-by Bill Glahn-
Sometimes you just have to go spiritual to keep from going postal. For me "going spiritual" has always been to put down the newspaper and pick up a book. Or to turn off CNN/Fox News and put on some music. That isn’t the same thing as burying your head in the sand. You can do THAT reading the New York Times or tuning in to The O’Reilly Factor.
This past week was one of those weeks for me. I needed a reprieve from the taxation of maintenance living. So I dusted off a 34-year-old album that I remembered liking but couldn’t remember why and a 13-year-old book about what is possibly the most complex "simple" song ever recorded.
Fleetwood Mac fans are mostly divided into two camps these days, the smaller one consisting of guitar obsessives who favor the blues styling of Peter Green. By far the larger of the two fan bases is the one that favors the latter (post-'74) line-up fronted by the smart pop sensibilities of guitarist Lindsey Buckingham and the enticing sexuality of a chanteuse-turned-arena warbler, Stevie Nicks.
Sandwiched in between there was another Fleetwood Mac - one with a shifting line-up and varying styles. It was one that was hard to get a handle on, but also one that moved beyond its inconsistency to record some of the best (and most overlooked) songs in the group’s history. It’s easy to forget that the band recorded six albums of new material in the post-Green, pre-Nicks era (1970-1974).
For the first three of those albums, Danny Kirwan, who will never be known as a household name in the annals of rock 'n' roll, played a significant part in providing some of the best tracks. The first venture into life-after-Green, Kiln House, primarily served as an exorcism of the remaining members’ rock 'n' roll roots (buried for years as a mostly slow to mid-tempo blues outfit under Green). But it also yielded the stunning "Station Man.” If Kirwan was not a particularly adept improvisational guitarist, he was, at the very least, one that could come up with a lyrical six-string component that could carry a song for five or six minutes. As well as a wordsmith who kept things deceptively simple. Much of the charm of Kirwan's lyrics were in their tempered optimism.
It was not Kiln House that I dusted off, though. It was Bare Trees, Kirwan's final opus with the band. Mostly noted for the sugar substitute, low-calorie flavorings of "Sentimental Lady," Kirwin’s influence in the band was waning. But the album’s title track, a two-line chorus, a two-line lyric and an outburst of pentecostal exuberance penned by Kirwan, dwarfs Bob Welch’s nonsensical paean to gentle love.
The lyrics of "Bare Trees" are anything but sweet. Using an economy of words, Kirwan paints a cold picture. Then the words stop and the spirit lifting begins.
Bah do dah, do dah da do da do
Bah do dah, do dah da do wah wah
It’s sung with such fervor that it reduces the rest of the lyrics to lies. It’s a cold world? Bah do dah bullshit. You are at the mercy of others? Do dah da do da do. Don’t you believe it. The truth doesn’t always come in the form of words. Lies always do.
Rama lamma fa fa fuck that shit!
Maybe the best book ever written about a single song was Dave Marsh’s "Louie Louie."
The FBI investigated that notorious song for a full two years, cementing the myth that it contained obscene lyrics to such an extent that over four decades later there are still high school principals trying to ban it from the repertoire of their marching bands.
At the time, the governor of Indiana made the fantastic statement that his attempts to stop radio programmers in the state from playing it were not the same as censorship. The irony is that "Louie Louie," as recorded by The Kingsmen, was unintelligible at any speed. They might as well have been singing "a wop bop a lu bop a lop bam boom." But in all its innocence, it was subversive. Maybe what scared the Feds more than anything were the words that were most clearly stated. "Let’s give it to ‘em, right now!"
As I neared the end of my sabbatical from the rat race this week, I remembered what it was about "Bare Trees" that I liked. Like "Tutti Frutti," "Rocket Reducer No. 62," "Louie Louie" and countless other songs that invoke "speaking in tongues," bah-do-dah lifted my spirits. And it didn’t lie to me.
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