Rick Reuschel wrote:Can you explain Seger? I mean no ill will. Is it a guilty pleasure? By that I mean sometimes I like to eat Cheetos, like a big bag in one setting. I am aware they have no redeeming quality other than the immediate gratification of consuming massive amounts of salt and a deep fried cornlike substance.
Is Seeger your Cheeto or is there a deeper meaning to which I am not privy?
Thank you for your consideration.
I think "The Horizontal Bop" is not a good song for me.
"The Horizontal Bop" is maybe the worst song Bob Seger ever did, rivaled only by "Old Time Rock and Roll" and that rotten song from
Beverly Hills Cop (his only #1, I'm ashamed to say). I will not defend these songs, nor will I defend "Betty Lou's Gettin' Out Tonight" or "Sunspot Baby."
But the songs I
do like by Bob Seger are far from guilty pleasures for me; I think that they are truly great. The problem is that most people have not heard them. Bob Seger hit it big with
Night Moves after having made records for ten years, yet most people only know his work from
Night Moves on, some of which I like a lot: "Night Moves," "Still the Same," "Feel Like a Number," "Against the Wind," "Hollywood Nights," and the stupendous "Rock and Roll Never Forgets." These are fine rock & roll songs.
One thing true of most Bob Seger songs I like is that they make an earnest attempt to come to terms with aging and adulthood in the context of rock & roll--the exact opposite, say, of someone like Mick Jagger, who consistently panders to the youth culture, hopping any trend that passes his way in a desperate attempt to remain relevant. Seger is one of those people, I think, who was born middle-aged, who was reflecting back on things even as they were happening. I mean, he released an album called
Back in '72 in 1973! And one of his finest early singles is called "Lookin' Back." Perhaps that's why he never hit big until the mid-70's--such sober reflection probably seemed unbecoming of a relatively young man, especially in the heady, hedonistic days of the late 60's and early 70's when it was all about The Now.
So I think that Bob Seger was doing a valid and fairly rare thing in rock music, this looking back, and I think he was doing it well before John Cougar or Tom Petty or even Bruce Springsteen, the people he is most often compared to. All of them are songwriters concerned with recording the often overlooked lives of working people, but I think Seger does it with an earnestness and lack of affectation that makes his a more convincing tribute. It's also something about his voice, which traces its influence back through John Fogerty to Little Richard (or maybe I should say back through Mitch Ryder to James Brown). I like Bob Seger's voice--it is both earthy and exciting to me in the way that Fogerty's is, and I think both men did laudable work championing the "common man." As a lifelong Detroiter who never left his home state, Seger's working class sympathies ring true for me even after his considerable success.
But...Seger is "classic rock" in every sense of the word, a true traditionalist who has never tired of vacillating between the Chuck Berry boogie ethos and the introspective singer-songwriter he (Seger) was becoming by the early 1970's. If you don't dig these traditions, you likely won't find much to enjoy in his music.
That said, the two easy-to-find Bob Seger System records,
Ramblin' Gamblin' Man and
Mongrel have much to offer the fan of sixties garage rock. The System was a contemporary of The Stooges and the MC5, and while not as revolutionary as either outfit, it certainly compares favorably to most quasi-psychedelic rock of the era, and there's plenty of trippy studio tomfoolery for the fan of such shenanigans. Lotsa good songs, too, including a torrid cover of "River Deep-Mountain High" and Seger's own "2+2=?" which has been called the first anti-Vietnam song recorded by a rock band. And then there's "Ramblin' Gamblin' Man," one of the great regional singles of the sixties and one of the most rocking guitar-less songs ever. The Palace Brothers did a cool version of this song in their first incarnation, and I've heard David Berman sing a moving rendition of "Still the Same."
Back in '72, some of which was recorded at Muscle Shoals, is my favorite of Seger's 70's LP's. It features intriguing covers (Allmans, Free, Van Morrison), some fine originals (the title track and "Rosalie," later covered by Thin Lizzy), and the studio version of "Turn the Page," which sounds like the Velvet Underground and will make you forget the horrible live version you turn off everytime it comes on the radio. His covers record,
Smokin' O.P.'s, also has its moments, particularly a moody cover of "If I Were a Carpenter." It also (for some reason) includes "Heavy Music," one of Seger's rowdiest sixties rave-ups.
Seven and
Beautiful Loser are solid records that more closely anticipate what you'd expect to hear coming from the post-
Night Moves world. I like 'em fine, but the latter includes "Katmandu," a song many people seem to hate inordinately. I think it's funny, and I cherish the time I was walking down the street in a Bob Seger t-shirt, and a bum began to sing, "I think I'm goin' to Katmandu / I think that's really where I'm goin' to / If I ever get out of here / That's what I'm gonna do." Obviously, that guy wasn't ever gettin' out of here, and I felt a new and deeper appreciation for the metaphor Bob Seger had fashioned with his seemingly innocuous song. We'd
all like to go to Katmandu--if only we could get out of "here."
Obviously, I've thought about Bob Seger longer than most folks would ever care to. If anyone is interested in giving the guy a shot and wants to be spared the trouble of wading through this material on his or her own, I'd be happy to provide a compilation of that early Bob Seger music that I think will reward the open-minded listener. Ironists beware, however--Seger means it, man.