Rock and Roll Will Save Your Life Read Online Free PDF Page B

the hard-won truth of individual experience, the song immerses us in the Karo syrup of an entire culture’s mass delusion. It is the lovechild of Muzak and Imperialism. 2
    1. This description is a prime example of what I call an Obnoxious Rock Critic Moment (ORCM, pronounced
or
-kum). It is intended to suggest a false degree of sophistication via fancy words and/or allusions the lay reader probably doesn’t recognize, and which are not sonically precise but look good on paper. In the present case, though citing the MC5 makes sense, I have only a vague idea of who Otis Rush is—blues player, old, black?—because I was under the impression that he recorded the song “You Make Me Wanna Shout,” when, in fact, it was the Isley Brothers.
    2. Did any of this dawn on me during the winter of 1983, as I wooed the lovely and freckled Ali Vickland in a variety of suburban parking lots?
Hell
no. I knew only that “Africa” was the ideal song for advancing my sexual agenda, in that it was catchy in a quiet-storm sort of way and implied that I was worldly and perhaps socially conscious and therefore—by some mysterious adolescent calculus best left unparsed—could be trusted not to talk publicly about the size and shape of her boobs.

How I Became a Music Critic
    I very much wish I could skip over the part of the story where I take voice lessons and join a gospel choir. You really don’t want to hear about this, especially if you’re me. The short version:
    Having failed at piano—and putting aside a disastrous stab at saxophone—I decided late in college that I would follow in my father’s footsteps by singing. The only lesson I can remember in any detail is the week I attempted to sing “Country Death Song” by the Violent Femmes. The tune is about an insane hillbilly who throws his daughter down a well, and is sung in the manner one would associate with insane hillbillies, which is to say not a manner one would associate with formal voice training. I believe this is what appealed to me about the song. My voice teacher’s expression was the sort you see on certain trauma patients.
    Did I give up? No. That’s my problem. I don’t give up enough. Instead, I joined Wesleyan’s gospel choir, the Ebony Singers. I was allowed to do so thanks to a shortage of black men willing to sing the bass parts. Our section consisted of me and three other white guys. Picture a barbershop quartet. Now picture them surrounded by blackwomen howling about the blood of the lamb. Now picture the white guys trying to clap along and stomp their feet. Now stop.
    My career as an Ebony Singer was meteoric, in the sense that something large and flaming (my ego) crashed into something larger and unhappy (an audience). This was the result of the choirmaster’s baffling decision to allow me to perform a solo in concert. I settled on a pitch two octaves above my natural range. I also did a little James Brown clinch with the mic. If the Aryan Nation were in the market for a Moment of Supreme Whiteness, I believe I provided one. And nobody got hurt, if you don’t count the crowd.
Bob Dylan Is Also, Unbeknownst to Me, a Rock Star
    Having by now established my bona fides as a nonmusician, it’s time to outline my career as a bitter hack, which begins with a summer internship in the sports department of the
Peninsula Times Tribune
, Palo Alto’s hometown daily. One afternoon, the City Editor stood up in the middle of the newsroom and announced that the music critic was sick and he needed someone to review the Bob Dylan concert that night.
    There was nobody around, aside from the sports goons and the mushrooms on the copy desk—populations deeply, almost tenderly, committed to the avoidance of discretionary labor. I alone volunteered. As a reminder: I was the intern in the sports department. I had written exactly one story for the paper. It was about luge. The City Editor closed his eyes and pressed the heel of his palms into the sockets. “You know