#90, December 20, 2005

Historical Notes

Post-Mod, Post-Rocker

Gonna dig myself a hole

and satisfy my soul.

Steely Dan, “Black Friday”

It was a much simpler world back in the early Sixties. You were either a Mod or a Rocker; part of one crowd, hating the other. But we now live in a post-Mod world and music and style are so much more eclectic. Fortunately for the music world, we now can shuffle through time and space on our Ipods.

I remember once having a conversation with the Yugoslav dissident, Mihailo Markovic (about whom more in a later post), one that he wouldn’t remember simply because he wouldn’t remember me, but one that I nonetheless recall clearly. We were talking about music and he was bemoaning the modern cultural sensibility that turned everything into fads. For Markovic, only classical music was really worth listening to, though no doubt also music generated from small (ethnic) communities in their fight against Statist communism, and one really only needed a few albums in one’s collection to be a happy dissident.

So much seemed to be lost by this sterile analysis. Markovic wanted us to move from affluence to praxis, but in my view, praxis certainly did not make perfect. At that time, I think I was probably listening mainly to Ian Dury and Bob Marley, it was a few months after Lennon’s death, and I had just written the lyrics to a utopian song (based on the writings of William Morris), entitled “News from Nowhere.” All of these major interventions were being consigned to the dustbin of history. For shame!

Markovic would truly not understand the anarchy of the Ipod empire. But just think about shuffling between a movement of Dvorak’s Cello Concerto or Brahms’ Second Symphony, a poem from Richard Wilbur or William Carlos Williams (heck, even one of your own), and a song from The Clash. Brilliant. Juxtapositions are everything in this musical world. There certainly is nothing like going from the stark sound of a poetry reading, to the symphonic sound of Genesis or Pink Floyd, and from there to the songs of a Nick Drake or John Martyn. Throw in some real mods like Bryan Ferry and some real rockers like The Who, and you are really cooking with gas – or even better, with both gas and electric on a dual-range.

Here is one car ride’s listening from the shuffle – it is not as diverse as it might have been – there’s no punk, reggae, or hip hop, as there could have been, and little classical. But for the post-Mod sensibility it’s not bad:

“More Fool Me” – Genesis, Selling England By the Pound

“Another Girl’s Paradise” – Tori Amos, Scarlet’s Walk

“Two of Me, Two of You” – Jackson Browne, I’m Alive

“Hold On” – Chris Smither, Live as I’ll Ever Be

“Free” – Phish, Billy Breathes

“Don’t Know Why” – Norah Jones, Come Away With Me

“Little Jazz”, Ella Fitzgerald, The Essential Ella Fitzgerald

“Friend of Mine” – Liz Phair, Liz Phair

“Habanera” – Paul Schwartz and Mario Grigarov, Aria, Part I

“Some Kind of Wonderful” – Joss Stone, The Soul Sessions

“Why Don’t We Do It In the Road?” – The Beatles, White Album

“Gone” – Jack Johnson, On & On

“Greatchester Meadows” – Pink Floyd, Ummagumma

“Over You” – Bryan Ferry & Roxy Music, Street Life

“Black Friday” – Steely Dan, Katy Lied

“She Turns Me On” – Smash Mouth, Smash Mouth

“Creatures of Love” – Talking Heads, Little Creatures

“In My Head” – No Doubt, Rock Steady

There are no losers in this bunch. Only the visit to Greatchester Meadows with its screeching bird sounds combining with the screeching sound of the cassette tape wearing down in the tape deck (the mechanism for linking the Ipod to the car stereo) got the teeth chattering a little. But this passed and we were Ferry'd across the Meadows to more tuneful sounds.