweet home.” For some reason, we don’t even need to see or hear this woman— she exists submerged under the protagonist. You could make an argument that Blue America was submerged beneath Red for the duration of the Aughts; whatever White’s sympathies might have been, his protagonist holds the sensibility of a subjugating tyrant. There’s even a strange pronoun game that enhances the effect— the protagonist has “her” in his pocket, but puts “it” in the safe and locks it. Part of his manipulative strategy is to dehumanize— to change people into objects. He’s a monster— and whether knowingly or not, White created a protagonist consonant with the tactics of our government in 2003.

What compels is that the song doesn’t sound monstrous, but intimate— strongly melodic, with an acoustic guitar and a handful of chords as foundation. It’s haunting. The song, like “Satisfaction,” has an inside-out structure— choruses precede verses. The first formal verse does reveal a conscience behind the tyranny— “Nobody ever told you that it was the wrong way/ To trick a woman, make her feel she did it her way.” This was Bush’s trick with the far right— to beguile them into believing he did it their way. The outcome, for this protagonist, is to live with the knowledge of his own manipulations, which did attain their desired end— “And you’ll be there if she ever feels blue/ And you’ll be there when she finds someone new.” This protagonist is what he owns, and this constitutes his narcissism. Everything points back to the materiality of the safe, where things that act as extensions of Self are kept. Yet the song sounds desolate, lonely; there’s nothing particularly celebratory about it. That the protagonist is, in fact, as locked in his own safe as his consort it, is something easily deduced from this. Once things are safely secured, they lose their meaning— once you’re “home sweet home,” there’s nowhere else to go. The quest for complete security dehumanizes— this is true of every echelon of American society.

The Stripes were safe, in that they were working within discrete bounds; they achieved safety via conservation. But the rock ideal has always been promiscuous dangerousness, and part of what was instructive about the Stripes is that they could be construed as a backwards step. The instinct to self-protect keels over into violence in the second verse— “But now she might leave like she’s threatened before/ Grab hold of her fast before her feet leave the floor/ And she’s out the door.” That’s the flip-side of the protagonist’s tyranny— he’s pathetic. He acts not out of sexual need (as in “Closer”) but emotional— and he does so without questioning his own motives. As a man-child, he’s archetypal enough to fit into a Red American context. One thing that never gets resolved in the song is how much of the action takes place in the man-child’s imagination— is this consort really “in his pocket,” or is he merely making this up to comfort himself? We learned in the Aughts that man-children are not particularly reliable— they’re wrapped too tightly around their own illusions. In a way, this figure has resonance with rock’s original generation— Elvis in “Heartbreak Hotel,” Buddy Holly in “Peggy Sue,” etc, albeit in gnarled form. He moves away from 90s complexities, in a time that encouraged tightness; and with the old guard not doing much to hold up their end, either. It was bleak. In 2011, there is more disintegration, and many wonder if rock will eventually be moot. If it is not to be, contingencies must create a pioneering edge; nothing else may suffice. This is true because for all their excellence, the White Stripes were a sobering phenomenon. Quality rock that espouses conservatism—
not a bad lesson to learn (that there could be), but still something that must be pushed past.

Adam Fieled, 2011

Industrial Strength: Nine Inch Nails' "Closer"

Though the evidence points towards the triumph of 60s rock over 90s (not based only on respective bodies of work, but on audience reach and longevity), there were some advantages 90s rock musicians enjoyed, which pointed towards cultural loosening and media leniency as a hinge to innovation. That a song like “Closer,” a single from Nine Inch Nails’ 1994 album The Downward Spiral, could become a hit single, demonstrates this hypothesis. “Closer” is not just a raw statement of sexual desire; it is the sound of an unmediated Id. The psychic torment of 90s rock is there, alongside lost innocence; but it is expressed in such a base fashion (which doesn’t preclude nuance) that crude power drives seem to predominate. The 60s saw hits like “Let’s Spend the Night Together” and “Light My Fire” move towards this; Nine Inch Nails’ auteur Trent Reznor consummated something the Stones and Doors initiated. The revolution which culminated in the 90s was content-based; how far a performer like Reznor could be outré and still commercially viable.

What Mick Jagger offers, in the lyrics to “Let’s Spend the Night Together,” is a kind of “package deal,” with quid pro quo included— for all his pioneering bluntness, his protagonist wants to establish something reciprocal. Reznor’s protagonist is stripped of mature negotiating instincts— he presents himself as an abased wastrel, offered redemption by the woman whose body he objectifies. Moreover, Reznor presents the female form as a manifestation of the Divine in tactile form, which he is compelled to ravage. There are implications to a song like “Closer” being widely circulated— that rock had become established enough as a cultural form to be given some leeway; and that, by the 90s, a hit song could express anything. It is important to establish that “Closer” arose from specific cultural circumstances, and out of multiple subcultures. Reznor was heavily involved in what is called “industrial” music from the time he went public in the late 80s. Industrial music, which favors the synthetic, or “processed,” over manually made music, has not generated its’ own subculture; industrial contexts are often said to be subsidiaries of “Goth” subcultures.

There are several facets to what is normative in Goth contexts— Goth audiences generally prefer a negative approach to life, dissipation over development; Goth attire is often obtained at “fetish” boutiques, with an emphasis on possible sexual deviance and deformity (extensive make-up is generally requisite); Goth sensibilities tend to reject both mainstream and “indie” norms (indie rock values would seem to be germane to Goth values, but fetish-level deviance establishes the chasm); Goths tend to be stridently apolitical (personal dissipation sufficing for a political statement); and (most importantly in this context), Goths emphasize the preponderance of basic human power drives over idealism. Goth began in the late 70s with performers like Peter Murphy’s Bauhaus (often thought to embody the purest Goth archetype) and Joy Division (who were also aligned with post-punk.) By the 90s, Goth subculture was rampant enough that most major metropolis areas in the US would regularly hold “Goth Nights” at nightclubs and music venues. After the Cure, Trent Reznor was the first artist to make Goth perceptions known to a wide audience. “Closer” functioned as a hinge to a new world for millions of adolescents and young adults— kids that felt trapped in homogenous suburbs, who needed a channel through which to rebel and assert their individuality. It is also, “synthetic” instrumentation notwithstanding, a masterful work of song craft, transparent enough to be understood by everyone while maintaining a mystique of Otherness.

For all that “Closer” involves two people, it essentially functions as a starkly rendered self-portrait. The first four lines of the song make use of the poetic device anaphora— “You let me violate you/ You let me desecrate you/ You let me penetrate you/ You let me complicate you.” It’s a miniature catalogue of negatives; yet we learn very quickly that this protagonist is torqued by perversities. Reznor’s protagonist shares much common ground with the protagonist of “Smells like Teen Spirit”— a streak of self-hatred, aligned with a desire to self-transcend. The difference is that Reznor’s protagonist wants self-transcendence through sexuality; a form of sexuality with perversity and some violence (even if it is merely mental violence) in it. Though the tone of the lyrics is perverse, it is also triumphant— it assumes repetition of the pleasurable act, easy victory. It conflates the infantile and the sophisticated. The song continues, “(Help me)/ I broke apart my insides/ (Help me)/ I’ve got no soul to sell/ (Help me)/ The only thing that works for me/ Help me get away from myself.” These lines are written from a position of spiritual entropy that could lead to something sacred— instead, Reznor makes another conflation, between the sacred and the profane. The chorus brings these contradictions to light memorably, as Reznor’s “wall of noise” (which does serve as a latter-day analogue to Phil Spector’s “wall of sound,” which revolutionized pop music production in the early 60s) asserts itself— “I want to fuck you like an animal/ I want to feel you from the inside/ My whole existence is flawed/ You get me closer to God.”

Reznor’s “God” is (or seems to be) an elemental nature-force— another, more expansive, unmediated Id. It’s pagan, and sensual; which brings up another key facet of Goth subculture. Pagan worship of nature often manifests as an interest (up to and including active participation) in witchery and the occult. Many Goths consider themselves witches and warlocks, and when Goth subculture is spoofed (as it has been, on South Park and elsewhere), this is the facet most easily lampooned. Reznor’s excellence here arises from subtext— what does it mean, to feel someone “from the inside”? It implies the artificiality of a surface, and the desire for the most potent kind of intimacy. It’s the kind of conceit that arises over and over again in Metaphysical poetry— disseminated to millions, and over a period of years, this can be considered a substantial accomplishment. It is also a challenge— how much Id-material is there in the marketplace? Hollywood and television tend to edit the rough edges (and the metaphysics) out of sex— power drives are usually mediated by the need to maintain an idealized (and brittle) veneer. Rock music, for all its hedonism, is not that different— lyrical moves (like Jagger’s) tend to be stylized enough that the Id remains hidden. Reznor makes clear that what he expunges from himself in the coital act isn’t pretty (isolation/ hate/ absence of faith), and that he doesn’t mind foisting them on his partner. He’s not genteel, generous, or stylized; that his brutishness makes him a kind of channel is a fair conclusion. He channels the animal— “it’s your sex I can smell”— and the cumulative effect can be repellent or riveting, or both.

In the 90s, you could love Reznor or hate him— he was difficult to ignore. Partly because his commercial success was crossover, many ensconced in subcultural niches thought of him as a kind of prophet. What Reznor might have heralded never quite came to light— not much commercial crossover involving industrial music happened. “Closer,” and a handful of Reznor’s other accomplishments, stand out as monuments of 90s rock— a bold leap forward, even if not followed by a deluge. Goth subculture refuses to entirely die off; even as Amer-Indie seems to be involved in death-throes. As long as young Americans want to look beyond surfaces and “get to the Id,” via witchcraft and embraced darkness, there will be Goth. Goth itself leads to an essential question— what garish light does America exude, that forces subcultures to run away from it?

Adam Fieled, 2011

Knives in the Nineties: Radiohead's "Fake Plastic Trees"

For those of us who came of age in the Nineties, memories of the time are taken up with an impression of togetherness that lasted the length of the decade. Kurt Cobain ushered us in, and George W. Bush (and 9/11) ushered us out. Looking back with a decade’s hindsight, it is easy to see why the Nineties seemed to hold features that linked them to the Sixties— Lollapalooza, the Alternative Revolution, eight years under a Democratic President, even Beavis and Butthead. However, to enter the 90s into a comparison with the 60s is to see crucial differences. With the development of a distinct counterculture, the 60s birthed an awareness of corruption; young people in the 90s tended to take corruption for granted. Moreover, 90s collectives were never as distinct and formalized as 60s collectives; 90s popular music leaned more towards the expression of personal angst than “come on people now, smile on your brother” sentiments. While 60s youths pointed fingers at their elders, accusing them of perfidious intentions, 90s youths pointed fingers at each other. Flower Children embraced innocence; children of the Alternative Revolution lamented innocence lost. Lost innocence is a subtext in Kurt Cobain, Billy Corgan, Evan Dando, Green Day, Pearl Jam, Nine Inch Nails, Juliana Hatfield, Courtney Love, and even the Gin Blossoms. It is less pronounced in Britpop, England’s answer to the Alternative Revolution, with some exceptions. Radiohead found themselves, in the mid-90s, wedged between these two movements— embraced in America, marginalized from the central nexus of Britpop (Oasis/ Blur/ Pulp/ Elastica). Their breakout album, 1995’s The Bends, was, in many ways, a perfect fit with the concerns of Alternative America— sensitivity, vulnerability, and world-weary angst wedded to complex, dynamically arranged rock songs. One single from the album, “Fake Plastic Trees,” tells a story so consonant with the Zeitgeist of the 90s that it could be said to embody it. It began to stake a claim that would land Radiohead at the top of the rock heap for the duration of the 90s.

Like “American Girl,” the context of the song is a ménage. The song also has in common with the Petty classic that it begins with character portraits and ends with an encounter. If the songs are twinned, they are also opposites— rather than building to a crescendo of excitement, “Fake Plastic Trees” strips back layer after layer of pretense to reveal bleak emptiness. The song begins, “Her green plastic watering can/ for her fake Chinese rubber plant/ and her fake plastic gloves/ that she bought from a rubber man/ in a town full of rubber bands/ to get rid of itself/ and it wears her out.” The parallel structure that binds the verses together is the last line— though the pronouns change, both the woman, her male consort, and the protagonist become “worn out.” What initially instructs us about this woman is that she has thwarted nurturing instincts— she’s watering a piece of faux shrubbery. Either it doesn’t bother her that the situation is bogus, or she is tired past caring. That sense of the artificial— it’s another topos that manifests again and again in 90s rock, from Kurt Cobain’s “denials” to the inadequate “outside” that Trent Reznor wants to penetrate. Yet keeping up a pretense is wearying. We are encouraged to believe, owing to the protagonist’s concern, that there is latent sensitivity in the woman— it may be an outside force (a job, marriage, or family) forcing her to keep up her pretenses. The absurdity of the rubber man selling rubber plants is used to frame this character sketch— signifying (perhaps) the insubstantial humanity of a consumerist society. Why the town wants to get rid of itself is a mystery, unless we assume that the town is as enervated as this anti-heroine is. If we care about this woman, it is because the tenderness of Thom Yorke’s voice (with its echoes of Jeff Buckley) tells part of the story that the lyrics can’t. The ménage nature of the situation is trying enough to begin with; but Yorke delivers the lyrics with compassion; wanting us to care, because he is not past caring.

The second verse continues this portraiture. We see this woman’s partner as another upholder of illusion— “She lives with a broken man/ a cracked polystyrene man/ who just crumbles and burns/ he used to do surgery for girls in the Eighties/ but gravity always wins/ and it wears him out.” The man, we take it, is an erstwhile plastic surgeon— for some reason, he has crumbled into entropy. “Gravity always wins,” in this context, has two meanings— even plasticized skin eventually sags, just as the gravity generated by trying to preserve illusions can be preponderant over the illusions. Overall, the portrait of this couple renders them so despairing that we wonder why the protagonist has let himself be lured in. It’s a measure of his sensitivity that he is attracted to vulnerability and despair. The character portraiture in the first two verses sets up the encounter that defines the song in the third. Musically, the song goes out of its way to dramatize the encounter— fuzzed guitars crash in, the momentum of the song picks up. However, what is being set up is not a final lunge past illusion and into intimacy, but the lyrical equivalent of a car crash, a collision into a substance so thick it cannot be broken but breaks— “She looks like the real thing/ she tastes like the real thing/ my fake plastic love/ but I can’t help the feeling/ that I’d blow through the ceiling/ if I’d just turn and run/ and it wears me out.” The encounter is futile; though a physical penetration may have occurred (“tastes like the real thing” suggests this), emotions are being held in check, and the contradiction emerges of a “love” who is plastic.

The few last added-on lines (“and if I could be who you wanted/ if I could be who you wanted/ all the time”) open up a frustrated possibility— that had the protagonist approached the situation differently, he might have cracked the case. It begs the question— why is he so invested in crashing this woman’s walls down? There are multiple possible answers— that something obsessive in him needs to do so; that he can’t accept the plastic he finds in himself also; that he wants this woman to be more than she is; or that he imagines the pearl really is somewhere inside her. “Fake Plastic Trees” really can be taken as a portrait of neurosis; that the neurosis is something generational is what I’m arguing for here. That neurotic need to find something real somewhere was very much alive in America in the 90s; aligned with the sense that punches were being pulled, on every level (from the government down to the gas stations) on a daily basis. The whole package might not work if the musical detailing weren’t exquisite— from Yorke’s voice to the organ fills at the end of each verse. The song plays like a drastically improved variant of the “power ballad” popular in the late 80s. “Fake Plastic Trees” was only a moderate hit; but it touched a nerve among American audiences, who recognized Beatles in the melody meeting Zeitgeist-appropriate lyrics. That The Bends was received with some coldness in the UK points to another difference between the 60s and 90s— rather than uniting over Beatles, Stones, and Dylan, US and UK audiences generally preferred to go their separate ways. Britpop was more oriented around social critique, sleaze, and sporty anthems. On a wider scale, the irony for those of us raised in the 90s in 2011 is just how much additional innocence has been lost since then. It seems bottomless and fathomless; plastic replaced by cyanide. Yorke’s recent songs bear this out. Still, the gossamer togetherness of the 90s is worth holding onto, even as a memory. It may present itself again in a different form and at a later date; and more innocence-purges may lead to more positive results.

Adam Fieled, 2011

Dynamics of Desperation: Tim Buckley's "Sweet Surrender"

Since his untimely death in 1975, Tim Buckley’s status as a cult hero has become established. Through a seemingly never-ending series of re-issues, unearthed live performances, and radio broadcasts, Buckley’s work has been kept in wide circulation. Inevitably, what jumps out first to new listeners is Buckley’s voice, with its’ bell-like clarity and several octave range. By the time “Sweet Surrender” was released, on the 1972 album Greetings from L.A., Buckley’s career had wound in several directions— from folk to avant-jazz. Greetings introduced the heretofore pristine Buckley into the sleaze n’ cheese world of L.A. funk. Buckley’s reaction to this context was an engagement with the expression of bleak desperation— the sense of being a werewolf on the prowl. It was a desperate time for him (commercial fortunes having dwindled) and avowed desperation briefly became his métier. “Sweet Surrender” is the most blatant expression of desperation on Greetings— what makes it unique is that it is the detailed account of an actual (in the sense of being lyrically actualized) relationship. The turbid nature of the sleaze n’ cheese orchestration gives the song a strange, guttural allure, somewhat akin to the attraction we feel for horror movies. It’s not outrageous to think that sleaze n’ cheese could have major high art consonance— Brecht/ Weill (particularly the Threepenny Opera) had a penchant for such things too. What it can engender in the listener is a sense of morbid fascination. Yet the lyrics of “Sweet Surrender” chafe against this— having been written from a deep, dark place, they initiate a battle with the sleaze n’ cheese production. The war is a gruesome one, and neither side wins. But, in terms of pulling out all the stops to engender a reaction from the listener, “Sweet Surrender” is nonpareil in the rock canon.

The sound of guitar which opens the song is stomach-turning; two minor chords, processed by an effects box so that they sound like mud being churned. When the strings kick in for the second verse, the sense of sickliness deepens. It is these choppy strings, with the dive-bomb runs they do, which imparts the better part of the song’s sleaze n’ cheese effect. The song meanders in search of a structure, and never particularly finds one— Buckley exhorts, talks, yelps, and straightforwardly sings, which adds to the air of a misshapen construct. When Buckley does just emote, as on the final bridge, the result is exquisite— it gives the song its’ beauty quotient. The lurch the strings do at the song’s conclusion goes rather beyond “A Day in the Life”— instead of organized cacophony, this is the bottom level of sleaze— when it becomes deadly. None of this would be worth writing about if the result weren’t compelling— the aural equivalent of a train-wreck. Yet the song’s real arsenal is right there in the words. Buckley establishes the situation instantly— “Now you want to know the reason/ why I cheated on you?/ I had to be a hunter again/ this little man/ had to try to make love feel new again.” Buckley drops us in medias res into what could be seen as a soap opera, but is given quirks— a protagonist who has “to be a hunter,” worn out by the grind of a stable relationship. The unconventional detail of the protagonist feeling “little” (macho protocol often dictating that rock protagonists blow themselves up) adds to an impression of unusual candor, which is immediately rebuked by the cheesy strings.

The chorus, lyrically, is an exercise in the grotesque— “this flim-flam lover boy/ found him a flamingo/ and his flamingo/ showed him how to tango/ and when they tango’d/ it’d send their hearts a-flutter…” One irony of this situation is what Buckley’s motivation was in writing this. The songs from Greetings were, he felt, his last chance at commercial viability. But Buckley either misperceived what commercial was in 1972 or his perversity got the better of him. Still, the rest of the lyrics take pains to commit themselves to bare-nerved honesty. The second verse establishes a key detail— the woman in the scenario is cheating too— “now you’re gonna go out/ and get yourself a reputation/ but I’m gonna have to show you/ where to start.” Love devolved into absolute warfare is not as common in rock as might be supposed— “Under My Thumb” is close to this, maybe “Down by the River.” What’s unique about Buckley’s approach is that the threats and recriminations he issues are saturated not only with hatred of his lover and their situation but with self-hatred and an impulse towards self-abasement. The protagonist levels everything, including himself. All that’s left, at the end, is to “surrender to love,” yet there’s no indication of surrender on either side. When mixed into the stomach-turning music, the net result is either, depending on who’s listening, an absolute gross-out or a high water-mark of desperate candor. It’s not surprising that when the protagonist turns the vicious purgative again on himself, he goes to the heart of his own emotional inadequacy— “I’m just too cold, honey/ just too hard to care.” The problem is that the texture of the music belies this— it sounds like warm, boiling mud. He idealizes a version of love that could “heal the mess we made,” without mentioning the desire to stop cheating. So, he resigns himself to the fact that the situation “keeps going round and round/ you hurt me/ then I hurt you again.”

The central irony of the song’s lyrics is this— the protagonist evinces the desire to surrender to love, yet his language suggests that he is, in fact, surrendering to hatred and self-abasement. This is a failed protagonist par excellence, in a way that the protagonist of “Under My Thumb,” who is happy to celebrate rather than abase himself, is not. He is also more honest than Jagger’s protagonist by halves, and in many ways more compelling. In a sense, we may say that the kitschy musical elements are put in place to abase us, so that we join the circle of abasement. Why would we want to do this? Again, a tie could be made to Brecht— specifically, Brechtian alienation. This is the presentation of a protagonist (or character) who repels us, rather than inviting us to identify with him or her. This brings with it its’ own set of complications— if this figure really does want to “surrender to love,” he is not completely a villain. Many of the threads left hanging by the song are musical— as the strings screech into oblivion, the song just sputters out. The whole statement is equivocal, as was Buckley’s attitude towards his own commodity status. Greetings’ failure to sell certainly had something not only to do with Buckley’s perversity but with the uncompromising ethos with which he expressed his contradictions. Buckley’s body of work, as a whole, exudes an aura of something inchoate. There is something about “Sweet Surrender” itself that is inchoate— its’ strange proportions, what is honest versus what is exaggerated. All the same, Buckley seems more interesting, in 2011, than his singer-songwriter contemporaries; they of sentiments and comforting platitudes. Buckley’s sense of fragments beats their sense of wholes. “Sweet Surrender,” ultimately, seems like an experiment; the fusion of disparate and often incompatible elements. It courts and repels simultaneously. Buckley’s gutsiness is specifically American gutsiness— there is some naivete in it. He doesn’t always know where he’s going— he finds out when he gets there. The sacrifice, had he chose a predetermined, commercial path, would have been substantial, and a loss for us.

Adam Fieled

Raised on Promises: Tom Petty's "American Girl"

Here’s a question: after the enormous excitement of the first British Invasion, did America ever fully regain authoritative control of rock music? A viable argument could be made either way— but, whether done by Brits or by indigenous artists, investigations of what America is have formed a thematic backbone for rock songs. The line that connects Chuck Berry and John Fogerty to Bruce Springsteen could also be said to include Tom Petty. Petty’s music has many ways of distinguishing itself as American— the influence of Sixties mavericks The Byrds; a sense of being rooted in “Americana” images and forms; and a specifically Southern sensibility that manifests itself in songs like “Rebels,” with its’ tinge of Confederate pride. One of Petty’s most original moments is “American Girl,” which, in the course of two slim verses, creates, details, and consolidates an archetype. Petty’s American Girl distinguishes herself in a number of ways— by her restless longing to always be where she isn’t; by an insinuation of middle-class roots, having been “raised on promises”; by boundless optimism affixed to ingenuous narcissism; and by a sense of being sexually liberated. There is a certain irony to Petty’s approach; he is addressing an American archetype from inside America, as an American artist. He doesn’t have an outsider’s objectivity as, say, David Bowie does in “Young Americans” or even the Guess Who in “American Woman.” The song is charged and propelled forward, however, by the fact that this is not just a Kinks-like character portrait but the description of an encounter, a personal interaction. It’s sung with the urgency of a lover, rather than the detachment of an observer. For the brief length of the song, the chiasmus between music and lyrics creates a vision of excitement and fulfillment. The two fundamental levels the song balances— the creation of an archetype and the description of a specific encounter— hide themselves in deceptive simplicity and brevity. Because Tom Petty has a gift for deceptive simplicity, his songs have been undervalued. But the tensions and dynamics beneath the surface deliver as much richness (ultimately) as any other rock songwriter’s.

Where “American Girl” is concerned, the seeming simplicity makes us feel the way the song rushes past us before we know it. The song’s structure is truncated— verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-outro. The first verse seems to deliver the character sketch which sets up the encounter recounted in the second. It begins, “Well, she was an American Girl/ raised on promises/ she couldn’t help but thinking that there/ was a little more to life/ somewhere else.” The promise we imagine this character having been brought up on is the American Dream— a state of grace conferred by wealth and upward mobility. Because the possibility of realizing the American Dream has been planted in her since childhood, she “can’t help” her desire to find a bigger, better situation. She’s the victim of her conditioning. What’s compelling here is that this is a portrait of innocence rather than experience; someone who social forces have not yet beat down. The interesting contrast to Bruce Springsteen’s songs is that they often pull the opposite move— they delineate the lives of characters who feel betrayed by the promises they were raised on. Petty’s heroine still experiences America as a “great big world/ with lots of places to run to.” But we notice that she is being driven to run from place to place— it’s difficult to tell who (or what) she’s running from. Petty then creates a hinge to the fully-realized encounter in the second verse— the second mention of a promise. The first promise was from the heroine’s family to her; the second is from the heroine to the still-nascent protagonist. It’s difficult not to notice that America, itself, is not just a country but the promise of a “great big world.” These elements create a little promise-chain that pulls the threads of the song together.

The opening of the second verse is electrifying— we are taken from a generalized description to an absolutely concrete place— a cold night, a balcony, cars going by “on 441/ like waves crashing on the beach.” That’s when another thematic element arises in the song— that of a ménage. The protagonist living this out introduces himself, in such a way that he sees himself being spited as he reads her thoughts— “for one desperate moment there/ he crept back in her memory.” That’s what’s tragic about the American Girl— she makes too many promises, and thus is forced to break too many promises as well. Yet her innocence renders her immune to the disasters she creates— there’s always another place to run to, another promise to fulfill. The problem is that the protagonist feels the tragedy which his heroine cannot— he is led to exclaim, “God it’s so painful/ something that’s so close/ and still so far out of reach.” That’s the dynamic— an embodiment of American spirit is no good at being intimate. Yet the two choruses point to the same outcome— sex. The excitement of the song is that of being in heat for someone. We are left to infer that in this situation, Petty’s heroine is able to give up her whims and consummate the encounter before her. I would wager that that this protagonist could be cleared of the charge of objectifying this heroine— he takes the time to think through her whole personality, to offer an intimacy she can’t reciprocate. He makes clear that he is not mastering this woman— he’s riding on his luck, and experiencing discomfort as he does it. If she’s not quite an elemental force, she has enough power to rivet his attention and engross him in a way that he does not her. The power balance resolves in her favor; she gets to determine the outcome of the situation.

Another interesting torque here is that, if one were merely to scan the lyrics without hearing the music, it might seem rather dark. Yet the song is upbeat, and spills over in the outro into trance-ecstasy. The way Petty sings the song, traces of Roger McGuinn show up. The song is amped up and hardened past the Byrds; like Big Star’s Radio City, the music establishes a unique balance of Stones and Byrds. There’s even, unusually for Petty, a funky break before the outro. The outro elevates the song to its’ highest musical plateau; Mike Campbell’s lead work nudges the song skyward. The song fades out, and leaves a sense of radiance behind it. Where compression is concerned, this piece is difficult to beat— the whole thing breezes by in a rush, but opens up under closer inspection. If that’s the essence of good songwriting, Petty is a master. This brings up the issue of why Petty has been so consistently underrated. It may be because Petty’s lyrics don’t have a flashy surface— he doesn’t write extended narratives, like Springsteen or Dylan, and he doesn’t do social critique. Because Petty’s lyrical voice is plain, critics are given the illusion that his lyrics are one-dimensional; because he doesn’t do too many musical experiments, critics see a lack of ambition. Yet what could be called plain in Petty could also be called pure; and its’ often the case that plain things outlast elaborate ones. Petty is solid. His best songs are well-wrought enough that all the parts fit together seamlessly. The Heartbreakers offer the same solidity. The whole package is a challenge to the rock cognoscenti— do you see why this works and what it has? The American Girl archetype is a skeleton key to a whole arena of American consciousness— as we decide, in 2011, what hard promises can be fulfilled here, or not.

Adam Fieled