History on Rock - the Lyrics, and the Writers

This is a blog about rock lyrics telling History

- This is not a blog about rock history, just for clarification and information.

But if you are raised with rock, listen to rock and enjoy rock music, rock that´s more than “I love you, do you love me” and the neverending, boring variations of that theme, you are in the right place.

The British Invasion

Not that I don´t like pop music. I still remember the day, that the Beatles entered the Danish top 20. No. 17, She Loves You. That changed my musical taste, pronto, and the length of my hair. I had never heard anything like that before. The melodies just grabbed you immediately and hanged on. They were fabulous, the quartet from Liverpool.

Elvis was still pretty cool, but not that good. The King did not exercise the harmonies, the catchy melodies and the simple four men band. He did not write the songs himself like Lennon and Mc Cartney and later on the gentle George.

I really did not care much about the lyrics, because at that time I was a ten year old, a naïve, Danish, soccer playing boy, who could not speak one single sentence in English. You know, I am not an English speaking individual, but from a very small minority in Scandinavia, where we have been taught English, German, French, Latin and too little Norwegian and Swedish. Please be patient and indulgent, when my language is stumbling.

The Who and The Kinks - Pete Townshend and Ray Davies

But in the wake of (not Poseidon) but the British Invasion followed The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks. The latter broke the charts with their three chords “pre metal music” and hit me like a rock. The relationship really evolved, when I started to understand the lyrics of Ray Davies. Not the You Really Got Me-thing, which did nit differ from the banalities of Beatles and Stones, but Well Respected Man, Sunny Afternoon, Dead End Street were a different league.

I have to admit, while I still enjoyed the experiments, clever works and beautifully crafted albums like The White Album, Abbey Road, Exile On Main Street, Let It Bleed, I lost interest in the lyrics, while Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, Bob Dylan, Niel Young, Bruce Springsteen, Paul Simon, The Clash, REM and so forth. Do not misunderstand this. I like love songs. There are thousands of love songs, but the will not appear hear. Instead the words, the lyrics, that spit out messages, not too weary and mystical. Words that you are meant to understand without too many detours and intellectual dissections.

Are you ready to roll?