Ludwig van Beethoven: Do you like it?
Anton Felix Schindler: Shh!
Ludwig van Beethoven: I cannot hear them, but I know they are making a hash of it. What do you think? Music is… a dreadful thing. What is it? I don’t understand it. What does it mean?
Anton Felix Schindler: It – it exalts the soul.
Ludwig van Beethoven: Utter nonsense. If you hear a marching band, is your soul exalted? No, you march. If you hear a waltz, you dance. If you hear a mass, you take communion. It is the power of music to carry one directly into the mental state of the composer. The listener has no choice. It is like hypnotism.
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And when I hear rap, I want to go cruisin’ the hood and shoot some suckas standing out in the yard. So far, the hypnosis is only skin deep.
One of the great points about the album “Willie and the Poor Boys” (the source of “Down on the Corner”) is the the classic ghetto picture on the cover, was shot from the doorway of Fantasy Records, across the street to the “Duk Kee Market”, in Oakland, CA. Spare no expense for the photo shoot. Just walk across the street.
Great neighborhood.
Back in the day, eco-activists in Berserkeley sponsored getting trash out of a local creek. They called it “Clearance Creekwater Revival,” an obvious and intentional copy of Creedence Clearwater Revival.
YouTuber Otis Gibbs*, an old folkie who does great interviews with the sidemen who made the stars twinkle, pointed out that the most downloaded catalog on Spotify recently was Creedence Clearwater’s.
They deserve it.
Simple, great rock music from one of the most monstrously f&^ked over by their management bands in history.
*https://www.youtube.com/@otisgibbs