Days Of Future Past

According to the OED, the word anthem is a corruption of the Old English word antefn, derived from the Greek word antiphon, meaning “A composition, in prose or verse, sung antiphonally, or by two voices or choirs, responsively.” Most current definitions of “anthem” say that an anthem is a song of celebration or praise, any song of devotion, praise, or patriotism, often used in English in the context of “national anthem.” But a national anthem, technically, is a hymn, or a song of praise and devotion. So what, precisely, is an anthem? The question becomes even more complicated when one allows for the so-called “rock anthem,” defined here as “a powerful, celebratory rock song with arena-rock sound often with lyrics celebrating rock music itself and simple sing-a-long choruses, chants, or hooks.” Thus the rock anthem is a song celebrating a way of life (or behavior), as national anthems also do. However, in this context, anthem again simply means hymn.

My wife Becky and I were discussing this question the other day, trying to arrive at a meaning of “anthem” that doesn't simply render it as a synonym for “hymn.” Interestingly, she suggested that an anthem should be considered as any song (or poem) that presents history as prophecy. What she means is that an event that has already occurred is presented in the context of the song or poem as something that is going to happen--the song informs our understanding of the future. It's prophetic in the sense that it uses history as a way to inform the future, but as prophecies often are, it is also often apocalyptic. While the American national anthem, “The Star-Spangled Banner,” is hardly apocalyptic, the history it recounts informs our understanding of the future: the nation will go on forever, continuously. A good example of what she means is The Original Caste's song “One Tin Soldier” (later covered perhaps more famously by the band Coven). In “One Tin Soldier,” the narrative is presented as a story that happened “long ago,” but obviously its purpose is to inform our understanding of the future (“Listen, children, to a story that was written long ago...”). The song rather explicitly serves as a moral imperative for the future: although the events happened in the past, they are nonetheless prophetic because, in parabolic fashion, they foretell what will happen (now/ future) if greed isn't held in check. I tend to think that songs such as Neil Young's “Southern Man” also serve as anthems as I've defined them here, because on the one hand, there are images drawn from the antebellum period (the “bullwhip cracking”), while on the other hand there are images drawn from the Reconstruction period and the Ku Klux Klan (“now your crosses are burning fast”). However, the lyric, “Southern change is gonna come at last,” invokes the Civil Rights-era South. This liquid exchange of past and future prompted Lynyrd Skynyrd, as revealed in “Sweet Home Alabama” for instance, to read the song as a condemnation of the present-day South, although Young's song would seem to be set in the frozen, remote past. In contrast, “Sweet Home Alabama” is not an anthem (although it is often referred to as such), but a defense of a way of life, that is to say, a hymn. No Southern man needs him, ol' NY, comin' round or about.

Perhaps because of the nuclear threat of the period as well as the impending ecological catastrophe Rachel Carson  had warned of in Silent Spring (1962), the poets and singers of the 1960s began to engage in apocalyptic expressions as anthems to brave new worlds to come. Just as movies of the early 1960s contained apocalyptic themes (The Seventh Seal, 1957; Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1962; The World, the Flesh, and the Devil, 1962; Behold a Pale Horse, 1964) so, too, did the music. Harold Bloom once observed that Americans are obsessed with prophecies and omens because they are actually Gnostics without realizing it, and his insight is certainly true of the folk song when it became a form of prophesying. In the Sixties, musical prophesying caught on. However, perhaps it's well to remember Walter Benjamin's observation about allegory, "Any person, any thing, any relationship can mean absolutely anything else."

A Few Notable Anthems From The Sixties:
Bob Dylan - A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall (1962)
Bob Dylan - The Times They Are A-Changin' (1963)
Barry McGuire - Eve of Destruction (1965)
The 5th Dimension - Aquarius/Let The Sunshine In (1969)
The Original Caste - One Tin Soldier (1969)
Neil Young - After the Gold Rush (1970)
Neil Young - Southern Man (1970)

Olfactory

The so-called "Generation Gap" of the 1960s distinguished the new from the old not so much by ideological difference as by patterns of symbolic consumption, a polarization of taste by means of music, fashion, goods and services. What Thorstein Veblen identified at the end of the nineteenth century as "conspicuous consumption" had by the 1960s long permeated every aspect of American life, mass consumption playing an essential social and economic role in every dimension of the culture. It so happened there was a widespread presumption in the Sixties and Seventies that hippies wore patchouli oil to hide the smell of marijuana, based on the stereotype that all hippies smoked dope. It's true that hippies marked themselves as socially different through dramatic bodily display, but difference didn't consist only of the manipulation of hairstyle and clothing. Perfumes and aromatic oils are also forms of fashion, which is to say a means of symbolic consumption. Patchouli oil signified rebellion against social norms and class tastes: you couldn't buy it at Neiman Marcus or Saks Fifth Avenue. It was alien and strange at least so far as most Americans were concerned, Eastern as opposed to European in origin, and was derived from a plant as opposed to an animal. Its use identified one as bohemian in taste and temperament (and artistic hobbies), in contrast, say, to Old Spice cologne, which at the time identified one as hopelessly middle-class in taste (or perhaps tastelessness) and class adherence. The disposition of the body did play a symbolic role in denoting ideological adherence, of course, through notions of masculinity and femininity (with hippies coded as "feminine," patriots as "masculine") and also through metaphors of filth and cleanliness. In October 1969, for instance, General Earle Wheeler, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, referred to Vietnam War protesters as "vocal youngsters, strangers alike to soap and reason," the implication being that one could determine ideological adherence through the chemical senses: if they smell funny, don't trust 'em. Perhaps it's well to remember Kant's observation that smell is "taste at a distance" and is the means by which filth induces nausea, which "is even more intimate than through the absorptive vessels of mouth or gullet."

Pictures From Life's Other Side

The standard view of Hank Williams' Luke the Drifter recordings can be found in Barbara Ching's Wrong's What I Do Best: Hard Country Music and Contemporary Culture (Oxford UP, 2001), in which she claims that Luke the Drifter is Williams' "alter ego," an alias used to distinguish records that were "hellfire" from those that were "hell-raising" (p. 55). Since jukebox operators preferred the hard-drinking Williams with the "bad reputation" rather than the Williams who engaged in moralistic recitations and sanctimonious rebukes, Williams was urged to create the alter ego, a shadow self representing the fundamentalist side to his normal, hedonistic, pleasure-seeking self. But why would he adopt the alias in 1950 (the year of the first Luke the Drifter recordings) at the very height of his fame, by which time he had become the central figure in country music?

What if it's really the other way around, Luke the Drifter being the real "Hank Williams" while the one singing "Jambalaya" and "Kaw-Liga" is in fact wearing the mask? From this perspective, songs such as "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and "Lost Highway" represent moments when the mask slips, when the real "Hank Williams" reveals himself, especially so since he is singing for a community to which he could never belong. As Greil Marcus observes, "Beneath the surface of his forced smiles and his light, easy sound, Hank Williams was kin to Robert Johnson in a way that the new black singers of his day were not" (Mystery Train, Third Revised Edition, p. 131). The Luke the Drifter records only make sense considered as an aggregate rather than individually; the mistake is to single out any particular one as "typical." It is true that the songs are moralistic in a way easily assimilable to the community, but that's beside the point. They are actually songs of loss, exclusion, and tragedy bordering on the nihilistic (hence Marcus's allusion to Robert Johnson), songs about abject figures who've inherited life's accursed share, too different or too grotesque or too scorned to fit in. "Drifter" is simply another name for someone without a home, without a community, and that is what the songs are about. (In the 1970s "drifter" was replaced by "outlaw," a key figure being Hank Williams, Jr.). "Hank Williams was a poet of limits, fear, and failure," writes Greil Marcus in Mystery Train (131), an important aspect of the country world to be sure. By the time of Hank Williams' death, though, the style had become so pervasive "that it had closed off the possibilities of breaking loose." The other side of the country world, the one consisting of "excitement, rage, fantasy, delight," emerged soon after in the music of Elvis Presley -- in the music known as "rockabilly" rather than "hillbilly."

Armageddon Days Are Here Again

On this Earth Day, what more appropriate topic than the Whole Earth Catalog? The Whole Earth Catalog was a thick, oversized paperback largely written by Stewart Brand. Issued twice yearly from 1968 to 1972, and sporadically thereafter, its purpose was to provide information and access to “tools” in order that a reader could “find his own inspiration, shape his own environment, and share his adventure with whoever is interested.” Widely associated with the counterculture movement of the 1960s as well as with the environmentalist movement, the Whole Earth Catalog actually contributed to the survivalist movement that began in the 1960s and gained momentum in the 1970s, appealing to libertarians and conservatives alike. The Whole Earth Catalog wasn't merely a handbook for hippies trying to live off the land; it was also a survivalist's bible, useful in making preparations for Armageddon.

Serendipitously, the first Whole Earth Catalog was issued just about the time George Romero's Night of the Living Dead was released in theaters (October 1968), a movie about a group of humans trying to avoid being eaten by zombies. The protagonists of Night of the Living Dead are, if you think about it, prototypical survivalists. Although they were completely unprepared for the social disruption caused by the rise of the living dead, they clearly understand the need for self-sufficiency, even if they are unable to obtain it. They also understand the need for self-defense, by fitting out an existing building in order to protect themselves against a zombie siege of uncertain duration.

I happened to screen last night the classic Twilight Zone episode “The Shelter” (September 1961), a Cold War-era adaptation of the fable about the ant and the grasshopper. The same fable was the inspiration for Philip Wylie's 1954 novel Tomorrow!, in which two fictional Midwest towns undergo a nuclear attack, but only one of them is prepared for it. (One version of the fable has it that the grasshopper idled away his summer hours doing nothing, while the wise, forward-looking ant stockpiled food for the winter. When winter inevitably arrived, the grasshopper found itself starving. Predictably, the grasshopper begged the ant for food and was rebuked for his indolence.) In "The Shelter," a wise doctor has spent months building a bomb shelter in preparation for a possible nuclear attack. When such an attack seems horribly imminent, the wise doctor installs his family in the shelter, refusing admittance to his friends and neighbors. Like the zombies of Night of the Living Dead, the doctor's neighbors and friends are reduced to frightened helpless creatures, viciously turning against themselves and the doctor for refusing to give them refuge. They begin an attack to smash down the door of the shelter in order to get inside to safety. Of course, prior to the "The Shelter," the theme of survivalism had been used by many science fiction writers, but I think it is interesting that between the airing of "The Shelter" and the publication of the Whole Earth Catalog seven years later appeared Don Stephens' Retreater's Bibliography (1967) containing instructions on how to build and equip a remote survival shelter. A 1968 supplement to the Retreater's Bibliography was later issued, and there were subsequent reissues of the book as well. I should make it clear that I'm not claiming any cause-and-effect influence between Don Stephens' book and the Whole Earth Catalog. Rather, it was a matter of convergence of ideas, a prevailing belief in imminent social collapse and a suspicion that modern industrial society was about to undergo a disaster of apocalyptic scale -- the fragility of the social contract.

While certainly not its intent by any means, the Whole Earth Catalog arguably gave rise to a number of associated publications, among them William Powell's The Anarchist Cookbook (1971), which contains instructions for the manufacture of homemade explosives, rudimentary telecommunications phreaking devices, and other things. A few years later, in 1975, Kurt Saxon started The Survivor, a newsletter urging subscribers to build fortified survival structures in rural or lightly populated areas where they might hold out against so-called "killer caravans" of looters from nearby urban centers -- that is, instructions to prepare themselves for the night of the living dead.

Ordinary People

The Rolling Stones' album Black and Blue (1976), a minor record in the Stones' vast oeuvre and the first made after the departure of guitarist Mick Taylor, was released 35 years ago today. This fact in itself is trivial and hardly worth mentioning. More interesting, historically speaking, is the controversy surrounding the manner in which the album was promoted (pictured, left). The Rolling Stones, one of the earliest rock bands to model itself consciously on the 1950s jazz subculture (or counterculture), successfully blurred any clear distinctions between being bohemian and being deviant.

The trend began, at least in terms of the band's album covers, with the graffiti-covered bathroom wall of Beggars Banquet (1968), which invoked the stereotypical site, in the popular imagination, of the male homosexual encounter. The origins of the S&M themed promotional image for Black and Blue came out of trends in fashion photography in the mid 70s, in particular the work of photographers such as Helmut Newton and Chris von Wangenheim. A year before Black and Blue's release, Newton had created a controversial May 1975 Vogue spread, "The Story of Ohhh…," which featured an image of a man sadistically grabbing hold of a woman's breast, linking sex, violence, and danger. On his part, Von Wagenheim had created a advertisement depicting a bejeweled model being bitten on the wrist by a Doberman pinscher. Although I no longer remember the moment when I first saw the promotional image for Black and Blue, studying it now it seems to be both a deliberate provocation as well as something of a put-on, perhaps another instance of Pop Art irony, possibly yet another illustration (for some) of art's fundamental donnée, to disturb. While the poster's visual pun on "black and blue" is hardly subtle -- a kid in junior high can get it -- that doesn't seem to be the real point. Album cover aside (in which the Stones seem strangely mannequin-like, alienated, and unfocused, perhaps to suggest the state of the band at the time), the poster for Black and Blue links sexual adventurism with S&M. The poster's self-conscious S&M theatricality, with its cuffs and ropes and its staging of violence and humiliation and the model's unambiguous sexual invitation, suggests domination and enslavement as well as outre´ sex as an exciting way of life. Hence the Stones represent everything hip and Modern--they are with it, man.

In her 1975 essay, Fascinating Fascism, Susan Sontag observed that this sort of imagery is "a logical extension of an affluent society's tendency to turn every part of people's lives into a taste, a choice; to invite them to regard their very lives as a (life) style. In all societies up to now, sex has mostly been an activity (something to do, without thinking about it). But once sex becomes a taste, it is perhaps already on its way to becoming a self-conscious form of theater, which is what sadomasochism is about: a form of gratification that is both violent and indirect, very mental." While Black and Blue's poster is perhaps stereotypical in the way it associates rock music with transgressive behavior, Sontag might argue that the poster's self-conscious imagery of sadomasochism acts as a sort of enticement, suggesting that while rock music to some is ultimately a harmless form of transgression (like driving through a red light at 3:00 a.m. when no cop is around), to the enlightened it is altogether more significant, promising the sort of extravagant life to which only Sade himself aspired, filled with dominance and submission, sex and humiliation, made even more exciting because "it is forbidden to ordinary people." In other words, to consume rock music (especially the Stones) is to surpass the limits of your dull, profane existence. In her essay, Sontag cites Leni Riefenstahl, who said, "What is purely realistic, slice of life, what is average, quotidian, doesn't interest me." Sontag writes, "As the social contract seems tame in comparison with war, so fucking and sucking come to seem merely nice, and therefore unexciting." In other words, Altamont was not the disaster that is usually depicted, but rather life at its most extreme, with all of its promise of excitement and danger. Anything but nice. Nice was Woodstock.

Which is also to say, rock itself is a form of gratification that is indirect and vicarious. But that is the way the Stones seem to want it: listen to the music and get your rocks off. The Stones, the dark double of the Beatles, the bad boys of rock, however they wanted to be perceived, certainly it was never as "nice." The Black and Blue poster is certainly not "nice." To be "nice" is to be civilized, which means to be alienated from, or deprived of, the savage experience the poster image promises -- even if that experience is theatrically staged.

History And Myth

According to This Day In Rock, on 15 April 1955 CBS talent scout Arthur Godfrey turned down the chance to sign Elvis Presley. However, according to several biographical sources, April 15 is not the date Elvis, Scotty, and Bill actually auditioned for the Arthur Godfrey's Talent Scouts show in New York City; the actual date was March 23. The April 15 date therefore may represent the date they received formal notification of their rejection. It would turn out that the audition for Arthur Godfrey was not an insignificant moment in Elvis Presley's career, primarily because of the widespread misperceptions of Elvis's career to which it later gave rise. For the March 1955 trip Elvis made to New York City later was used by Eileen Southern as evidence that Bo Diddley was the inspiration for Elvis's "diluted versions" of black music (The Music of Black Americans: A History, 1971). Southern claims that Elvis copied Diddley upon "many hours listening to and watching [his] stage shows produced at the Apollo Theater in Harlem" (p. 499). And yet, if the information over at On-This-Day.com is correct, it would have been impossible for Elvis to have seen Bo Diddley at the Apollo Theater in March 1955, as Diddley did not make his first appearance at the Apollo until August 20. That date may be incorrect, of course, just as This Day in Rock's date of April 15 inaccurately suggests the actual date of Elvis's audition for Arthur Godfrey. It is true that Diddley had recorded his first single, the eponymously titled “Bo Diddley,” early in March 1955, and it may have been released by the end of March (some sources indicate April), but it was Ed Sullivan who saw Diddley perform at the Apollo and booked him for his popular television show on November 20. I have been unable to determine precisely the date(s) when Sullivan saw him perform at the Apollo. Still, Eileen Southern's assertion that Elvis - who did not leave the South until achieving notice for his singular performance style - was merely an imitator of Bo Diddley has remained such a powerful myth that it was mentioned in this 2008 Bo Diddley obituary notice. Michael T. Bertrand, in his excellent book Race, Rock, and Elvis (University of Illinois Press, 2005), argues it may have been Bo Diddley himself who disseminated the story that Elvis had "appropriated his performance style."

"I think maybe Presley copied my dance steps," he said in [October] 1956. "I met him once about a year ago. He was just like any other kid coming backstage at the Apollo. I don't remember much about that meeting except that he asked me a few funny questions, but what the hell they were I don't remember. He said something about sitting out front for a bunch of shows. If he copied me, I don't care - more power to him. I'm not starving." (qtd. in Bertrand 192).

Assuming Bo Diddley was interviewed by Charles Gruenberg (for the 4 October 1956 New York Post story in which the above comment appeared) in September 1956, then Diddley's recollection that he'd met Presley "about a year ago" would seem to suggest that he was indeed performing at the Apollo in September 1955, that is, the August 20 date marking his first appearance may be correct. (The date could be determined by simply researching the archive; I haven't yet had the chance to do so. I'll get around to it; in the meantime, be my guest.) And yet, as Bertrand observes, Diddley's description is vague enough ("like any other kid," "I don't remember") to make it easily adaptable "to the subsequent conviction held by Bo Diddley and many others that Presley 'stole his act' from black artists, Diddley included" (192). It's possible that Elvis could have seen Bo Diddley in late August 1955, as this list of Elvis's live performances in 1955 reveals, but he would have had to make the drive to New York City on his own dime, not as a consequence of his concert schedule taking him there.

The factual accuracy of the matter is important, for to adhere to what might be called the "minstrelsy interpretation" of Elvis's career is really an attempt to undermine his legitimacy. The attempt to discredit and distort his accomplishment is not especially difficult to understand: to depict him as an uneducated white Southern redneck usurping black culture is to suggest his "crime" was becoming financially successful while performing, as Bertrand observes, "a music associated with working-class black culture. . . . He became rich and famous while more qualified black contemporaries remained poor and obscure" (195). Of course, the truth is far more interesting and complex than the one offered by the minstrelsy interpretation. Bertrand suggests that by examining Elvis's early life and career, "it is possible to see how rhythm and blues and rock 'n' roll became a shared vehicle of expression for various groups the mainstream had ignored, maligned, or rejected" (195). Bertrand's fine book explores how Elvis was drawn to black musical forms in order to forge an identity within an unfamiliar, post-war urban world, a far more interesting story than the Elvis-in-blackface myth.