The Same Old Story
Rock and Roll is good for a lot of reasons. The electric guitar is one of the best of them. Lyrically, a certain freedom of narrative form is another. OK, shall we get the old story out of the way? Alright then: The three-chord-classic-rock song borrowed the blues (form and some content) from the oppressed black minority and gave it to the repressed white majority allowing everyday people to let a song go out of their heart. And it felt good. That was just the start – turns out there was a lot to say, and a lot of ways to say it. The merging identities of a song’s creator with a song’s interpreter (the singer/songwriter) has been interesting and beneficial in that it’s allowed for many individual stories, and voices, to be heard, and the public has responded by expressing a great sense of intimacy with, and connectivity to, these works.

I suppose that some might view the creation of an ever expanding class of very wealthy artists who possess extremely sincere and important emotions that need to be expressed through the most direct and expedient means available as still another good thing. But the ascension of The Great Equalizer shouldn’t mean that any other approach to popular song should be quite as endangered as any cursory scan of the airwaves, CD sales charts, and movie screens would suggest. The revolution is over. The winning team gains nothing by continuing to stomp its foot and holler ‘bout how it’ll never grow up.

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