Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Drygioni]

John Mellencamp is a rich man's Bruce Springsteen, intended for the discerning gentleman.

[littlefallsmets]

No no, Bruce Springsteen is the rich man's Bruce Springsteen.

John Cougar Mellancamp Finkelstein Finkelstein Finkelstein Mallowmar Shapoopie Pilkington is the guy who really cares which brand of truck he drives's Bruce Springsteen.

Bob Dylan is the college student who just discovered that the sixties happened's Bruce Springsteen.

Billy Joel is the soccer mom's Bruce Springsteen.

Bon Jovi is the woman in her thirties who camp-follows minor league baseball players's Bruce Springsteen.

One Springsteen, many faces, to paraphrase the devil in "The Last Temptation of Christ".

[lprkn]

Bruce Springsteen is my Bruce Springsteen. And I ate my share of government cheese growing up.

[theinevitable]

Bob Dylan is the college student who just discovered that the sixties happened's Bruce Springsteen.

wait, what??

this seems... utterly nonsensical.

[littlefallsmets]

Same con, different generation. Good lookin' dude who can't really sing puts on some dusty blue-jeans, strings together some really simplistic "concern" into lyrics and laughs all the way to the bank. One Dylan, many faces.

[AugustWest]

strings together some really simplistic "concern" into lyrics

Have you ever actually listened to any Bob Dylan?

[theinevitable]

well, yeah, but saying that Bob Dylan is someone's springsteen... is just weird.

I've never thought of Bob Dylan as that kind of manipulator, but, ok.

[littlefallsmets]

There is an old National Lampoon song that... explains this perfectly... two, actually.

"Out Behind The Barn" on the Lemmings album savages Dylan for what he was... a charmer selling whatever it was he thought the people wanted to buy at the moment... poetry, revolution, electric guitars... and when the going got tough, he jumped out to find Jesus and write country music and laugh at all the suckers.

But "What Were You Expecting, Rock and Roll?" off the National Lampoon White Album... really nails it for Springsteen, for Dylan, for Mellancamp, for all of 'em, for that blue-eyed fake-working-class fake-ass fake-bar-band fake-soul fake-country-rock bullshit but...

I can't find the lyrics online to use them to make my point.

Fuck. I'll try to dig out the CD and transcribe when I'm not already falling asleep from an eccessive dose of diphenhydramine.

[jay-ell]

So what, JL? You've dumped Michael J. Fox from the pantheon?

(The only one I can't vouch for is Bakula)

O!  I am shamed by my omission. 

Yes, of course Michael J (in my private thoughts he lets me call him Michael J) -- you should be there too. 

Although that is more of a crush, and JMC, Bakula, and Hanks are more like guy-buddies. 

Okay, I have a crush on Bakula, too.  He does his own stunts, people!  That is heck of sexy! 

[wombat]

Bruce Springsteen is my Bruce Springsteen.

Mine too. And note: He does not have blue eyes.

I'm going to leave it at that.

[jaydub]

"Out Behind The Barn" on the Lemmings album savages Dylan for what he was... a charmer selling whatever it was he thought the people wanted to buy at the moment... poetry, revolution, electric guitars... and when the going got tough, he jumped out to find Jesus and write country music and laugh at all the suckers.

Hmm, the legend has him writing songs for Joan Baez, who encourages him to get out and perform them himself.

Mine too. And note: He does not have blue eyes.

I'm going to leave it at that.

Do the drapes match the carpet?

[wombat]

Didn't I hear on the radio this morning that the artist formerly known as John Cougar was just inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame?  (I almost wrote 'indicted')

[littlefallsmets]

Okay, a dude transcribed the relevant part of "What Were You Expecting, Rock and Roll?" as best he could... and it follows:

***

One! Two! Three! Four!

I've got streetwise lyrics
got a (unintelligible) t-shirt
got an attitude
an agent
got some blue suede shoes
I'm electric
I'm eclectic
got an IBM selectric

I'm a close approximation
of an uptown imitation
of a white-boy simulation
of the black man's blues
and I'm dealing with the devil
for a special tone of black-man suit

oooooh!
but what were you expecting
what were you expecting
what were you expecting, rock and roll?

***

And... that's what all of the above sound like to me. Hacky insincere attempts to approximate the idea of middle-Americanness and "I am so deep! I am so deep! Everybody loves me, I am so deep!" preciousness that makes me wanna smack 'em all in their respective grills.

That's why Axl Rose is so great... he is too screwed in the head to be anything other than a primal scream from the confused and pissed-off fifteen year old inside of all of us. There's a purity to it. I've never bought that Dylan was doing anything other than trying to be a star and then, later in his career, trying to be impish. Springsteen, only the first part.

See also: Lennon's savage rebuttal to Dylan's simpering "Serve Somebody" with "Serve Yourself" and... The Travelling Wilburies' (including Dylan himself!) wonderful deconstruction of the crass insincerity of Springsteen's calculated "Jersey shore noir" bullcrap in "Tweeter and the Monkey Man".

[AugustWest]

Odd how your teenage Rock-n-Roll fantasy crush is the only one who isn't a cynical commercial hack, isn't it?

[littlefallsmets]

Oh, I mean, I know it's only rock 'n roll...

But I like it.