Monthly Archives: February 2017

Roots, toots

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Roots rock delves back whether to blues, folk, country, spanning out to hybrids of these forms. It’s not a lot different to what we’ve been looking at

Moving from the Farmhouse

It came as a hell of a shock
causing me to at last take stock
I was complete in complacency
so much I couldn't face you see
Lying in my quarters half my health is gone
soon though I'll be leaving where I belong 
CHORUS: Moving from the farmhouse
my family formed a circle round my frail familiar frame
Moving from the farmhouse
nothing no now nothing will ever be the same

I ran back over my escapades
all the times we had it made
 dreams now seem so resolute
trust the dust and rust to be destitute

I moved down here to start anew
did I manage as I planned it in your view 
with the reminders you'll find were kinder 
each machine evokes a scene
more distant than I mean 

Walking out and working out
what it was for
sent from where we went before
Stir and stare at what's in store
CHORUS: Moving from the farmhouse
my family forms a circle round my frail familiar frame
Moving from the farmhouse
sever forever now will never be the same

Gotcha psyched

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As a rock swot, I was a little surprised at the newsthat psychedelia in UK and US had also triggered a “backlash” of roots rock. Well I’m happy to look at both, not knowing how different it will be to what we have already picked over.

I love psychedelic rock but at the same time I can see how in the wrong hands it could dissolve into a pile of pink dust. At the same time, roots rock is kissin’ cousins with Americana I would have thought. Maybe the emphasis is different.

Later Writers

We evolve as the plot develops
as the mood is rued and eve envelops
We're characterised by our character's eyes
if you're simulacra I do sympathise

Later writers with elongated scrawl
dipping dripping tripping
they can reach the far wall
 

We advance in a dance with chance
too real to feel so is circumstance
Reader feedback on our foibles to date 
a dunce with whom we could once relate 
[Chorus]
We're the scribble in the margin
  emerging in the script
Egg the stage when the ego is tripped
 [Chorus]
Assembled scribes with what resembles bribes
what was truth in our youth is now circumsubscribed

Rocks off

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I don’t propose to dwell on our sample songs as their meaning is best discerned by those who wear their critic’s hat more consistently than I. One only has to look at the mistakes made by great songwriters to know that they are not an infallible guide to their creations or the wider scene that shapes them.

We cover six decades in a month with seven examples to choose from. That is, if you don’t count the folk rock song Barbed Wire Blues, the country rock song Who Was That at the Drive-in?, the alt-rock of It’s Your Loss, not to mention all the subsets like cowpunk and shockabilly.

It’s helpful to be comprehensive but I don’t think simply articulating a song as rock (or not) serves the same purpose as looking at the assembly. I’ll keep bringing in useful tidbits as we go along.