Which One Is It?

From what I understand, the Super Bowl was last night. I learned this while stumbling around the internet this afternoon, looking for information on a particular song by The Who  –who apparently played a 12-minute concert aboard a giant UFO during halftime. They looked kind of old, by the way, and it did make me wonder: do they still want to die before they get any older?

But anyway, the reason for this post:

It’s a question that has long haunted me, and one for which I can’t seem to find an answer. In the song ‘Behind Blue Eyes,’ which blue eyes are they talking about? Unless I’m mistaken, the lyrics were written by Pete Townsend, who has blue eyes, but sung by Roger Daltrey, who also has blue eyes. Meanwhile, Townsend actually stands behind Daltrey . . .

I have no idea.

If you enjoy something ironically (say, an album by the Carpenters that you purchased on vinyl several years ago for a quarter and which has since given you countless perverse pleasures), and a dinner guest (say, your father-in-law) sincerely enjoys the exact same thing, is there anything wrong (for example, morally) if your personal enjoyment of the artifact in question involves (as it almost certainly must) the unstated judgment and devaluation of your guest’s aesthetic sensibilities?

In other words, should I feel bad if I quietly enjoy something for its kitsch value while a guest enjoys it un-ironically? Also, is it wrong for me to lie and say that I, too, sincerely enjoy said artifact? And if I announce that I really only like the artifact in question because I think it’s funny, and that, by extension, I find people who like such an artifact sincerely to be, in some sense, laughable, am I being rude, or just sincere? Even if I lie to their face, pretending complete sympathy and kinship, but secretly maintain an ironic distance, am I engaging in a form of hierarchical imperiousness whereby my valuation of my own aesthetic sensibility  increases while my valuation of the guest’s aesthetic sensibility decreases?

I really don’t know. And I mean that sincerely.

Perhaps, though, it’s better just to admit you like the Carpenters and be done with it. After all, the guest in question probably just wants to share a common interest other than a mutual taste for pumpkin pie and a relative distaste for whipped cream. There’s no sense in breaking it down any further than that, perhaps, whether you believe what you’re saying or not, and no matter what you think of early 70s easy listening.

As the story went, Rafferty had recently trashed the London hotel room where he’d been living, and was, by many accounts, severely incontinent. Reading old news accounts of his steady descent into alcoholism, this seemed less and less shocking. Apparently, the guy really does get pissed.

Understand: I’m not making light. I didn’t stumble upon the Rafferty story by accident, but rather was looking for more information on the man, whom I believe to be one of the greatest songwriters of his generation.

Indeed, not long after reading about Mr. Rafferty’s disappearance I posted a note on Facebook declaring that he was the greatest songwriter of his generation, prompting a response from my editor at Free Times that actually sort of baffled me. I’m too lazy to go trolling back through my account to find his exact words, but I think what he said was “You’re hilarious.”

Only I wasn’t trying to be hilarious. And when a couple days later I stopped by the office to pick up a seven dollar check — and my editor once again brought up the FB comment as proof of my hilariousness — I had to tell him twice that my comment was completely sincere, and even then I still wasn’t sure he believed me.

A few nights after that, I bumped into my editor’s wife at an art opening, and she too brought up my Rafferty encomium. “Have you heard he’s missing?” she asked, half-mockingly. At that point, with a lavender petit four crumbling in one clenched fist and a plastic champagne flute effervescing in the other, I was almost tempted to call my own bluff . . . even though, and I’m serious about this, I really wasn’t bluffing.

Really.

Sure, maybe I’d been hyperbolic in my assessment of Mr. Rafferty’s accomplishments. The Bee Gees were at least as good in their prime and have a greater overall track record if you want to talk hits. Boz Scaggs was pretty fucking great when he wanted to be, too, and there also several songs on Steely Dan’s 1974 classic Pretzel Logic that rival the one-two punch of “Baker Street” and “Right Down the Line” on City to City. I mean, seriously: “Any Major Dude“?

But again, I wasn’t being ironic — and I guess that’s the whole point of this post. If satire and wit are your bread and butter — even if they’re just the toast crumbs in your margarine dish — people refuse to take anything you say at face value, especially if what you say flies in the face of the accepted canon. And if you came of age in the era of High Irony (i.e. the late-80s through the late 90s), forget it. Nothing you say or do will ever be taken seriously by anyone else of your generation.

Oh well. At least things turned out alright for Mr. Rafferty in the end, or at least for the time being. A few weeks after the initial rumors started flying, his attorney or his spokesman or his agent — I’m too lazy to check my own link, but somebody with intimate knowledge– issued a statement saying that his beleaguered client was alive and well and living in the south of England. Not only that, rumors also began circulating that Mr. Rafferty is hard at work on another album, which is good news for everybody, whether you take the maestro seriously or not.

~

PI: So you know, I’m a very big fan of  ‘Spinning Vinyl’ videos on YouTube, as they add a little much needed crackle and pop to the otherwise digitally slick Internet experience. I wish I could have given you one for “Any Major Dude,” but unfortunately one doesn’t exist. Maybe one day . . .

And it’s not all bad. In fact, it’s pretty damn good — if you don’t mind watching interchangeable blondes cry in their king-sized beds while the stubble-faced dopplegangers who broke their tender blonde hearts lug their electric guitars through thunderstorms in outfits provided by Abercrombe & Fitch.

I wish all programming were so compelling.

Or, if you prefer, you can just scroll down for a little light reading instead.