I play music with young men sometimes. It’s fascinating to see what they like.
They have their own musical worldview, open-minded or cranky to taste, filled with contemporary things. Rock music isn’t all that complicated, and me and my hoary old friends generally don’t have too much trouble kenning what’s going on in your typical Weezer song and bashing our way through it. There really isn’t all that much difference between any two guitars/bass/drums/two-or-three-guys singing stuff. If you can play the Dave Clark Five, you can play Radiohead.
Since I play the bass, mostly, I’m often pressed into service as there’s regularly a shortage of that. My friend’s sons are college age, and some of our co-workers and friends aren’t yet thirty. They all play better than we did, or do. It’s funny to see them pawing through crap from my high school years like we pawed through Animal House flotsam for oldies.
In pick-up situations, you have to find things that everybody knows, or can fake or figure out in a hurry. You end up playing everything they play during time-outs at football games, and you always play the Beatles.
The Beatles were my older brother’s vintage. They were gone before I was in high school. But an archaeologist could take a sample of all the layers of Beatles stuff I’ve played, and make a series of geologic Beatle eras.
1. The Beatles any song
2. Beatles raves like Twist and Shout
3. Mature pop songs like You Can’t Do That.
4. Arena rock progenitors like Back In The USSR
5. Silly stuff like Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da
6. Back to Twist and Shout for bald men and women gone thick in the middle
But this is what the young fellers want to play now. Good for them. It’s lovely:
7 Responses
If the crowd’s all stoned (or drunk?) can you cover “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)?”
🙂
Ah!.. now you’ve done it..I’m sitting in california and now I’m homesick for Liverpool.
Thud- Welcome to America!
Ron- Can you play that on your Rickenbacker?
Darn, I don’t like that one … it takes a whole song to say “we could work this out if you weren’t so wrong and so stubborn about it.”
I think the only Beatles song I truly like is “I Will.” Of course there are a lot of others I know and find vaguely pleasant, but for genuine appreciation of music, lyrics, and meaning … “I Will” is the one.
A taste from the boys (not the Beatles):
“The leaves seen through my window pane
Remind me that it’s time to move my life again
November sun is felt by none
A chilly breeze has blown my thoughts to what’s to come
A cup of warm coffee, some vitamin C
A bowl for the cat, a bowl for the dog, a bowl for me
Choose my bluest tape and unlock my car
An honest tune with a lingering lead has taken me this far”
“If you can play the Dave Clark Five, you can play Radiohead.”
Hmm.
Heh. Try this:
But I’m a creep
I’m a wierdo
What the hell am I doin’ here
I don’t belong here…
AND I’M FEELIN (Boom Boom)
GLAD ALL OVER
BABY I’M – GLAD ALL OVER
BABY I”M – GLAD ALL OVER
SO GLAD YOU’RE MINE!