Second Monday Music: Life’s third pleasure

Rock ’n Roll

By Jim Rix

Nature dictates the first two pleasures of life. These primal pleasures are the same not only for us humans but for all living creatures. The hunger drive is necessary to provide the energy for life to procreate. That’s right—from the perspective of survival, life is all about food and sex. That’s why they’re so much fun. We humans with our superior intelligence (I use this term loosely) are able to satisfy these two primal pleasures with relative ease, and we are therefore left with significant free time. It’s this free time that allows us to engage in individual third pleasures. Some enjoy reading, writing and editing. Some enjoy riding motorcycles. Some enjoy traveling. For me it’s Rock ’n Roll.

Just what is Rock ’n Roll? To me it’s any music with associated English lyrics written in my lifetime that involves a guitar. Ah, I know what you’re thinking—this includes some jazz, but not all jazz. What about the great jazz pianist Oscar Peterson? Or what about Tom Waits, who accompanies himself with only a piano? And Elton John sometimes sings his songs sitting solo at a piano. Let me clarify. I view the piano as an 88-string guitar. Okay, I know this view also includes Liberace. But cut me some slack. Didn’t middle aged ladies swoon over him like young girls over Elvis and The Beatles?
    “Your definition includes Country Music,” I hear someone else say, “that’s not Rock ’n Roll!” To which I say, Oh yes it is. If you look and listen closely, Country Music is nothing more than Rock ’n Roll with boots, hats, big belt buckles, and twang.

What do Rock ’n Rollers sing about? Well mostly about life’s primal pleasures, of course. Sex is disguised as Love Songs, although some, like Jimmy Buffett, get right to the point:

I just bought a waterbed filled up for me and you
So, why don’t we get drunk and screw.

    Many Love Songs are about love unfulfilled. Rick Estrin of Little Charlie and the Night Cats has a problem not unfamiliar to Michael Douglas:

When I love my baby I’m trying hard to do my best
She says “that’s so good daddy but I know you ain’t done yet”
But I can’t keep it up the little girl’s to much
Hey I can’t keep it up but I hate to let that little girl down

I can’t get no rest when I go to bed
But I can lick this problem man if I just use my head.

    Ah, isn’t love wonderful?

But what about the other primal pleasure, food? Again to the point:

I like mine with lettuce and tomato
Heinz 57 and French fried potatoes
Big kosher pickle and a cold draught beer
Well, good god Almighty which way do I steer
For a cheeseburger in paradise?
            –Jimmy Buffett and The Coral Reefer Band

    Man, again with his “intelligence,” has expanded this primal pleasure to include anything ingested, imbibed, inhaled, injected, and/or snorted a.k.a. “drugs.” People have told me I should not lump food and drugs together, to which I say, Both can initially make us feel good and then later on make us sick. And we are all addicted to one drug or another. If you think you’re not, try giving up coffee for a week and let me know how that goes….

    Drugs have been a part of life long before Rock ’n Roll:

Socrates drank the hemlock
Perhaps he didn’t mind the taste
I guess it was a noble gesture
Or maybe it was just a waste
            –Al Stewart

    Only a few Roll ‘n Roll songs sing about the upside, the momentary pleasure, of drugs:

The Cuervo Gold
The fine coke numbing
Make tonight a wonderful thing
            –Steely Dan

    Most songs report on the grim reality:

Now the rainman gave me two cures
Then he said, “Jump right in”
The one was Texas medicine
The other was just railroad gin
And like a fool I mixed them
And it strangled up my mind
And now, people just get uglier
And I have no sense of time
            –Bob Dylan (Extra credit: What is “Texas Medicine”?)

    Or my favorite hard rocking drug song, the definitive That Smell:

One little problem that confronts you
Got a monkey on your back
Just one more fix Lord, might do the trick
One hell of a price for you to get your kicks (Hell, yeah)

Ooh, That Smell
Can’t you smell That Smell?
Ooh, That Smell
The smell of death surrounds you
            –Lynard Skyard (More extra credit to anyone who can tell me just what is “That Smell”?)

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a simple Rock ’n Roll rule to guide us which food/drugs to avoid? Well we’re in luck—there is:

If you dig it, don’t do it and if you like it better leave it alone
And if it’s too much fun that ought to clue you, son
That you’re probably doing something that’s wrong
            –Delbert McClinton

What do Rock ’n Rollers sing about when they’re not singing about primal pleasures? Well just about everything else....

    Priests, Witches, Flowers, and Tattoos:

I stumbled to my feet
I rode past destruction in the ditches
With the stitches still mending beneath a heart-shaped tattoo
Renegade priests and treacherous young witches
Were handing out the flowers that I’d given to you.
            –Bob Dylan

    Adventure:

Who knows what the powers may be
That cause a man to go
Mindless of the dangers
Out across the virgin snow
Seduced by this ambition
I easily forget
The hopeless quest of Shackleton
The dreamlike death of Scott
In Antarctica
            –Al Stewart

    Guns:

When I hold you in my arms
And I feel my finger on your trigger
I know no one can do me no harm
Because happiness is a warm gun, mama
            –George Harrison

    War:

There’s a shadow on the faces
Of the men who send the guns
To the wars that are fought in places
Where their business interest runs
            –Jackson Browne (who knows the real reason most wars are fought, for profit!)

I find Rock ’n Roll preferable to the news. I don’t read newspapers or listen to the news because most of it is bad. And who needs to be depressed by bad news? Also I find that most news is not really new but repetitive; i.e., the same bullshit, just a different day with different names and players. For example:

Let’s impeach the President for spying
On citizens inside their own homes
Breaking every law in the country
By tapping our computers and telephones
            –Neil Young (The ballad of Edward Snowden? Hardly. This song was written in 2006 at the height of George W. Bush’s reign.)

But the most fun is going to Rock ’n Roll concerts. Because I live in a resort area (Lake Tahoe, Nevada) I have been conveniently treated to many concerts thanks to the Casinos that use them to lure people to their establishments. My routine is pretty much the same. Because the music is going to be loud it is necessary to take the proper combination of drugs prior to and during the concert to be suitably anesthetized against the volume. For me, these days, it starts with Jack (Daniels Whisky) and Seven (Up). So upon entering the event, I make a bee-line to the furthest liquor concession (because the lines are shorter there) and order a “Double Jack and Seven.” (Experience has taught me that a single just won’t do and I’d rather not wait in lines any more than I have to. Good concerts will take at least two Double Jack and Sevens to fully enjoy.) Then I take my seat and if I’m lucky it will be in a section where second hand marijuana smoke is prevalent. I’m lucky a lot. I always look around to see if I can find the source of the high but always to no avail. While the concerts are in Nevada, California is less than 100 yards away. I wonder if the source might be the gentle breeze blowing through the clothing of the many that prior to the event got high in California, where possession laws are much more lenient than in Nevada?
    I’ve been to so many concerts it would be prohibitive to recount them all. Since I mentioned Neil Young above let me feature the sold-out Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young concert I went to during W’s Administration. CSN&Y started with familiar crowd pleasing hits sung in their distinctive Rock ’n Roll harmony, for which they are famous: Helplessly Hoping, Wooden Ships, Teach Your Children, Judy Blue Eyes, etc.
    Then they took a break, promising to be back with a completely new set of songs. Sensing the best was yet to come, I spent the break waiting in line again. When I returned to my seat, Neil Young had taken center stage. He and the band proceeded to play songs from Young’s new (but unfamiliar to me at the time) album Living with War. Although this video was shot in Atlanta:

The Scene was pretty much the same in Tahoe. I watched the reptilian exodus of offended individuals who left the concert in protest, having missed the point of Neil Young’s brilliant ploy of disguising his anti-War/Bush sentiments as a CSN&Y gig. And they missed some good Rock ’n Roll, too.
    The good news was that vastly more people stayed than left. I felt this hegira insignificant and took it as a sign that there is hope for our species after all.
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Copyright © 2013 by Jim Rix

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