I had the misfortune of hearing the Metallica cover of Bob Seger's "Turn the Page" on internet radio earlier today. It's a shame about Metallica, who morphed from speed metal to more straightforward rock around the time their "black" album came out. This signaled the end of songs like "Disposable Heroes" and "Creeping Death" in favor of power ballads and songs about touring, like the aforementioned Seger tune.
Bands never learn: audiences don't want to hear millionaire musicians lamenting how tough it is "on the road." To the average listener, a concert tour is an unending cornucopia of Jack Daniels, coke, and blow jobs. Someone working in a cubicle 40 hours a week and desperately hoping their IT position doesn't get farmed out to Singapore doesn't need to hear how a bunch of grown men suffering from Peter Pan syndrome don't like going to bed alone. Going to bed alone? The guys in Aerosmith can get groupies, for Christ's sake, what form of leprosy does a rock star have to have that he couldn't get some community college dropout with low self-esteem to plaster cast him?
These songs also drone on and on about the monotony of touring. Seger's "Turn the Page" is a particularly egregious example:
When you're riding 16 hours and there's nothing much to do.
Read a book, Bob. Hell, write a book. Work on new songs. Do your taxes. Offer to drive the bus, even. Better yet, reflect on the lucky turn of events that allow you to doze on a chartered Trailways while everyone else from your high school class is working in a lumber mill.
I don't want to spend too much time on "The Load-Out" by Jackson Browne, who at least hit his peak during the 1970's, when that kind of earnest self-pity was still somewhat in vogue. He even gives a detailed list of the things they have to occupy their time:
Now we got country and western on the bus
R and B, we got disco in eight tracks and cassettes in stereo
We've got rural scenes & magazines
We've got truckers on the CB
We've got Richard Pryor on the video
Considering this song was written in 1977, I'd think having "Richard Pryor on the video" would be pretty swanky. Hell, I bet they even had Pong.
The worst offender in this category, however, remains Bon Jovi. "Wanted Dead or Alive" stands above all other bitchy road songs (CCR's "Lodi" and "Stay with Me" by the Faces, for example) for three reasons:
1) If anything is worse than whining about what a drag it is to be a rock star on tour, it's comparing yourself to a cowboy (especially when you moonlight in Versace commercials). Jon Bon Jovi does both in "Wanted."
2) Unlike Seger or Browne, Bon Jovi had MTV to help spread his bilge. Contemporary audiences had the pleasure of seeing the Aquanet-enabled lads gazing longingly out of bus windows and sweating up a storm as they saw a million faces, and rocked them all.
3) My freshman roommate stayed up until 4 in the morning one night trying to learn the intro to this song on guitar. Which means he'd let the 45 RPM single play for about thirty seconds while he picked along, then he'd lift the needle and start over. Repeat 500 times.
Granted, I wasn't actually in the room with him (I was across the hall), but jeez.
If touring is that big a strain on their delicate constitutions, you'd think bands like Bon Jovi would do us all a favor and quit. It would at least spare us the attendant traffic snarls and hyperventilating adulation when their latest ego gratification festival comes to town.
It's funny, I was just thinking about "The Entertainer" and "Life's Been Good to Me" a few weeks ago. "The Entertainer" engages in a lot of self-serving whining, as well, although at least Billy owns up to the fact that he's not a valiant hero. "Life's Been Good to Me" stands out at least a little for not having an ounce of self-pity or braggadocio - Joe knows his life is better than ours, he doesn't sell it as if he's done anything to deserve it, it's just the way things are. And it's still annoying. I still sing along, though, because it's fun to pretend that MY Maserati does 185.
Whee, now I can put up informed rantings. Not that I will, but I could.
I always thought "The Load-Out" was a performance song rather than a road song. As such it compares favorably (IMNSHO) to Billy Joel's Piano Man. Piano Man is a recitation of all the different people who think Joel is great and comes off as a serious self-stroke of the ego. Load-Out is about asking the audience to immerse themselves in the performance.
Of course you have to consider The Load-Out to be a combination intro to "Stay" and a balancing piece to "The Load-In" for that interpretation to make sense.
Life on the Road is much more like The Austin Lounge Lizards "Rocky Byways" than it is like The Austin Lounge Lizards "Trailways of Tears".