I suspect it isn’t widely known that when you are first invited to become a columnist, you are given a set of rules, by which you are expected to abide at all times.
Apart from the scorchingly obvious (don’t write about the Royal Family and never refer to crackling log fires), it is the edict that at least once each year a column should begin with either “Why, oh why, oh why?” or “Is it just me...?”
The former is most often called into play when the Daily Mail is musing upon some local authority spending five million quid on a swimming pool for the exclusive use of single mothers and asylum seekers. The latter is for someone like me, when about to take a controversial position on a matter of little (actually, huge) importance in the story of rock and/or roll.*
Is it just me, or does everyone have musicians or groups they simply cannot bear? A few simple opening chords and the radio or TV channel is immediately switched. I don’t mean the occasional song, but an artist’s entire canon. Something ‘about them’ that ratchets up the cringe and run factor tenfold. Hitting the shuffle button with the lusty clout of the powerhouse sinews of Pansy Potter, The Strongman’s Daughter.
Let’s start without too much controversy.
Queen, and Genesis
The BoRhap hitmakers are unlistenable and even harder to watch. Brian May’s screechy guitar that his dad made out of firewood or something. Every song, the same ooh—ooh—ee—oohee guitar sound, played with the air of a man expecting reverence. The grumpiness, clogs, and the hair we can forgive, but not that pomposity of purpose; the unspoken anticipation that we should be grateful.
Freddie. Bless him. I can neither suffer nor tolerate the vocal style. I avoid the videos and ‘in concerts’. It was the preening; the bloody stupid microphone stand; that squirming “Eh-oh” call and respond thing. The certainty he shared with his bubble-haired colleague that lines like ‘Open your eyes, look up to the skies and see’ represented a higher art form. The deluded belief they were opening Pandora’s Box and we were the open-mouthed naifs, snatching at these golden rays of august wisdom. It’s probable that Clive Anderson and Richard Hammond like listening to Queen in their Cotswold weekend getaways.
Genesis share the same irksome notion that we are down here and they are up there. Nursery lyrics dressed up in a burqa of pomposity and a veneer of philosophy. Like they know something and we don’t.
The misery factor is enhanced by the demeanour of Mike ‘Morose’ Rutherford, a man with the air of one constantly being on standby to attend a funeral. I typed ‘Tony Banks Genesis’ into Google Images, and was amazed to find at least a few photos where he is very nearly smiling. In Genesis World, this is the equivalent of delirium.Those who have met Phil Collins refer to a decent bloke, articulate and funny. However... put him in the company of his Genesis band mates and he too seems to find that huge black cloud hovering malevolently over his head.
Bring these three less than cheery fellows together, add in some over-long keyboard solos and incomprehensible lyrics and I’m a-running for those metaphorical hills (the Metaphorical Hills run parallel to the Chilterns).
Nobody of sound mind could disagree with the above, but I fear I am wearing hobnail boots and jumping up, and indeed down, on thin ice when I mention the final member of the unbearable triumvirate.
The Rolling Stones
It’s not Keef, nor Bill, Charlie, Brian, Woody. It’s Sir Mick. It’s that soul squelching ‘chicken with severe stomach cramps’ walk/dance. The punching the air in front of him thing. The pouting and the flicking back of the hair. The inappropriate vests.
Those lyrics! “Under my thumb, The squirmin’ dog who’s just had her day” and he’s not writing about his Labrador.
“I bet your mama was a tent show queen, And all her boyfriends were sweet sixteen.”
Why, oh why oh why (I worked it in!) does he appear to view women as squirming dogs or of easy virtue? All of that, and then, the voice. The cockernee Norleans blues. The Dartford Delta. Like a man permanently trapped between Kent and Memphis, Mick Jagger sings these odd and perhaps unwelcome lyrics in the style of a man entering the World Bellowing Championships.
Consequently, I have never owned a Stones record, my CD collection is a Stones free zone and my iTunes playlists are no-Stones territory.
Now, I realise that none of these extremely successful musicians is likely to weep into their pillows following the news of my lack of enthusiasm. It’s one of the great delights of the human condition that we all have our individual voices, and it could be that some poor and uninformed folk don’t share my fond regard for the works of Todd Rundgren, Laura Nyro, and Paul McCartney. Almost impossible to imagine, of course; unless such naysayers were incarcerated at the mercy of Her Majesty, and only due for release after extensive rehabilitation.
Tell me if you disagree, by all means, but you won’t catch me listening to The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (“Rael likes a good time, I like a good rhyme”), Killer Queen (“Met a man from China, Went down to Asia Minor”) or Honky Tonk Women (“I met a gin soaked, bar-room queen in Memphis, She tried to take me upstairs for a ride.” <- Mick! Again with the odd view of womankind!).
Is it just me...?
Terence Dackombe, July 2010
