"America, Where Are You
Now...."- Steppenwolf’s The Monster-Take
Three
A YouTube Film Clip Of
Steppenwolf Performing Monster. Ah,
Those Were The Days
From The Pen Of Frank Jackman
Steppenwolf: 16 Greatest Hits,
Steppenwolf, Digital Sound, 1990
America
where are you now?
Don't
you care about your sons and daughters?
Don't
you know we need you now
We
can't fight alone against the monster
Chorus
Line From The Monster
The heavy rock band Steppenwolf (maybe
acid rock is better signifying that the band started in the American dream gone
awry 1960s night when the likes of the Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, The Byrds
and groups like the transformed Beatles and Stones held forth, rather than in
the ebb-tide 1970s when the harder sounds of groups like Aerosmith and Black
Sabbath were needed to drown out the fact that we were in decisive
retreat), one of many that was thrown up by the musical counter-culture
of the mid to late 1960's was a cut above and apart from some of the others due
to their scorching lyrics provided mainly, but not solely, by gravelly-voiced
lead singer John Kay.
That musical counter-culture not only
put a premium on band-written materials, as against the old Tin Pan Alley
somebody wrote the lyrics, somebody else sang the song division before Bob
Dylan and the Beatles made singer-songwriters fashionable) but also was a
serious reaction to the vanilla-ization of rock and popular music in the
earlier part of the decade that drove many of us from the AM radio dials and
into “exotic” stuff like electric blues from Chicago with mad monks Muddy
Waters and Howlin’ Wolf jumping (country too from whence they all came in the
great World War II to the factories migration leaving the old-timers like Son
House, Skip James,John Hurt back in the woods
to carry on that tradition, come to think of it) and the various strands
of folk music from hard rain falling, times are changing, blowing in the wind
protest fuss to rediscovery of old time traditional music from the mountains
(think the original Carters) to the hollows with Hobart Smith and Buell Kazee.
Some bands played, consciously played,
to the “drop out” notion popular at the times. “Drop out” of rat-race bourgeois
society and it money imperative, its “white picket fence with little white
house attached” visions. That the place where many of the young, the post-World
War II baby-boomer young, now sadly older, had grown up and were in the process
of repudiating for a grander vision of the world, the “world turned upside
down” as an old time British folk tune had it (and reflecting an earlier turned
upside down world around the 17th century English revolution. Drop
out and create a niche somewhere (a commune maybe out away from the rat-race
places which did spring up in the likes of Taos, Oregon, and the hills of old
Vermont which if you care to see what happened to that old vision once the seekers
got older you can go to and witness first hand these days but take your heart
medicine along cause it ain’t pretty), so some physical somewhere perhaps but
certainly some other mental somewhere and the music reflected that
disenchantment.
That mental somewhere involved liberal
use of drugs to induce, well, who knows what it induced but it felt like a new
state of consciousness so make of that what you. The drugs used, in retrospect,
to make you less “uptight” not a bad thing then, or today. The whole underlying
premise though whether well thought out or not was that music, the music of the
shamans of the youth tribe, mimicking recently learned Native American
traditions was the revolution. An idea that for a short while before all hell
broke loose with the criminal antics of Lyndon Johnson and one Richard M.
Nixon, all hell broke loose with Tet 1968, with May 1968, with Chicago 1968,
with the “days of rage,” with Altamont and with a hundred other lesser downers
I subscribed to (hence the expression “generation of ’68” to signify that
portion of youth always a minority that took the plunge to the “newer world.” That
before those events and a draft notice made me get “religion” on the need for
“in-their-face” political struggle. And every other young man and not a few
young women have to decide to cooperate or seek that second road.
Musically much of that stuff was
ephemeral, merely background music, and has not survived (except in lonely
YouTube cyberspace). Yeah, Neal Young, the Airplane, the Doors, the Byrds still
sound good but a lot of it is wha-wha music now you know Ten Years After, a lot
of Rod Stewart, even the acid-etched albums by the Beatles and Stones, it is no
wonder that the latter do not have any tunes from Their Satanic Majesties on their playlists). [CL1] Others,
flash pan “music is the revolution,” period exclamation point, end of
conversation bands assumed a few pithy lyrics would carry the day and dirty old
bourgeois society would run and hide in horror leaving the field open, open
for, uh, us. That music too, except for gems like The Ballad Of Easy Rider, is safely ensconced in vast cyberspace.
Steppenwolf was different, was
political from the get-go taking on the deadliness of bourgeois culture, worse
the chewing up of their young in unwinnable wars with no apologies or second
thoughts, the pusher man, the draft resister and lots of other subjects (and a
few traditional songs too about the love that got away, things like that which
hadn’t, hasn’t change much whatever the new vision and dreams). Not all
the lyrics worked, then or now. (See below for some that do). Not all the words
are now some forty plus years later memorable. After all every song is written
with some current audience in mind, and notions of immortality as the fate of
most songs are displaced. Certainly some of the less political lyrics seem
entirely forgettable. As does some of the heavy decibel rock sound that seems
to wander at times like, as was the case more often than not, and more often
that we, deep in some a then hermetic drug thrall, would have acknowledged, or
worried about. But know this- when you think today about trying to escape from
the rat-race of daily living then you have an enduring anthem Born To Be Wild that still stirs the
young (and not so young). If Bob Dylan's Like
A Rolling Stone was one musical pillar of the youth revolt of the 1960's
then Born To Be Wild was the other.
And if you needed (or need) a quick
history lesson about the nature of American society in the 1960's, what it was
doing to its young, where it had been and where it was heading (and seemingly
still is as we seek to finish up the endless Afghan wars and the war signals
for deep intervention into the Syria civil war or another war in Iraq get
louder, or both are beating the war drums fiercely) then the trilogy under the
title "The Monster" (the chorus which I have posted above and lyrics
below) said it all.
Then there were songs like The Pusher Man a song that could be
usefully used as an argument in favor of decriminalization of drugs today and
get our people the hell out of jail and moving on with their lives and others
then more topical songs like Draft
Resister to fill out their playlist. The group did not have the staying
power of others like The Rolling Stones but if you want to know, approximately,
what it was like for rock groups to seriously put rock and roll and a hard
political edge together give a listen to the group sometime.
Words and music by John Kay, Jerry
Edmonton, Nick St. Nicholas and Larry Byrom
(Monster)
(Monster)
Once the religious, the hunted and
weary
Chasing the promise of freedom and hope
Came to this country to build a new
vision
Far from the reaches of kingdom and
pope
Like good Christians, some would burn
the witches
Later some got slaves to gather riches
But still from near and far to seek
America
They came by thousands to court the
wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore
a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
And once the ties with the crown had
been broken
Westward in saddle and wagon it went
And 'til the railroad linked ocean to
ocean
Many the lives which had come to an end
While we bullied, stole and bought our
a homeland
We began the slaughter of the red man
But still from near and far to seek
America
They came by thousands to court the
wild
And she just patiently smiled and bore
a child
To be their spirit and guiding light
The blue and grey they stomped it
They kicked it just like a dog
And when the war over
They stuffed it just like a hog
And though the past has it's share of
injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it's protectors and friends have
been sleeping
Now it's a monster and will not obey
(Suicide)
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it's keepers seem generous and kind
It's leaders were supposed to serve the
country
But now they won't pay it no mind
'Cause the people grew fat and got lazy
And now their vote is a meaningless joke
They babble about law and order
But it's all just an echo of what
they've been told
Yeah, there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin'
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin' the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can't understand
We don't know how to mind our own
business
'Cause the whole worlds got to be just
like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who's the winner
We can't pay the cost
'Cause there's a monster on the loose
It's got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watching
(America)
America where are you now?
Don't you care about your sons and
daughters?
Don't you know we need you now
We can't fight alone against the monster
© Copyright MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
--Used with permission--
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
--Used with permission--
Born To Be Wild
Words and music by Mars Bonfire
Words and music by Mars Bonfire
Get your motor runnin'
Head out on the highway
Lookin' for adventure
And whatever comes our way
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
I like smoke and lightning
Heavy metal thunder
Racin' with the wind
And the feelin' that I'm under
Yeah Darlin' go make it happen
Take the world in a love embrace
Fire all of your guns at once
And explode into space
Like a true nature's child
We were born, born to be wild
We can climb so high
I never wanna die
Born to be wild
Born to be wild
© MCA Music (BMI)
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
--Used with permission--
All rights for the USA controlled and administered by
MCA Corporation of America, INC
--Used with permission--
THE PUSHER
From the 1968 release
"Steppenwolf"
Words and music by Hoyt Axton
You know I've smoked a lot of grass
O' Lord, I've popped a lot of pills
But I never touched nothin'
That my spirit could kill
You know, I've seen a lot of people
walkin' 'round
With tombstones in their eyes
But the pusher don't care
Ah, if you live or if you die
God damn, The Pusher
God damn, I say The Pusher
I said God damn, God damn The Pusher
man
You know the dealer, the dealer is a
man
With the love grass in his hand
Oh but the pusher is a monster
Good God, he's not a natural man
The dealer for a nickel
Lord, will sell you lots of sweet
dreams
Ah, but the pusher ruin your body
Lord, he'll leave your, he'll leave
your mind to scream
God damn, The Pusher
God damn, God damn the Pusher
I said God damn, God, God damn The
Pusher man
Well, now if I were the president of
this land
You know, I'd declare total war on The
Pusher man
I'd cut him if he stands, and I'd shoot
him if he'd run
Yes I'd kill him with my Bible and my
razor and my gun
God damn The Pusher
Gad damn The Pusher
I said God damn, God damn The Pusher
man\
© Irving Music Inc. (BMI)
--Used with permission--
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