WHY ARE VETERAN ROCK STARS RETHINKING, REWRITING,
OR RENOUNCING THEIR CLASSIC SONGS?
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 cardMama don't take my mem'ry cardMama 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.'"
, Vincent Benitez writes: "
is the most experimental track in Wings' entire output." David Bowie was reportedly so impressed by the track, which appears on the 1979 album 
, that he thought it should be released as the first single. Technically, the track isn't a song at all, but a spoken word piece heard over a fragment of melody--and the words aren't spoken by Paul McCartney or anybody else in the band.
by Ian Hay and 
by John Galsworthy, which is what you hear on the final track. Deirdre Margary read lyrics from a song called "The Poodle and the Pug," from a 1946 light opera called Big Ben. "Her reading didn't make the final version," reports Ian Peel in 
, "but a few lines ('...with tufts of hair stuck here and there which one would like to tug...') were spliced into 
," another track on the album.
, is based on a children's book about slimy, smelly creatures who dwell underground and revel in all things disgusting. The liner notes clarify: "'Bogey Music' was inspired by Raymond Briggs' book 
, published by Hamish Hamilton, London in 1977. Bogeymen live deep beneath the earth. Their lifestyle is almost opposite to that of the people on the surface, who they call 'dry cleaners.' Bogeymen hate music and prefer wet, slimy clothes to warm and clean ones. But the younger generation rebel and develop a taste for rock and roll and cleanliness. 'Bogey Music' is the first record made by 'dry cleaners' for the expanding Bogey market." Unfortunately that market, like the Bogeymen themselves, remained underground and never really emerged. The song, a sort of synthesized rockabilly dance pop number, was not to everyone's taste (Rolling Stone dismissed it as an inferior novelty song) but McCartney was fond enough of the concept to record a companion piece called '"Bogey Wobble." This second track didn't make it to the final album but circulated for years in bootleg form. Sir Paul made his own foray into writing for children with a book called 
, published in 2005.
, from the 1975 album 
by Paul McCartney & Wings, collects an assortment of Marvel Comics villains: Magneto, aka Erik Magnus Lehnsherr, the mutant supervillain in Marvel's X-Men series, who was created by Stan Lee and Jack Kirby; 
