A Classics Rock! Exposé: Highway 61 Revisited Revisited

WHY ARE VETERAN ROCK STARS RETHINKING, REWRITING, 

OR RENOUNCING THEIR CLASSIC SONGS?

One night not long ago Elton John awoke in a cold sweat, shaken from slumber by an alarming revelation: his 1976 song Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word got it all wrong. In a moment of crystalline insight, Elton realized that the hardest word is, in fact, "pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis." He vowed to correct the lyrics and record a new version of Pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis Seems to Be the Hardest Word later this year (for a free download, visit www. pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com).

A few days later, Paul McCartney heard Live and Let Die on his car radio and was "stunned" by the lyrics. "All this time I thought it was 'Live and Let Live,'" said McCartney, who has been performing the song for the last 39 years. "'Live and let die' is not the kind of message I want to send to young people today," he told friends, who assured him that young people don't listen to his music. But he was dumbfounded when pressed about the Beatles song Happiness Is a Warm Gun. "You sure about that?" he said.

Meawhile, Paul Simon was at work updating his 1973 hit Kodachrome. "The advent of the digital camera has rendered it an anachronism," Simon said. "I'm changing the title to 'Mem'ry Card,' so now the fade-out goes:

Mama don't take my mem'ry card 

Mama don't take my mem'ry card 

Mama don't take my mem'ry card awa-a-a-ay 

"I'm still stuck for a rhyme for 'pixel,' though."

These incidents, seemingly unrelated, proved to be harbingers of an inexplicable and disturbing trend that has shaken the music industry to its core, as growing numbers of veteran rock stars rethink, rewrite, or renounce their classic songs.

Gene Simmons, lead singer of Kiss, was next. Simmons was studying his tongue in a mirror when it occurred to him that the band should stop performing their signature tune Rock and Roll All Night (and Party Every Day). "Such a schedule is unrealistic," he said. "It doesn't allow for sufficient sleep, an essential part of a healthy lifestyle. Nor does it leave time for other rewarding activities, such as reading, gardening, and spending time with friends."

Bob Dylan came forward to reveal that his classic album Highway 61 Revisited is a lie. "I've never even been on Highway 61. It's all been a sham," Dylan told Rolling Stone. The magazine, being inanimate, just lay there on the coffee table and didn't respond.

Considered individually, these incidents don't amount to much. When viewed as part of a larger pattern, it becomes clear that the cumulative effect is potentially devastating for rock and roll.

"This type of second-guessing is typical of artists in middle-age," said Dr. John, Counselor in Residence at the Mr. Mojo Risin Center for Getting Your Head on Straight, Man at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio. "It reflects an unconscious desire to remain relevant--to be what Freud called 'hep' and what Jung referred to as 'with it.' B.F. Skinner preferred 'fly,' but these are merely clinical terms for what you and I would call 'cool.' Underlying this desire, of course, is a repressed fear of mortality."

This last theory was borne out by a panel of aging rock stars who appeared on "Piers Morgan Tonight" to discuss why musical icons would disavow their own work.

•  • Blue Oyster Cult's Eric Bloom told Morgan why he no longer performs Don't Fear the Reaper: "I'm a lot older now. Man, I'm terrified." 
•  • Roger Daltrey expressed similar sentiments about the Who standard My Generation: "I never really wanted to die before I got old. Also, I don't stutter." 
•  • Bruce Springsteen admitted he had second thoughts about his iconic hit Born to Run: "I get winded pretty easily these days, so I’m reworking it as 'Born to Mall Walk.'" 

The program offered no easy answers, and concluded on an ominous note when Robert Plant explained his decision to retire Led Zepplin's The Song Remains the Same: "Obviously, it doesn't."

Hey Ahab/Elton John and Leon Russell

Stereo Subversion wrote that the 2010 Elton John-Leon Russell collaboration The Union "could have done without Hey Ahab, which attempts to put the Moby Dick dilemma into song. A large book did the story justice. A short pop song just isn’t enough bandwidth for the epic."

To be fair, we don't think that's what Elton and Leon and lyricist Bernie Taupin were trying to do. Ahab, the monomaniacal whaler from Herman Melville's 1851 novel Moby-Dick, provides the central image of the song:

Hey Ahab can you tell me where 

I can catch a ride out of here 

Hey Ahab hoist that sail 

You gotta stand up straight 

When you ride that whale

And the object of Ahab's vengeful fury, the albino whale Moby Dick, puts in an appearance:

When you're clinging onto a driftwood boat 
You pray a great white whale might come your way

But the Old Testament prophet Jonah also appears--he who was swallowed by a whale (OK, a "big fish" for you biblical sticklers)--and there are also references to "freeway traffic" and "a chain link fence" that are anachronistic in the context of Moby-Dick. So while the lyrics use the novel as a point of reference, this was never an attempt to encompass all the themes and action of the book in a five-and-a-half-minute pop song.

Besides, it's hard to quibble when a song rocks like this one. We think the Financial Times (of all places) got it right when it described "Hey Ahab" as "a boogie-woogie tribute to Moby-Dick with superb lyrics by Elton’s long-term collaborator Bernie Taupin and a storming momentum, like Captain Ahab’s mad pursuit of the great whale."

Moby-Dick (Kindle Edition)

Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)/Elton John

Through Sunday, Classics Rock! is featuring songs based on comic books in honor of Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo (C2E2), taking place April 16-18. 

Elton John's Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future), from his 1975 album Rock of the Westies, is about "the most successful comic character in the history of publishing in the United Kingdom," according to the official Dan Dare website. Dare is described as "a cool, suave, sophisticated man with a lively satirical wit.  A brilliant pilot and true adventurer, ruthlessly dedicated to his profession."  Created by illustrator Frank Hampson, Dan Dare first appeared in 1950 in the very first issue of the weekly British comic publication the Eagle and quickly became its flagship character.  Dan has no superpowers but he is a highly skilled pilot and space navigator, exceptionally daring and resourceful.  He spends most of his time dealing with extraterrestrial threats, notably his arch-nemesis The Mekon, one-time leader of the Treen, a lizard-like race of aliens from Venus. He's our flying ace, pilot of the future/In an endless space, holy cow Elton sings in admiration, but there's a sense that he's over Dan and ready to move on: So long captain Dan/I fail to see what motivates your hands/Goodbye restless night/You know I loved Dan Dare, but I couldn't make his flight.  In the song's concluding lines, Elton reveals where his real sympathies lie:  Dan Dare doesn't know it/Doesn't know it/Doesn't know it/But I like The Mekon.  An abridged version of the song served as the closing theme of a 2002 Dan Dare television series.

Tower of Babel/Elton John

From Elton John's 1975 album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, this song portrays a morally corrupt age and summons stories from the Old Testament to suggest sin and degradation: It's party time for the guys in the Tower of Babel/Sodom meet Gomorrah, Cain meet Abel. These episodes all occur in the Book of Genesis. Elton employs an unconventional pronunciation for the word "Babel" ("Bay-bul") but at least it allows him to rhyme it with "Abel."

Submitted by Bob McLeod