On what a summer
classic reveals about the voices of youth.
I listened to a
lot of early rock and roll growing up (something about having a couple baby
boomers for parents during the era that first defined the concept of
“classic rock” and produced countless “Best of the 1950s”
type collections), and few songs stood out to me more than Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues”
(1958). I don’t know that any single song better expresses the clash of
youthful dreams and adult realities on which so much of rock and roll and popular
music more generally have been built, and I definitely believe that Cochran and
his co-writer (and manager) Jerry Capeheart
hit upon the perfect way to literally give voice to those dueling perspectives:
in the repeated device through which the speaker’s teenage desires are
responded to and shot down by the deep voices of authority figures, from his
boss to his father to his senator.
Coincidentally,
Cochran himself died very
young, at the age of 21, in an April 1960 car accident while on tour in
England. Cochran’s death came just over a year after the
tragic plane crash that took the lives of three other prominent young rock
and rollers, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper. There’s obviously
no direct relationship between these two accidents, nor would I argue that
these artists’ youthful deaths were the cause of their popularity (all four
were already popular prior to the accidents). But on the other hand, I think
there’s something iconic, mythic even, about rock and rollers dying young—or about,
more exactly, our
narratives and images of such figures—and I believe it’d be difficult to
separate those myths from the idealistic and anti-authoritarian attitudes
captured in Cochran’s biggest hit. That is, it feels throughout “Summertime
Blues” as if the speaker’s youthful enthusiasm is consistently being destroyed
by those cold adult responses—and melodramatic as it might sound, the loss of
childhood dreams can certainly be allegorized through the deaths of the kinds
of pop icons who so often symbolize youth.
Yet of course
most young people continue to live in, and thus impact, the world far after
their youthful dreams have ended (“Life goes on long after the thrill of living
is gone,” to quote another
youthful anthem), and in a subtle, unexpected way Cochran’s song reflects that human and historical reality as
well. When Cochran’s speaker tries to take his problem to more official
authorities, he is rejected by his senator for a political reason: “I’d like to
help you, son, but you’re too young to vote” is the reply. In 1958, when “Summertime
Blues” was released, the national legal voting age was 21, and so the 20 year
old Cochran could not vote; but over the next decade a potent
social and legal movement to lower the voting age would emerge, in conjunction
with the decade’s many other youth and activist movements, and in 1971
Congress passed and the states ratified the
26th Amendment, which did indeed lower the eligible age for
voting to 18. Being able to vote certainly doesn’t eliminate all the other
problems of teenage life and its conflicts with adult authority—but it does
remind us that neither the gap nor the border between youth and adulthood are
quite as fixed or as absolute as our myths might suggest.
Next summer jam
tomorrow,
Ben
PS. Thoughts on
this song? Other summertime favorites you’d share?
Dear Ben and fellow bloggers,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with everything you said in your blog.
All right, I lied.
There's actually just one small point of clarification I wanted to make to you and your audience - from my perspective as a former music theory student, and also composer and musician myself:
Summertime Blues by Eddie Corcoran is a great song that I like a lot, but structurally/musically speaking, it's a "classic rock" song like you said, but it's not really a "blues" song, like the name implies.
When I talk to people about the blues as a genre - and there are many examples, to be sure - my favorite example is BB King. I have a CD of his at home that has songs like How Blue Can You Get, Walkin' and Cryin', and Every Day I Have The Blues - these are examples of playing and singing the blues the way they are supposed to be played and sung.
My ultimate goal here is to add for people what I've learned about the blues - and not to take away from what you were saying in your blog, above. For all I know, you may already know what I was trying to say, and just had a different way of explaining it.
These things happen, right?
Talk to you later.
Roland A. Gibson, Jr.
FSU IDIS Major
Hi Roland,
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing those thoughts! I think Cochran's Blues are referencing the emotional state much more than the musical tradition--but given how much the latter impacted early rock and roll, it's certainly an evocative word and one that deserves the kind of close attention you're giving it.
Ben
Rockaway Beach by the Ramones. Aside from this song being awesome fun to listen to (and scream out of the window of your first car with your best friend) this came off one of the more interesting albums by the band. Rocket to Russia was uneven, to describe it best. Some songs were brilliant "Sheehan is a Punk Rocker", others were iconic "Teenage Lobotomy" and some were fracking awful "I wanna be well". The song in and of itself is a blast and very exemplary of the American punk sound. But what I will always love was that my parents had this on vinyl, so I got to hear it that way and fall in love with the songs as a child. This song just made me happy because the same summer that everyone fell in love with Marky Mark I got to pretend I was different and unique by ranting about DeeDee and bad-mouthing the Sex Pistols. Summer music is hit or miss but this was a fantastic song.
ReplyDeleteGood stuff, thanks AnneMarie!
ReplyDelete