The Song That Sent Me Tragically Wrong

59. RICHARD HELL & THE VOIDOIDS, "(I Belong to the) Blank Generation"

Produced by Richard Hell and Richard Gotterher ; written by Richard Hell

Sire SIR-6037C Did not make pop charts

You know sometimes all it takes is one song.

Confession time: I didn't really listen to rock and roll that much when I was a kid.  I mean, it was around and all, but I didn't really listen.  It didn't get my attention.  The songs I would really devour when I hear them were showtunes.  I loved taking apart the lyrics, turning them over, figuring out their little hidden tricks.  Most rock that I heard (this was the 70s, remember) seemed too simple, particularly the lyrics, compared to that.

And then I heard this song.  From the first verse, this lyric blew me away--in part, because it was so outrageous, in part because it was so clever, but in large part because the words flowed so beautifully on top of the notes:  I was saying let me out of here/Before I was even born/It's such a gamble when you get a face.  That's so jerky that it shouldn't work.  You just can't be jerky and smooth at the same time.  "I Wanna Be Sedated" may have been funny, but Cole Porter wouldn't have been impressed by it (even if he did enjoy being sedated)."  "Kill the Poor," which I'll get to it at some point, was a lyric that Porter could begrudgingly admire (even though he didn't have a political bone in his body).  But "Blank Generation" was a song that Cole Porter could never have written, simply because it's hard to juggle the irony and the polyrhythms and make them work so smoothly together.

This is why, when people talk to me about the Great American Songbook as if it was something that ended around 1960 or so, I often point them toward Richard Hell.  Not that it works that often, but I do indeed so point them.