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Sunday
is the rottenest radio
night of the week --
please don't make me
name old sad names --
and just when it
couldn't get any
rottener: the right-wing
talk scene discovered
rock & roll, and the
Drudge Report "broke"
(fun word, huh, Matt?)
the new Bush-bashing
Rolling Stones song
"Sweet Neo Con," and
also broke a lot of
confused callers so far
out of their depth you
could hear the bends
setting in. "Well, I'm
not much of a . . .
music fan," they'd all
say, before hee-hawing
into that argument about
me-like-music-me-not-pay-for-politics,
and then mispronouncing
words like "aesthetic"
-- just kidding; how
would that word even
come up? Because the
people who think pop
artists shouldn't be
political are the same
people who tend to yell
at the TV screen; there
are some serious
miswired control issues
there, and they knew the
Rolling Stones in the
same way someone might
know the surface of the
moon -- secondhand
memories of media
fallout. And then the
one guy who made sense
called in: "Free speech
means you can say what
you want, but that's
beside the point because
this is a bad song."
"Oh, but you gotta
admit, it's gotta good
beat!" says Drudge -- do
these people get
everything in the world
wrong?
Or
does anybody get
anything in the world
right? Because "Sweet
Neo Con" is a bad
song, a
way-past-expiration
Police-style pop
exercise -- cut-down
counterpoint guitar,
basic dubby bass -- with
Stones-trademark
harmonica slop on top to
blooze it up and
condescending toss-off
lyrics ("You call
yourself a patriot/Well
I think you're full of
shit!") that reek of the
leather chaise longue on
which they must have
been written. The Stones
have nothing to lose and
tons of press and sales
to gain by pushing out
this publicity stunt,
which is why the song is
so weak -- what do they
care? And because there
was an American kid who
really DID write an
anti-war song that came
from his real life, a
song that was arguably
the first explicitly
political rock &
roll song of the 1960s:
a guy who came in after
jokey folkies Dylan and
Country Joe and the Fish
(and Barry McGuire, the
best alternate contender
for the honor, probably)
with a vicious electric
guitar line and a
Detroit rhythm section
and beat the Doors
("Unknown Soldier," May
1968) and Edwin Starr
("War!", 1970) and
Steppenwolf ("Draft
Resister," 1970) to
major-label release. He
got a song tougher and
meaner than the MC5 out
through the same
big-time corporation
that was pressing
Beatles and Beach Boys
45s, and you don't have
any idea about it
because that's the kind
of bold statement of
principle that can --
and did -- ruin a
career. Bob Seger,
salute. It's time the
world remembered what
you did.
*
* *
"2
+ 2 = ?" came out in
January 1968, the first
single off the Bob Seger
System's
then-not-quite-released
first album for Capitol
Records, and the first
shot the Hardest Working
Man in Detroit -- Seger,
whose favorite LP was
James Brown Live at
the Apollo Vol. 1,
outsold the Beatles in
hometown record stores
-- would have at making
it big, at hoisting
himself out of the worst
bottom end of the
working musician's life
(where Bob and his band
would drive 25 hours to
Florida, play for
thousands, then drive 25
hours HOME because they
couldn't afford the
hotel rooms) and really
getting somewhere. And
he used it to shoot a
pistol through the roof:
"Yes, it's true I am a
young man/But I'm old
enough to kill," says
Bob, his band tiptoeing
behind a bass line,
waiting for their cue,
and then the drums
rolling in as Bob takes
it up a register: "I
knew a guy in high
school/Just an average
friendly guy/And he had
himself a girlfriend/And
you made them say
goodbye/And now he's
buried in the mud/Of a
foreign jungle land/And
his girl just sits and
cries/She just doesn't
understand/So you say he
died for freedom/What if
he died to save your
lies?"
Supposedly,
Bob's manager didn't
happen to mention what
the song was about --
hey, it's gotta good
beat! -- and Capitol
didn't understand what
they'd paid for until "2
+ 2 = ?" was already in
stores; that's a little
suspect, since they'd
asked Bob to add some
extra guitar to the end
of the song to fill in
some dead air, and
because "2 + 2 = ?" is
instantly a potent and
considered protest song,
anger and menace built
into its minor-key
melody line, and that's
even before you get the
lyrics -- but who
listens to lyrics, then
and now? Maybe they
thought it was about how
Bob couldn't get laid, a
universal topic of the
sort that really sells a
first single. Not like a
war song: "Capitol was
real conservative back
then," remembered Bob's
manager. "They got real
bent out of shape about
my even suggesting that
people should be
questioning the war. I
was literally thrown out
of the office, and the
record did a quick
dive."
Ahead
of its time? By a few
months, academically. By
40 years, honestly,
because it's still a
sickening listen,
invested with an obvious
desperate authenticity
that the Rolling Stones
-- who wouldn't have
been drafted for
anything, not like the
teenage kids getting
yanked out of Detroit
every week -- never
touched or even copied
convincingly. "2 + 2 =
?" is one of those songs
that grew beyond the
band who played it,
recorded at one of those
intersections between
luck, fate, sincerity
and opportunity -- or
missed opportunity --
that abandon something
timeless into history.
It doesn't sound old; it
sounds futuristic, more
terrified now than
people even have the
energy or cognizance to
understand: the engineer
did something to the
levels so Bob is just
howling, fighting
through the rest of the
band because he's mixed
too low, getting more
and more faint and
panicked ("I just want a
simple answer/Why it is
I got to die?") with the
band up too loud around
him, chanting like monks
around the guitar line
("Two plus two is on my
mind!") and cymbal wash
(Keith Moon technique)
all mixed in crazy
spirals, sweeping in and
out of the speakers,
pouring over poor Bob in
messy waves, and just as
the guitars start to
push out of tune --
snap! -- a sudden total
frozen stop that echoes
like a bolt dropped into
a bucket -- and 4-2-3-4
BANG! a hard snare crack
from a drummer's
clenched fist, or if you
have the redubbed
version Capitol asked
for because they didn't
want four seconds of
dead air on a radio
single, Bob peels
instead into the most
bitter overdub of the
'60s, a fret-bent
air-raid dive-bomb
plane-crash power chord
-- if you could gut open
an electric guitar like
a fish, it would make
this last dying sound --
and an arbitrary
high-speed fade-out that
slides the band off into
the dark in about five
seconds, smashed to
silence after Bob's last
ragged high-register
cry: "Two plus two is on
my mind!"
*
* *
But
who heard it, then and
now? Bob got one more
single off that album
when it came out --
"Ramblin' Gamblin' Man,"
which is pretty good too
-- and then sank back
into the sweatbox
circuit until his more
palatable retro-rock
shtick finally bought
him a little security. I
bought both my copies of
"2 + 2 = ?" in thrift
stores for about 25
cents each, passed over
for years by scavengers
who thought they were
too smart for Bob Seger
-- by the kids of
parents who might have
heard "2 + 2 = ?" and
looked at each other in
a certain worried way
when the mail came each
morning in 1968. "No one
has more of a right to
sell out than Bob
Seger," wrote Lester
Bangs, which was exactly
sadly right: he'd tried
it his way, when he
really did have a lot to
lose, and . . . he lost.
And by the time he got
it again in the mid/late
'70s, he was all
hollowed out, and the
Rolling Stones were
millionaires. Which is
how it is today. Too
much too soon, Bob, but
thanks for trying
anyway: "All I know is
that I'm young/And your
rules, they are old/If
I've got to kill to
live/Then there's
something left untold. .
. . It's the rules not
the soldier/That I find
the real
enemy."
TURN
THE PAGE: A TRIBUTE TO
BOB SEGER WITH
DESPERADO: A TRIBUTE TO
THE EAGLES AND ONE: A
TRIBUTE TO U2 AT THE
COACH HOUSE, 33157
CAMINO CAPISTRANO, SAN
JUAN CAPISTRANO, (949)
496-8930;
WWW.THECOACHHOUSE.COM.
FRI., 8 PM. $12.50-$15.
ALL AGES.
©
2004 OC Weekly
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