Shut yer neck, hipsters!
News from the United States that saxophonist Clarence Clemons, famously known as the “Big Man” from Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, has died aged 69.
I was never the huge Springsteen fan my comrades from the ALP Club in the mid-1980s were, but I know enough about the Band and its music to have an appreciation of what this must mean for Springsteen fans – and indeed, for Mr Springsteen himself.
I remember with bemused fondness a car trip to Adelaide at the time with a comrade - now a senior member of the Gillard Cabinet* - who, for the entire trip, discussed in some detail the political meaning of every single Springsteen song and why they were all endorsements of democratic socialism.
I suppose this is what getting older is all about; the slow dropping away of all the meaningful events and people from your past, until all that you’re left with is confusion and the mild contempt of the young.
I think that’s something for us all to look forward to.
OK – that’s not a very upbeat ending.
On the weekend, when the family is away, I’ll play "Born to Run" until the blood is dripping from the speakers and the hipsters next door are threatening legal action.
So I will.
* Strange but true.
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13 comments:
I suppose this is what getting older is all about; the slow dropping away of all the meaningful events and people from your past, until all that you’re left with is confusion and the mild contempt of the young.
oh dear, so true!
But Little Squib still thinks you're a hero, right?
I suspect mild contempt is understating it in many cases. My case, for example.
And it won't be too long before the hipsters move on from Dire Straits to The Boss. Although, on second thoughts, perhaps not, cos he's always been kinda cool so it wouldn't be ironic. Shows what I know.
Carry on.
I suspect mild contempt is understating it in many cases.
I believe in looking on the bright side, Bob.
God, I'm glad I'm not the only one.
with a comrade - now a senior member of the Gillard Cabinet* - who, for the entire trip, discussed in some detail the political meaning of every single Springsteen song and why they were all endorsements of democratic socialism.
Well, I certainly hope their tendency to overlook the obvious, in order to hear what they want to hear, has waned a bit over the years.
On a different note, doesn't everyone here hate saxophones? I vaguely remember that being covered before.
Hey, you can't criticize a man soon after he died, Alex. I'd say you can start condemning his instrument on, oh, I dunno, Monday.
I don't mind saxophone, Bob. But I thought it was strange that he got a mention here, since I was sure everyone else hated them. And oboes too, if memory serves. I'm a bit fuzzy. It was a while ago.
I used to play the saxophone, Alex.
I didn't play it very well, but I still played it.
And somebody once described the oboe as "an ill wind, that nobody played good".
Ramon, it's very difficult to impress a nearly 8 year old these days
I'm not so keen on banjos. As to saxophones, I saw Cat Empire at that Bob Dylan fiasco and they had about a million sax players on stage and I thought there is such a thing as too much sax
Yes, but The Cat Empire is shit.
That might have something to do with it.
What was the "Bob Dylan fiasco"?
The Cat Empire is shit
I figured that out pretty fast
The Bob Dylan fiasco was his performance
Where is your family off to for the weekend, Ramonski?
Hey I went to see 'The White Guard' on Monday night at the Sydney Theatre. I'm all up on my Bolshevik revolution stuff now. Give me a Russian history trivia night and I'll be all over it (and the twentieth century's greatest saxophone hits, of course).
Excellent, Kettle.
I look forward to a vigorous on-line discussion about the pivot role played by Radek, Zinoviev and Kamenev.
I read The White Guard some years ago.
Great book.
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