You've seen it more times than you probably realize: singers smoking on stage, singers on the cover of magazines holding cigarettes. Sometimes singers get really creative and stash their lit smoke up by the pegs of their guitar.
A lot of fans seem to think this is cool. They'll even cheer when the singer lights up between songs.
The fans should be the last ones cheering this habit. Smoking wrecks your voice. The same fan who cheers that lit Marlboro will then throw a tantrum when they find out their favorite singer periodically lip syncs. "What, you mean I paid good money and this guy's not even really singing?!"
Well, maybe he could have hit the high notes every night if he hadn't been lighting up during each guitar solo. Instead of cheering his tobacco addiction, you should have booed and shamed him into quitting. Maybe then his voice wouldn't have given out 16 concerts into a 30 concert tour.
Cheering a singer who smokes is like cheering a quarterback who thumb wrestles middle linemen with his throwing hand. If you saw Joe Flacco on the sidelines getting his thumb bent down like a cheerleader after a Super Bowl win, you wouldn't cheer...you'd pawn that #5 jersey in disgust. Is it any wonder that athletes often have stipulations in their contracts barring them from certain risky activities?
Why do singers today still flaunt their smoking? They seem to think this puts them in step with all the old smoking greats they pretend to like: Howlin' Wolf, Robert Johnson.
It's true that in the old days singers like Howlin' Wolf smoked. You know who else smoked back then? EVERY HEART SURGEON IN AMERICA. Everyone used to be a smoker. The Surgeon General walked around with a Chesterfield in one hand and a hookah in the other. The hazards weren't fully known yet.
Sometimes musicians (and critics) laud cigarette scarred voices. They act like smoking can turn a whiny tenor into a lady killing baritone. 'Fraid not. A chain smoking tenor doesn't get velvety pipes; he gets a voice that sounds like a tenor struggling for breath. Tom Waits sings like a dying bullfrog screaming into a toilet paper tube.
It may have looked cool when Bob Dylan and Jim Morrison smoked...until you remember that they were both notoriously horrible live singers. A smokey voice is a figure of speech, not a recommendation.
Showing posts with label JIM MORRISON. Show all posts
Showing posts with label JIM MORRISON. Show all posts
Monday, February 4, 2013
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
The Doors of Misperception
Cultural pressure and government fiat can’t hide this uncomfortable fact any longer: “Riders on the Storm” is not a good song. Longtime Doors' producer Paul Rothchild is said to have denounced early versions as “bad cocktail jazz.” Far too kind an assessment. Upgrading “Riders” to bad cocktail jazz would require full reconstructive surgery. When I think bad cocktail jazz, I think harmless background noise that at least offers some relief from the suffocating silence of our inner doubts. “Riders” can’t even give us that much.
The song tries to set an eerie mood using rain and thunder sound effects and cinematicish lyrics:
There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirming like a toad
These lines might be acceptable if they weren’t riding the same bus with headscratchers like:
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
and
Girl you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
Surely you can’t be serious, Mr. Morrison?
Now contrast the words of "Riders" with the beguiling pop verite found in earlier songs like “Soul Kitchen:”
The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes
Street lights share their hollow glow
Your brain seems bruised with numb surprise
Those are lyrics that stick to your memory like an old flame; the type that makes you grin mischievously whenever you think of her. "Riders" is more like that one night stand that was so bad it reaffirmed your atheism.
I am not a Morrison hater. When I was an adolescent, I was an obnoxious junior Lizard King. I bought Jim’s poetry books. Read the poems. Resisted the nagging suspicion that they were as tedious as the bad teen poems I was writing.
Each year when The Doors rolled out their annual FINAL BEST OF NEW UNDISCOVERED OUTTAKE DEMOS LIVE FROM MORRISON'S CRYPT!(MONEYGRAB REMIX), I was the moron who actually bought it. I didn’t stop there. I even owned An American Prayer; the posthumous album featuring Mr. Morrison reading his poems over a score played by the surviving Doors. I had it on CD and cassette. True story.
Would you still be my friend if I confessed to once hanging a Doors poster in my room?
The first two Doors albums are so good that if aliens ever land here, they should be presented as peace offerings. That being the case, maybe it's unfair to use their early work as a watermark for judging the rest of their career. Still, I wouldn't call “Riders” one of their finer hours. The song was once used in an English tire commercial, and as far as I’m concerned, it should spend the rest of its days providing the soundtrack for flattened squirrels.
Break on through with me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne
The song tries to set an eerie mood using rain and thunder sound effects and cinematicish lyrics:
There’s a killer on the road
His brain is squirming like a toad
These lines might be acceptable if they weren’t riding the same bus with headscratchers like:
Like a dog without a bone
An actor out alone
and
Girl you gotta love your man
Take him by the hand
Make him understand
Surely you can’t be serious, Mr. Morrison?
Now contrast the words of "Riders" with the beguiling pop verite found in earlier songs like “Soul Kitchen:”
The cars crawl past all stuffed with eyes
Street lights share their hollow glow
Your brain seems bruised with numb surprise
Those are lyrics that stick to your memory like an old flame; the type that makes you grin mischievously whenever you think of her. "Riders" is more like that one night stand that was so bad it reaffirmed your atheism.
I am not a Morrison hater. When I was an adolescent, I was an obnoxious junior Lizard King. I bought Jim’s poetry books. Read the poems. Resisted the nagging suspicion that they were as tedious as the bad teen poems I was writing.
Each year when The Doors rolled out their annual FINAL BEST OF NEW UNDISCOVERED OUTTAKE DEMOS LIVE FROM MORRISON'S CRYPT!(MONEYGRAB REMIX), I was the moron who actually bought it. I didn’t stop there. I even owned An American Prayer; the posthumous album featuring Mr. Morrison reading his poems over a score played by the surviving Doors. I had it on CD and cassette. True story.
Would you still be my friend if I confessed to once hanging a Doors poster in my room?
The first two Doors albums are so good that if aliens ever land here, they should be presented as peace offerings. That being the case, maybe it's unfair to use their early work as a watermark for judging the rest of their career. Still, I wouldn't call “Riders” one of their finer hours. The song was once used in an English tire commercial, and as far as I’m concerned, it should spend the rest of its days providing the soundtrack for flattened squirrels.
Break on through with me on Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/greatMikePayne
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