Anyone can play guitar

I got an instant message last night from someone who posts on a message board I used to be involved with. He was very excited about his new song ('i'm writing a protest song heh') and asked me to critique his lyrics.

I asked what he was protesting, and though I didn't get a direct response I did end up with a screen full of empty images and bad rhymes.

All that stands out now is the opening, 'This freedom isn't worth my fragile life,' or some such rot. There were nonsensical lines about avoiding 'Islamic lights' (written presumably to rhyme with 'rights' and for no meaningful purpose) and the pretense of speaking as one who had experienced war.

After I'd asked whether he'd ever been to war, and he responded that he never had and never would! (emphasis his), I told him what I thought: 'I think it's pretty lame to write about war as if you've been there.'

Now, before you throw Shakespeare at me or anyone else know there's a world of difference between fictionalizing an account of war (or anything else) and writing a protest song, the best of which has always been rooted in the experience of the folk who sing the songs. Forgetting the old masters for a moment whose songs were more meaningful in this way, the best of Bob Dylan is cerebral, or philosophical, like Only a Pawn in Their Game. The song would have been absurd and hokey had Dylan written from the perspective of the assassin and tried to tell you how 'he' felt, or had he written any of his songs as a first person emotional response to events he had never experienced. There's a world of difference between writing about an event and propagandizing an opinion in song. In the example cited Dylan is passing judgment on events, but never pretending to be a part of them.

So to return to the hack and his rambling song, he tells me that we've done what we set out to do and it's time to leave Iraq. His reason is beyond comprehension: the people who continue to fight are average citizens who don't understand what we're doing there. They're confused and think we're trying to kill them, and the Iraqi media is useless to change their misguided but well-intentioned actions. So we'd best pick up and move on, and peace will establish itself.

I'm not making this up.

Instead, he says, we should move to Sudan. At least we partially agree about something. The crisis in Sudan has been discussed on Classical Values for months: here, here, here, here, and here.

But he would doubtless cry for withdrawal in three months or whenever it seemed like the politically cool thing to do.

I tried to explain to him what the actual political situation is in Iraq, why it's necessary in the real world to undertake difficult and unpleasant military campaigns, and why Iraq is no less important than Darfur. His only response was, 'i'm sorry i brought it up ... go back to watching nascar.'

Which means he has much in common with the Democrats: he views everyone with contempt, from the 'ignorant' average Iraqi mistakenly killing American troops, to the American with differing views, whom he labels an ignorant redneck in leftist shorthand (that is, afterall, what Nascar means to the left -- it's right up there with 'thump your Bible').

posted by Dennis on 09.02.04 at 10:03 AM





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Comments

Jeez, Dennis. I read the whole post, with the increasing hope that I'd get the reference to the headline.

And I'm just here to let you know that it's thirty-five years of effort on the project that authorizes me to say: No; not just "anyone can play guitar", any more than just anyone being able to write a decent lyric. Many times in the past, answering people who've asked about learning to play, I've told 'em, "Everybody wants to be the star around the campfire, but only very few have what it takes to sit around -- all alone -- burning blisters on their fingertips at the hard work it takes to make it happen."

I once watched Delbert McClinton on Don Imus' morning show. Imus is a huge Delbert fan, and he asked, "How long would it take me to play guitar like that?" Delbert told him the truth:

"You don't have enough time left."

Very few things are further from the truth than that "Anyone can play guitar".

Billy Beck   ·  September 2, 2004 12:55 PM

"...never had and never would!"

Chickendove.

dennis, correct me if i'm wrong, but isn't the headline just a reference to the radiohead song?

E   ·  September 2, 2004 03:23 PM

>Chickendove.

Steven, I take my hat off to you.

Marzo   ·  September 2, 2004 05:20 PM

Radiohead, Anyone Can Play Guitar

Destiny, destiny protect me from the world.
Destiny, hold my hand, protect me from the world.
Here we are with our running and confusion,
and I don't see no confusion anywhere.

And if the world does turn and if London burns,
I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar.
I want to be in a band when I get to heaven,
anyone can play guitar and they won't be a nothing any more.

Grow my hair, grow my hair, I am Jim Morrison,
grow my hair, I wanna be, wanna be, wanna be Jim Morrison.
Here we are with our running and confusion,
and I don't see no confusion anywhere.

And if the world does turn and if London burns,
I'll be standing on the beach with my guitar.
I want to be in a band when I get to heaven,
anyone can play guitar and they won't be a nothing any more.

Dennis   ·  September 2, 2004 06:08 PM

Anyone can play guitar badly.

J. Case   ·  September 3, 2004 09:10 PM


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