The recent One-liners thread launched by Townsman hrrundivbakshi coupled with an ongoing super-busy streak at work seem to have brought what I consider an unwelcome yet wholly appropriate rock lyric couplet into my brain:
Get up and do it again. Amen.
It’s from some Jackson Browne song I deeply dislike. Is it “The Pretender?” I’m not going to risk listening to any Jackson Browne songs right now to verify the source, but it’s a recurring nightmare couplet that enters my brain as a form of gallows humor during tough stretches at work, then gets stuck there for as long as a week. For the first day or two it makes me chuckle, then it grates on me. Big time.
Do you have a recurring nightmare couplet that creeps into your brain in certain circumstances?
(As an aside, does Jackson Browne’s have more songs about how hard it is to work, how hard it is to get through the day, than he does days working an “honest” job? Didn’t he start out as a 16-year-old boy-toy and songwriter for Nico? Has he ever worked an “honest” job in his life? Is watching his roadies haul equipment across the country the closest he’s come to any form of non-artistic labor?)
Townsman Massimo once pointed out this great hypocrisy in Paul Weller’s work. Dude never shouldered a hoe, pushed a paper or slung any hash in his life, but he made his living singing abut the “working man.” I suppose there are many artists, musicians and poets guilty of the same sin.
Indeed. I just find those sorts of songs particularly lame coupled with Browne’s delivery. Except for “Running on Empty,” which has some workingman’s gusto behind it, he often couches these lyrics in music that doesn’t speak to the the rhythms of the workingman, unless they’re working in a quiet carpenter’s or clockmaker’s shop, perhaps.
Mod, you’re quoting a bit out of context: “The Pretender” is commenting on how routine life can get, using the soul-killing 9 to 5 job as a metaphor.
The song is really about the loss of youthful dreams, and the feelings and consequences of that loss.
I initially cut that aside, worrying that it would be distracting, then I thought, “We live for distractions!”
Supposedly the inspiration for the song was guitarist Fred Tackett, who worked on the album (and several of my other favorite albums). At the time Tackett was a session player, and it was the contrast between his own itinerant life and a guy who could play music but at the end of the day pack up his guitar and go home to his wife and kids that struck Browne. I know this story is crying out for a backstory alert, but you were the one who brought the songwriter’s life into the discussion.
Fred Tackett, nice player. Liked his work on the very undervalued Dylan 1979-81 “born again” tours. Sometimes he had the thankless task of reproducing Knopfler’s Slow Train playing but his own contributions shouldn’t be overlooked.
Well, I don’t know: yes and no. On the one hand, if all a singer-songwriter does is drone on about him/herself then they are open to charges of narcissism. There’s a whole world out there, why not write about something else for a change! Then, if they write about something outside of their own experiences, they open to charges of hypocrisy or exploitation. No: to me it’s case by case. If they can pull it off, it works, if it is convincing and compelling, then great. If it isn’t, then it can be criticized. Bob Dylan wasn’t a middle-aged black woman but “The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll” works. His early 70s “return to protest” single “George Jackson” doesn’t really work, but not because Dylan wasn’t a Black Panther. It just is not as compelling a song. Likewise, I think Weller’s “Man in the Corner Shop” is great but some of his other “bonding with the common man” songs don’t work.
When we’re done pulling apart my low-blow aside, I look forward to hearing if anyone else suffers from a similar problem of getting song lyrics to a song they DON’T like stuck in their head on a recurring basis in response to certain times in life. Thanks!
“Only time will tell if we stand the test of time.” – Van Hagar, “Why Can’t This Be Love”
This is maddening because on some level I have to acknowledge that it’s true.
aloha
LD, The Happy Idiot
Is that the “Little Feat” guy?
The very same. He was in Little Feat Mark II and III. I guess there’s now a Mark IV, because they appear to be going on without drummer Richie Hayward.