Thursday, October 04, 2007

Love Power

Maybe it's one of those things that's so obvious you don't have to say it. Or am I the only one who thinks Lorenzo St Dubois and his band, whose powerful performance of 'Love Power' wins him the coveted title role in the musical Springtime For Hitler, are an obvious tribute / mick-take of the Doors ?

The careers of Morrison pere et fils will be an interesting footnote in some latter-day "Decline Of The West". A fascinating sound - but the sound of collapsing pillars, of destruction not creation. Will anyone be listening to it in fifty years ?

"Love Power" sounds as if it was inspired by "When The Music's Over" - but it has to be said young Jim was better-looking than Lorenzo. See what you think.

Morrison :

What have we done to the earth?
What have we done to our fair sister?
Ravaged and plundered and ripped her and bit her
Stuck her with knives in the side of the dawn
And tied her with fences and ...
Dragged her down


Dubois :

And I give a flower to the big fat cop
He takes his club and he beats me up
I give a flower to the garbage man
He stuffs my girl in the garbage can
And I give it to the landlord when the rent comes round
He throws it in the toilet and he flush it down
It goes into the sewer
Where the yuck running through her
And it runs into the river that we drink

Hey world you stink !
Man it's later than you think !
...
You don't think about the little flowers
On no, all you think about is guns
If everybody in the world today had a flower instead of a gun
There would be no wars.



10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Looking back today, the Doors seem to be much more distinctive than they were at the time.

There were lots of similar bands using that style of organ mixed with overwrought singing and daft/pretentious lyrics. Two obvious examples are the Seeds and the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Iron Butterfly released the first million selling album "In A Gadda Da Vida", but their biggest claim to fame today is being spoofed in the Simpsons.

Other notable epic songs about complete bollocks must include "Armageddon" by The Maze, "Revelation" by Love and "Suppose they Give a War and No One Comes" by the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. Worth entry for the name alone.

That said the Doors were a particularly egregious example, which certainly lends weight to your idea. Bear in mind that our Jim went through a fat Elvis period prior to his premature demise and was certainly no Adonis at the time of LA Woman.

Anonymous said...

Its been said that The Stranglers copied the Doors sound. Maybe so but they were better than the overblown Doors - pick the bones out of that!

Harry J said...

Anonymous 10.29, however daft the lyrics I'm still a sucker for all that 60's West Coat psychedelic stuff. It still sounds good to me. The Doors had their moments too, I love stuff like 'Touch Me' and 'Love Her Madly'.

I listened to Imagine by John Lennon again the other day. Laban, I'm sure you've mentioned this before but it's noticeable that this track is consisently voted top, if not in the top three, of most polls of 'best ever single'. Lennon himself said that the song was "an anti-religious, anti-nationalistic, anti-conventional, anti-capitalistic song, but because it's sugar-coated, it's accepted." Lennon also described it as "virtually the Communist Manifesto". It struck me that this song acts as a sort of guiding light to many on the 'left'. The song is, of course, deeply flawed and it would take too long to dissect here. It has though enabled those of a leftish persuasion to wrap themselves in a sort of fuzzy sixties, peace and love 'spirituality'.

Dubois' got it.

Harry J said...

I'd probably go for the Stranglers over the Doors.

Laban said...

I remember seeing the Stranglers for 30p at Bradford Uni around 1977. They abused the audience, the audience abused them back, then the sound guys pulled the plug on them. Certainly different.

Doors stuff like 'Soul Kitchen' ('fingers secret alphabet') and 'The Cars Hiss By My Window' have a certain desolate charm - doubtless someone will be deconstructing them in Cultural Studies in 2057. Assuming anyone's doing Cultural Studies then, of course.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 10.29, however daft the lyrics I'm still a sucker for all that 60's West Coat psychedelic stuff. It still sounds good to me. The Doors had their moments too, I love stuff like 'Touch Me' and 'Love Her Madly'.

I don't disagree at all.

I even like the Doors for all their pretension. However, there are moments when I cringe. Musically "The End" is excellent yet that Oedipal lyric...

I first came to the Doors via the Stranglers. The latter were dismissed by the NME as mere copyists of the former and the Velvet Underground, so obviously I bought their albums and that led to other sixties delights like the previously mentioned WCPAEB, (who I particularly recommend), Electric Prunes, etc etc. Yet there is something different when the sixties bands do the nonsense compared to a band from my era. Maybe innocence versus naivety. I can tolerate the former but the latter from the likes of the Paisley bands is unlistenable.

Anonymous said...

These noisy poseurs are liked much more by men than women, and I think the reason is, little boys like noise. They like to bang things and shout at the top of their voices. That's when they're tiny and learning to interact with the world. Those pop groups never grew out of it. As far as I'm concerned, the keywords are immature and adolescent. I personally loathe all those group.

But they are background noise compared with the nihilistic 'Imagine' which I hate more than any other song ever written. "You can say I'm a dreamer ...". Well, no, John, I'd say you were an adolescent poseur who had absolutely nothing to communicate except how thrilled you were with yourself. And why didn't you buy a decent pair of glasses, you self-regarding twerp?

bernard said...

Give me the Bonzo Dog Band, any day!
They could do 'em all.

Anonymous said...

These noisy poseurs are liked much more by men than women

I think it was Mark Lamarr who said of Alannah Morrisette "her first album was bought by eight million women and one man".

Granted she was not noisy all of the time.

Anonymous said...

Anonymous 10:38 - And presumably, given her name, she was a woman?

Not a noisy, aggressive, self-important, shouty man who just wouldn't shut up?

By and large, women do not like shouty men. Male rock singers shout to show other males how important they are and how loud they can pump up the sound. The same reason they bang pots and pans and drums as little boys.

Who gives a mouse fart?