Rock and roll
Bob Dylan and Nirvana are not neocons
August 31 2005
MYTH: Rock and roll is a conservative art form
I was driving home and listening to a tape that contained both Beethoven's Ninth, John Coltrane and AC/DC's song "Back in Black," I once again thought of a modern paradox: rock and roll, America's "rebel music," is in fact a conservative art form.
-- Mark Gauvreau Judge, Redemption Song, American Spectator, 08/19/05
REALITY
Conservative art form, come on. The term itself is an oxymoron. Rock and roll music, essentially, is as conservative as Axl Rose’s wardrobe. Listening to Coltrane 50 years after he created his music and to AC/DC 20 years after they released theirs, you might hear nostalgic tunes that remind you of a time and place to which you belonged. But yesterday’s rock and roll is today’s pop, and the music that both critics and Sam Goody occasionally label “rock and roll” very often is not.
The music, lyrics, and attitude of rock and roll are all discordant with the conservative mind. Rock and roll evolved from a variety of musical forms in the 1950s, as artists like Elvis Presley, Bill Haley and the Comets, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis largely adapted R & B, jazz, country music, and swing into music that changed history. In translating these forms into rock, the discordant and rebellious American essences of the music remained, which is one reason why rock, like jazz before it, riled conservatives. In fact, the family values crowd of the 1950s tried to ban rock and roll, because they didn't want white kids listening to negro music.
Jazz music emphasizes improvisation and accents offbeat notes. At its best, jazz music is constantly being re-invented at the moment of its creation, being improvised and altered, and this alteration always includes a discordant element. This emphasis on change and on playing the unexpected, inharmonious note defines American jazz, as the emphasis on surprising the audience with aggressive, dissonant riffs remains in rock and roll. Ted Nugent's politics aside, these musical forms are by definition, antithetical to conservatism.
Rock lyrics are often costumed in slang and, like any vital art form, frequently challenge mainstream culture. In Nirvana’s “In Bloom,” Kurt Cobain sings, “He's the one/ Who likes all the pretty songs/ And he likes to sing along/ And he likes to shoot his gun/ But he knows not what it means.” Cobain is ranting about those fans, like Mr. Judge, who know the lyrics and the tunes to rock classics and favorites, but do not understand them. Cobain’s angst-filled lyrics underscore his contempt for such fans. This song, which compels every listener to contemplate his connection with and comprehension of the music, challenges conformist values, while simultaneously uniting fans who appreciate the song’s message. Like all true rock songs, the lyrics of “In Bloom” openly rage against embedded culture and/or the Establishment.
While rock music and lyrics often provide audible evidence of the music’s open disdain for conservatism, the attitude of rock and roll accentuates the music’s position. Rock culture openly challenges rules, authority, conservatism, and dominant paradigms. Like jazz phenoms before them, rockers have been integral parts of the American underground and counter-culture. The stereotype of the rock musician with a strong proclivity for doing drugs and engaging in casual sex exists for a reason. This “do what feels good,” relativist world view acts as an overt antithesis to proclaimed rightwing cultural mores. In fact, the rebellion is more important than the activity. So much so that the alternative groups that came to prominence in the early 90s, like Nirvana, Sonic Youth, and Pearl Jam, did not have “groupies” or casual sex, despite the bands’ easy access to both. People expected rockers to have groupies, so the musicians, the actors on the rock and roll stage, did the unexpected; they upended the paradigm and chose not to “rock out with their cocks out.”
Rock and Roll music, lyrics, and attitude challenge conservative orthodoxies. This is the American spirit in its purest form. It is this pioneering and rebellious spirit that created democracy, and most of the great advancements of the last two centuries. Chuck Berry and Thomas Edison share the same American DNA. So do Martin Luther King, Jr. and Charlie Parker. Challenging dominant paradigms is in our blood, and rock and roll music is one of the most powerful expressions of this. Elvis Presley was considered shocking by the conservatives of his day. For that matter so were female suffrage and integration.
Keep on rockin' in the free world.
