‘Baby’ in Britney Spears means infanticide

Rock journalism often tends to be the critic’s attempt at an exegetical es-say form – what Will Self has wryly said as representing "the summit of contemporary intellectual achievement" – but rather limited to the deciphering of the meanings of lyrics printed on the record sleeve or the press releases that come with it. But how many of these tunes really stand up sans the music? Consider hits like those of recent visitors Avril Lavigne and Simple Plan and it’s clear that whatever you think of the music the words alone are tuneless. Even those who reside deity-like in the upper echelons of rock n’ roll, coming down occasionally as messiahs with tablets of instruction for the flock (in truth, really only effective instructing groupies where to line-up after the show), are hardly innocent. In the Cimetière du Père Lachaise in Paris, The Doors’ singer Jim Morrison’s headstone reads "poet" – no doubt inspiring smirks from next door neighbors like Oscar Wilde, Proust and Balzac. In fact, the less lofty a song’s literary aspirations the better it usually is, to echo Sting’s dictum that bad poems make great songs. Given that the options are limited and "writing about music is like dancing about architecture", it still makes one groan whenever an album review tries to put too much intellectual weight (and subsequently clichés) on what are really just ditties about gettin’ it on.

The songs of Joey "Pepe" Smith illustrate the point. His most popular composition "Ang Himig Natin" became an anthem for two generations more than a decade apart but – as Eric Caruncho pointed out – its merits are not due to any poetry in its words. Rather, the sparse chords and simple melody lift lines like "Ako’y nagiisa at walang kasama" from banality and into pop sublimity. In "Idiosyncrasies", his debut as a solo artist, Smith’s best songs are the simplest. The first single of the album Hi-Tek Babe is a pop song that not even Lou Reed could’ve bettered; while cuts like Silver Whore is lascivious and pretty like Mick Jagger’s lips. No need to bring your tomes by Wittgenstein or Freud to get down to these babies: this is rock n’ roll to intoxicate yourself to, a hedonistic cocktail after a midnight deal at the crossroads or when the only head that matters is the kind she gives you. (In fact, Smith only fails when he tries to rewrite Ang Himig Natin but with better lyrics.)

On the other side of the world, various pundits have accorded the group Doves as being purveyors of ‘epic pop’. Thankfully, this delineation is not ascribed to the Mancunian band for having the lyrical whimsy of Neil Peart or a penchant for quoting Tolkien. In fact, their new album Some Cities drops only one literary allusion and it happily seems quite inconsequential in any enjoyment of the song. (One wouldn’t be surprised if they just were stuck for a title and came across a battered copy of Catch 22 that one of the roadies left.) Putting on the record though, one is immediately caught up in its swell, its sound bigger than the last three U2 albums put together. On the printed page, the lyrics aren’t much, just enough: The music gives them their meaning.

The war against cliché in rock journalism can be won by simply forgetting the words to the song but to sing along anyway. One must learn that music happens between notes. To review albums by merely quoting lyrics, press releases (or much worse, other reviews) signify a total lack of imagination and the nadir of the profession, the point at which the music really did die. And that really is the most damning review of all.

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Enough of this crap, listen to the Gweilos Hour tonight! We’ll play cuts from Godspeed! You Black Emperor, Ryan Adams, Radioactive Sago Project, Bloc Party, Orange & Lemons, Try the Extra Special, That Epic Reggae Set, Max Tundra, Doves, Pepe Smith and John Zorn. Brought to you by San Miguel Beer and Jack Daniel’s Whiskey, it’s on from 9 p.m. at NU 107.5.

Gweilos Bar and Restaurant is located at 109 Carlos Palanca St., Legaspi Vill. in Makati and in Eastwood City in Libis. Every Monday (the former) and Thursday (the latter), DJ RO spins the greatest rock songs ever made and is available for counseling to all single women. If he likes you, your drinks are free!

Send comments and reactions to: csl erwin_romulo@hotmail.com.