Wednesday, July 04, 2007
Bob Seger reverie
Don't ask me why, don't ask me how, but I have found myself listening to the musical stylings of Bob Seger with some regularity lately. No rational explanation for this phenomena has yet presented itself, but I am sitting in front of the computer with Greatest Hits Volume 1 calling from the surround sound, waiting for the weather to make up its mind, and I am not annoyed. Bob is singing about working on his night moves, and I am not compelled to seek refuge in Tool, Linkin Park's new disc, or some vintage Doors. For some mysterious reason, I am in the right place and time for Bob Seger. Honestly, it's a little unsettling...
I remember being very young, 7 or 8 probably, and dreaming the usual little kid dreams. Fantasies of being a football hero, a super spy, or even a super spy football hero. Like most other kids, I would tie a blanket around my neck and run around the house pretending to be Superman or Batman. There were times when more unorthodox champions came to mind. For some reason, I remember pretending that the anonymous figures hanging on the back of garbage trucks were unstoppable forces protecting freedom and justice against the world's many evils. The mantra, "The Garbage Man cannot be stopped(!)" seemed so much more potent and funny then, but then, so did farting into a tape recorder.
And that's the point, isn't it? We're never so free as when we are imaginative, wide-eyed children seeing the world from angles other than those we are eventually conditioned to believe are our truths. Philosophers, artists, and scientific pseudo-gods have all declared the necessity of being able to tap into that reservoir of non-linear thought. Life is better understood if we approach it with a free mind and from various directions. This winding journey into an infinitely dangerous future is much more beautiful when its magic is not corrupted by the limitations and suppositions instilled in us as we grow older.
We turn spirituality into a business, love into a weapon, sex into a drug, money into a god, and time into an adversary, all in the name of adulthood and maturity. Our lives are spent working for the things we surround ourselves with. We are taught that fulfillment is not sandcastles on the shoreline, or time spent imagining magic is real, but by 5 bedroom homes, BMWs, and 401Ks. Life becomes an exercise in practicality. Eventually, most of us will surrender our broad concept of what is possible in order to seek shelter in normalcy. Are we healthier for it? Consider the broader picture around us. Better yet, look at that same picture as it relates to all of recorded history. Have we ever been healthy? Has there ever been harmony?
I believe these things and consider all of these questions, yet I am currently enjoying Bob Seger. Bob Seger is the antithesis of child-like perception. His songs are melodic, but utterly mundane. In Bob Seger's world, the "real" world, we fuck, we fall in love, we fight, we walk away, we repeat. What could be more average? That's not to say the music is bad, per se. As I said, I'm digging it, but its scope is intrinsically limited and unimaginative. Maybe therein lies the appeal. It's simple, accessible, and almost anti-intellectual, yet his songs retain a certain emotionality. Using simple imagery and language to convey complex experiences and feelings is no mean feet, for sure.
So there are some redemptive aspects to what Seger was/is doing, but that is not to suggest anything profound is to be found in his words. That's not why I listen to Seger, or just about any other mainstream rock band from the past or present. Very few of these people actually had SOMETHING to say, but the gifted ones had remarkable ways of saying the same old thing, and sometimes, that in and of itself can be a beautiful thing. Hell, in many ways, that's all I'm ever doing, so I can only hope that I one day find a new and imaginative way to go about the business of endless repetition.
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