Thursday, April 06, 2006
Komplekse
In the muck of 1970's-1980's teenaged boy-dom, love, lust, honor, disgrace, windblown hair, fat leather belts, virgin polyester shirts, and, above all, coolness toiled and bubbled in the pot of outward appearance resulting in a person of questionable appearance. How we ever got dates flying (and proudly at that) music as our male banner was a miracle. We were a mass of roiling complexes, or as my mother called them, komplekse. Going to an all-boys Catholic high school added another layer to the trauma times. The Brothers of the Sacred Heart were just a wee bit into recruiting for their forces. Success was minimal as discussing celibacy with teenaged boys was like discussing water conservation with a drowning man. As Peter deVries put so well, "Celibacy is the worst form of self-abuse.. We were well enough into self-abuse, intentional or otherwise, to add a dollop of that.What with all the chemical changes, the physical changes, and the spiritual changes all converging simultaneously at the intersection of my wavering personality, a traffic circle of sorts was needed to keep the changes all flowing smoothly. Flowing eternally (for all time at that age seems both immediate and eternal) around that circle, true. But flow is always better than stoppage. As a teenager, no better flow circle existed than rock & roll songs. Lyrics to speak for you; music to calm your nerves to the point of coolness.
Emerson, Lake, & Palmer's "Lucky Man" was one such song (and is the first entry of Five "What Was I Thinking") Songs of Shame.
Reflecting a teenaged boy's deeply mis-thought conclusions that where there is royalty, horses, and satin in boatloads, there is the remote possibility of enthralling a teenaged girl. Greg Lake emotes:
"He had white horses
And ladies by the score
All dressed in satin
And waiting by the door".
(Satin was a big thing back then, evoking chastity, devotion, and (hopefully) wild sex. I can't explain it further than simply to say a teenaged boy's mental state has an agile and ever-shifting gearbox. This "Satin" thing is further evidenced in the Moody Blues' "Nights in White Satin", a cholesterol packed heart-stopper that boasts a level of treacle equal to "Lucky Man". But, I'll leave that song for WP or CP, if they so wish.)
Some acoustic guitar strumming and minor display of drumming follows. Greg Lake pronounces each word slowly and with his cultured British accent, as if the latter would add authenticity to this dismal shade of a ballad. When the refrain, "Oh, What a Lucky Man he was", comes along, he was is shouted out so that the last dunderhead of us in the crowd realizes that this Lucky Man, well he's not so lucky, is he? He's actually dead. Funereal organ grinding bops us over the head to make sure we got the point...again.
At that time in life, what with all of the confusion of being a boy-man, I guess death had its appeal as one's thoughts of it lent a seriousness to oneself without a great deal of reading and pondering. Morose was good. So was a pale pallor easily obtained, especially in the winter. Stockpiling these complexes was exhausting; my mother was right! I'd bricked myself in with all this thinking, supposing, and adapting of bad musical metaphors. What kind of musical model was I following? Wasn't there someone better?After some additional lugubriousness, Lake concludes with,
"A bullet had found him
His blood ran as he cried
No money could save him
So he laid down and he died".
What a loser this guy was!
No money to save him?!!? Where was the love and affection (if not the 37 vestal virgins that I'd thought were promised to him) that was supposed to get him through?
So he laid down and died.
A slacker. Lake's singing about the first slacker!
...and then the droning of Keith Emerson's organ noodlings, substitutions for my alleged sorrowful and confused feelings, all unearthed to show the girls that while I may be mumbling monosyllablically, I must surely be in possession of the warm & the fuzzies that lay about in easily mined abundance in the open pit that was my heart.
Nowadays, there are "Lucky Man" parodies galore. Young scamps laughing at their elders? Elders laughing at themselves? I'm hoping for the latter; let us get our jabs in first, before the young ones poke the roasting pig of our directionless teenaged emotions.
There's "Hungry Man", "Do You Feel Lucky, Man?", "Lucky Band". I will stop; it's cruel and unusual.
Comments:
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Far, far better than the ELP atrocity is Alan Price's (formerly of the Animals) score for the film "Oh Lucky Man"
# opined by 
: 1:19 PM, April 07, 2006
: 1:19 PM, April 07, 2006
I'm glad you finally stepped up to the plate. ELP were indeed bad news. The FM station I listened to on Sunday afternoons was fond of slipping them into the mix at around 2:30 or so. I eventually learned this was when the DJ and his producer - the only two people in the entire station - stepped out for some much-needed coffee. So: got any Kansas or Yes to go with that ELP?
Stephenesque, I'm sorry to say that I have no recollection of the score, although I did like the movie. Was it that bad?
WP, Kansas never made it into my record bin. Yes, I must confess, did. I was a sucker for Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman. I still like Bruford quite a bit. He's been into jazz for a bit. this album is a gem.
WP, Kansas never made it into my record bin. Yes, I must confess, did. I was a sucker for Bill Bruford and Rick Wakeman. I still like Bruford quite a bit. He's been into jazz for a bit. this album is a gem.
Maria Teresa Mora Birlanga (a very pretty albeit exhaustively pronounceable name, if I may say),
I know nothing of Greg Lake's possible proclivity toward masturbation nor his supposed tendency to discuss said activity. Frankly, I am surprised that the M word would even come up as ELP always seemed to be blessed with an oversupply of groupies who would have made the self-love thing rather redundant.
Unless, of course, Mr. Lake preferred his own companionship to that of his female followers. Personally, I never understood the physical attractiveness of any of ELP's members (no pun intended); they always seemed wimpy, which I thought was the curse of death to a rock 'n roller.
Sorry I couldn't have been more helpful.
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I know nothing of Greg Lake's possible proclivity toward masturbation nor his supposed tendency to discuss said activity. Frankly, I am surprised that the M word would even come up as ELP always seemed to be blessed with an oversupply of groupies who would have made the self-love thing rather redundant.
Unless, of course, Mr. Lake preferred his own companionship to that of his female followers. Personally, I never understood the physical attractiveness of any of ELP's members (no pun intended); they always seemed wimpy, which I thought was the curse of death to a rock 'n roller.
Sorry I couldn't have been more helpful.
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