The Rolling Stones helped us see the unsavory side of it all with “Torn and Frayed”:
“Well, the ballrooms and smelly bordellos,
And dressing rooms filled with parasites.
On stage the band has got problems
They’re a bag of nerves on first nights.
Motorhead’s “(We Are) the Road Crew” gave us something pretty straightforward:
“Another town another place,
Another girl, another face,
Another truck, another race.
I’m eating junk, feeling bad,
Another night, I’m going mad.”
Grand Funk Railroad reminded us it’s all a party with “We’re an American Band”:
“On the road for forty days,
Last night in Little Rock put me in a haze.
… We’re coming to your town, we’ll help you party down.
We’re an American band.”
Journey’s “Faithfully”, perhaps rock’s definitive road ballad, is a mixture of self-pity and determination to man up and see the good side:
They say that the road ain’t no place to start a family…
two strangers learn to fall in love again/I get the joy of rediscovering you
The Ramones’ “Touring” capably demonstrated that a road song can be just as mindless as…any other Ramones song:
“Well we’ve been around this great big world,
And we’ve met all kinds of guys and girls,
From Kamoto Islands to Rockaway Beach.
No, it’s not hard, not far to reach.”
Jackson Browne’s “The Load Out” is typical Jackson Browne–mopey and self-absorbed:
“We do so many shows in a row,
And these towns all look the same.
We just pass the time in our hotel rooms,
And wander ’round backstage.”
And then there’s Bob Seger’s “Turn the Page”, which almost deserves its own category:
“So you walk into this restaurant,
Strung out from the road,
And you feel the eyes upon you,
As you’re shaking off the cold.
You pretend it doesn’t bother you
But you just want to explode.”
Most times you can’t hear ’em talk
Other times you can
All the same old clichés
“Is that a woman or a man?”
Of all these songs, as well as the many I didn’t quote–like “Lodi”, “Two-Lane Highway”, “Six Days on the Road”, “Travelin’ Band”, “Postcard” and Fountains of Wayne’s road-song skewering “A Road Song”, none are half as loathsome to me as the dirge of self-pity that is “Turn the Page”.
For a full five minutes we are seriously expected to mourn the plight of a rock star and his life of unadulterated fan adoration and adulterated one-night stands. And that sax riff is supposed to make me weep for the guy who takes a little ribbing because he’s been too busy counting gate receipts to stop in at the barber. Waaaaahh!
Tough life, Bob.
Anyway, prog metallers Threshold have put their own spin on the road song. These guys make taking to the road sound like a gladiator striding into the arena, girded with the steel of love and devotion, willing to “stand until my strength is gone” and “fight against the hours” he must endure until he can return home to the object of his devotion. This is hero fantasy quest stuff!
A little dramatic? Well, yeah that’s the point. I mentioned they were prog metal, right? No half-assing this stuff. Life on the road, to a prog metal band, isn’t about moping in the corner of a hayseed bar trying not to cry because some ignorant redneck called your gender into question. (Ironically, he’ll recognize you later ’cause he has tickets to see Ted Nugent, who’s your opening act. So you see you’ll get the last laugh when you take that guy’s money too.)
Life on the road, in prog metal terms, is about fighting the big bad balrog of loneliness, temptation, and confusion as to which unfamiliar corridor leads to the stage. It’s about taking up the sword of overconfidence, and the talismanic gold chain hung ’round your neck with the extra hotel key tucked inside your tunic, and marching forward to greet the screaming hordes with a bellowing “Hello Cleveland!”
Fyfe Dangerfield: “When You Walk in the Room” (2009)
To quote a phrase I’ve uttered many times: God save us from people who like one kind of music.
It’s my firm and long-held belief that, since music is effectively the sound of our feelings, we ought to collect, and learn to appreciate, music as diverse as those feelings within us–to serve and accompany our many emotions and moods.
By that statement I don’t mean that we must become fans of jazz if we hate jazz, or learn to love the blues if we have an aversion to it. But we each ought to have somewhere to turn for contemplative music, joyful music, defiant and angry music, sad music, etc.–in whatever forms, styles or genres suit us.
Of course, being a product of particular and distinct influences like anyone else, I have my go-to music. Like comfort food for my ears, it’s the stuff I return to either to zone out and de-stress, or to re-center myself as a fan of music and remind myself what it means to me–or for many other reasons. Other music is more like a place I visit than the one I call home. It possesses a novelty, not in its style or sound so much as in the state of mind it induces or transmits.
Perhaps it’s because by personality I seem to like clearly-defined order and function, but my musical home base tends to be the well-constructed, the artfully-arranged, the tastefully rendered and the sophisticated.
And when I feel like stepping away from myself–venturing from my center, as it were–my ears might lead me to the land of lark, abandon and carefree expression.
That’s why when I first heard this song it didn’t really resonate with me. I wasn’t in the correct frame of mind for it to do so. On another day I heard it again and liked it–a lot. Quite literally, I was feeling it.
Fyfe Dangerfield, for this three and one-half minute span anyway, just doesn’t care. This is an exuberant expression of joy that overrides considerations of, say, singing on key. Exclamation marks mean more here than lyrics. The shout means more than what note, or even what word is shouted.
While this song’s lyric wouldn’t pass the political correctness test today, its story of a young man and the Indian maiden he wishes to marry hits on a familiar pop music theme: young, determined love. The suitor in this case can’t afford the ten hides and twenty horses that tribal law has set as the price for marrying the girl he loves, so he’s asking her to run off with him instead.
“Indian Girl” was the non-LP B-side to the Hollies’ 1972 “Magic Woman Touch” single.
Josh Ritter: “Love is Making its Way Back Home” (2012)
By somewhat fluky circumstances related to touring Ireland with the Frames, Idaho-born Josh Ritter broke through on radio and as a sold-out touring act in that country while still pretty much an unknown here at home. In fact at one point there was a tribute band there named Cork who played only Josh Ritter songs.
Years later his following is still a modest one, but devoted.
The hopeful sentiment of “Love is Making its Way Back Home” is an appropriate one for Valentines everywhere. And the video, produced by Prominent Figures, took a grueling two months to complete and used 12,000 pieces of construction paper–and zero special effects.
Every Moment Has A Song 