Rock ‘n’ Roll: Some Place near Despairsville

ROCK ‘N’ ROLL

The psychodynamics of the rock ‘n’roller has long been a fertile field of motivational researchers. Inthe primitive Blue Suede Shoes era eight years ago, Elvis was firstexplained as father of a faintly menacing breed of children’scrusaders marshaling the anti-parent instinct into a kind of teen-ageViet Cong. Later the diagnosis changed; the real rock addict waspronounced a “rhythmic obedient” whose craving for the bigbeat was only the expression of his frustrated wish to obey mother.Such findings were hardly helpful to the record industry in its searchfor a solid money-making groove. And then a new type of rock song beganto climb the charts. Now it is the rock fan’s wish to die that issupposed to account for the success of hot-rod and surfin’ songs, agreat tonic to the industry for all of a year now.

Not Today. How ingenious such theorizing. But death has no dominion inrock ‘n’ roll. Songs that hint of a teenage demise do so with a brightinsouciance, as if the singer imagines death to be only the flip sideof life. In surfin’ music—which is just rock ‘n’ roll dressed for thebeach—sudden death is treated as a nuisance hardly worse than rain:

Angry sea

Took my love from me.

No surfin’ today.

And as for hot-rod music—rock ‘n’ roll with a straight stick and nomuffler—death emerges only in traffic safety parables:

The last thing I remember, doc,

I started to swerve.

You won’t come back from

Dead Man’s Curve.

Many of the most popular songs simply crawl around under the hoodadmiring the engine without so much as a mention of speed and danger.

Sure They Fight. It does seem a bit bizarre, though, that music intendedfor nine-to 16-year-olds should speak of death at all—or even oflife. But rock ‘n’ roll has lately acquired an engaging relevance tolife that is found nowhere else in pop music. Says B.M.I.’s RussellSanjek, whose firm represents battalions of teen music composers: “Whoever flew to the moon on gossamer wings or began a beguine? These songsreflect the times and the audience, and they’re closer than they’veever been to their ultimate audience.”

That ultimate audience dwells some where between Malibu Beach andDespairsville, a spot where life is cursed by school trouble, girl andboy trouble and car trouble. When they climb out of the surf, the songsare addressed to such matters as poverty, suspicion, ill health and theOedipus complex. Such numbers as Six Months with My Mother (Six Monthswith My Dad) are willing to go right into court in pursuit of genuinegrief:

Please, judge, bring them back together.

Sure they fight, but all parents do. A sharp comment, considering thesource. Elsewhere parents appear with stunning accuracy as the oddlypermissive disciplinarian:

She’ll have fun, fun, fun,

Till her daddy takes her T-Bird away.

Dark Message. Today the kids seem to want to listen to a message withtheir music. But some of the record companies still seem to belistening to the dark message of their social scientists. They arestill on the prowl for another salable demonstration of the death wish,and the latest candidate is skateboarding. A skateboard is a surfboardscarcely larger than a steak plate, mounted on roller-skate wheels, anda skateboarder is anyone daring enough to careen over the concretewhile aboard one. David Kapralik, a music publisher for ColumbiaRecords, has high hopes for the fad. “It’s another thing that reflectsthe adolescent’s self-destructive tendencies,” he says eagerly.”Columbia is bringing out a record on it this month.”