Cool

Listening to the radio on the way to work this morning, I heard Led Zeppelin’s “Immigrant Song.” You know, the one with the creepy-spooky scream at the beginning? I still remember my mom telling me how she heard it on the radio once late one night during a storm when my dad was out on a TDY, and how it freaked her out. So anyway, this morning, listening to it, an odd thought struck me (as odd thoughts are wont to do). How many bands on the planet, other than Zeppelin, can get away with such… well… strangeness? I mean, that’s not your typical rock-and-roll scream (for that, just look toward Roger Daltrey on “Don’t Get Fooled Again”), that’s a… primal howl, more or less. And then I thought about how few bands other than Zeppelin could get away with including references to classic literature:

T'was in the darkest depths of Mordor, I met a girl so fair.
But Gollum, and the evil one crept up and slipped away with her, her, her....yeah.

Off the top of my head, the only other artist I can think of who could get away with it, is Sting, who referenced Vladimir Nabakov (of “Lolita” fame) in “Don’t Stand So Close to Me.” Some singers/bands/artists would sound stupid and pretentious trying to make those kinds of references. From Robert Plant and Sting, though, it just sounds… cool.

Who is undeniably cool? Eric Clapton – undeniably cool. Carlos Santana. Pete Townshend.

You know who else is undeniably cool? Bass players. It’s always the bass players. Mario Cippolina, the undeniably cool bass player in one of the world’s unabashedly NOT cool bands, Huey Lewis and the News. George Harrison, the coolest Beatle. (George Carlin says the wrong two Beatles died first.) John Taylor, the babe in Duran Duran who was my first musician crush. Well… except Shawn Cassidy, who my mother always called Shawn Crappity. And except for the Bay City Rollers. Hmm…. Maybe I’d better not go down this road LOL it’s quite humiliating. Back to bass players. Good old John Entwhistle, may God rest his soul. Yeah. Bass players are cool.