Re: Comments on recent issues ...

[harvard!topaz!jerpc.PE.UUCP]

> Really-From: Jim (I don't like Yes) Hofmann <hofmann@AMSAA.ARPA>
> 
> > Date: Sun, 27 Oct 85 18:59:04 est
> > From: harvard!topaz!jerpc.PE.UUCP (Eric Roskos, me)
> 
> > I like Rod Stewart's *voice* just fine, I just don't like
> > some of his more popular songs' underlying philosophies.
> 
> What underlying philosophies?

Well... Rod Stewart just tends to have this tendency to dwell
excessively on the lower sentiments.  Why, just the other day, I
was sitting at the Dowdy Mini-Center's Tastee-Freeze eating a
Sundae, and this song came on the radio... it sounded like him,
I think it was called "You're in my soul," does he have a song
by that name?  Anyhow, it was basically a nice, good, positive
song; yet if you listen to it closely several times (this was
possible since this was one of those radio stations that plays
music based on its mass popularity), you find that he undermines
the whole song via one stupid line, which trivializes the whole
song.  Compare it to an equivalent song by Jon Anderson, who you
dislike:

	I will be here with you
	To find love is
	For your love			[Hint: the punctuation's
	I'll carry on, to know           all wrong]
	That love, it is
	Love is, it is, love is, it is.

	All now is all
	The sound is
	So in love this way
	Together, once more together.

		***

	I know we're ready, like ships asailing
	Let all nights be like this
	Forever I could hold you -- come to me
	"Then we come to love".

Now, compare this to Rod Stewart's bilious song, "Tonight's The
Night," which was popular back when I was a Freshman in college.
(That was his song, wasn't it?  Or do I have it confused with
another one?)  Clearly both these songs are about the same
thing; they even have the same awful pun in them.

But look how Anderson trivializes the lower sentiments, whereas
Stewart trivializes the higher ones... specifically, by the
lines

	All now is all
	The sound is

which I commented on some time ago in net.music, when someone
was trying to claim all Anderson's songs were about some strange
religious cult.

I think to a certain extent this has to do with the different
targeting of the songs; I think Stewart tends to aim his songs
more for the high-school-age listener.  Anderson, on the other
hand, is always trying to get in with some popular fad of the
moment (or maybe several at one time), e.g., "Don't Nuke the
Whales," or "On the Silent Wings of Freedom"; whereas "Don't
[Hunt] The Whales" doesn't have much to redeem it, the latter
song contains some of his most poignant poetry (I always thought
the stanza about "the darkest night so painful" was really
outstanding, simultaneously embarassing and true; lyrics that
can evoke such emotion have merit in themselves, independent of
their meaning, even).  Thus both superficially try to achieve a
sort of appeal to a particular group of listeners, but Stewart
compromises his whole philosophy, in my opinion, in doing so (if
it's really just a prima facie philosophy; it may be what he
really believes, I don't know, in which case it's no compromise,
it's just puerile), whereas Anderson goes and writes songs that
are "about hang-gliding," "about whales," "about Zen Buddhism,"
etc., but beneath this the underlying ideas are good, sound ones
(in my obviously personal opinion).

Well... that's enough of that.


			"... leads an amazing double life.
			 For when Eric eats a bananna, an
			 amazing transformation occurs.
			 Eric ... is ... BANANNAMAN!  Ever
			 alert for the Call to Action!"

	 			-- jer
				   Society to Ban Anna