Back in December, I kidded Simon Warner on here about his entry celebrating (in a measured way) the continual rebirth of Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” as a populist anthem of sorts, and I cited Graham Parker’s “Passion Is No Ordinary Word” as a song I’d prefer to hear over Journey any day. Thus I got a real kick this month when I discovered on Graham Parker’s (newly-refurbished) website that he’d boycotted watching the final episode of The Sopranos “out of spite,” to avoid “having to stomach a Journey tune.” All right! Another reason you’re still my hero, Chairman Parker . . .
In the meantime, however, I’d gotten my comeuppance in a way that almost made “Don’t Stop Believin’” sound better. Around Christmas, Christ Hospital here in Cincinnati began running a TV commercial for its services, often timed to interrupt the dinnertime news broadcasts we analog types insist on following. The theme song of this commercial is a chirpy, wimpy chorus of otherwise-adult men intoning, “Give a little bit, give a little bit of my life for you!”
Ugh! I knew I’d hated that song in a past life, when it was a hit on our radio, but I couldn’t think WHO it was. I ran through my mind’s usual suspects, all the terminally-dire bands from Air Supply to Bread, but none of them seemed to fit precisely. It was time for a lyric search via the Miracle of Google, and in a few seconds I had my quarry, the most abject “rock” band of all time for my money, SUPERTRAMP! Oh, how I loathed their sound back in the day! Admittedly I’m not a fan of prog in general, but Supertramp were so sub-prog to my ears, they almost made Asia or even Jethro Tull(!) seem doable.
Supertramp strike me as some sort of Monty Python skit inflicted upon us hapless Colonials; they sound like a chorus of developmentally-disabled inmates recruited from Her Majesty’s Royal Asylum for Incurable Twits. Blimey! Can any of our English readers explain if there’s anything at all redeeming about Supertramp?!? Do they sound better somehow in the Old Country? I’ll admit that their Breakfast in America album had a neat cover concept, and I think a local acquaintance of mine even bought it for that reason, but I had no intention of going anywhere near the music I knew I’d find inside.
Each time I think the Christ Hospital commercial has finally tramped its course, it comes burbling out of our kitchen tube once more, making me sick enough (ironically) to crave an actual Journey side in its place. I need to remind the hospital (where our daughter was born, no less) that they were supposed to have long since taken an oath to First, do no harm!
4 Responses to JOURNEY: Not “Super”, nor anything like it . . .
If only… the song on the jukebox BEFORE Tony Soprano selects Journey is the wonderful All That You Dream by Little Feat. Perhaps if he’d chosen this as the big goodbye song even Graham Parker would have approved. As for Supertramp, their Crime of the Century album sounded great to my 14-year-old ears. I bought it because I liked the single Dreamer which Diddy David Hamilton played on Radio 1 every day when i got home from school for weeks.Rock and roll!
Look, Richard, I started this so I guess it’s up to me to finish it – and in words of (almost) one syllable that you may be able to understand….
Journey ROCK!
Simon
Yeah, Simon, but I prefer “three-syllable” terms like “rock’n'roll” . . . All kidding aside, I’d meant to ameliorate my earlier criticism of Journey by admitting that they didn’t sound too bad to me after all, once I was reminded of the truly dreadful Supertramp. MY title for my blog entry was simply “Not ‘Super’, nor anything like it . . . “, by which I was implying that *Supertramp* hadn’t earned the superlative section of their name, IMHO. I guess I wasn’t clear enough about that in my text, as someone at RBP put “JOURNEY” in front of my title after its original posting. I noticed the misleading alteration, but was just going to let it go — however, if it offends you, I need to clarify what actually occurred here.
If you like Journey, then go for them! I used to say that to people who complained about my CREEM reviews — I’d given my opinion, now they could give theirs, and maybe even influence me in the process, depending on their arguments.
Chris up above could even begin to sell me on Supertramp by citing how much he liked them when he was 14. We’ve all got to start somewhere. When I was 13 or 14, I was a goner for a US group called Johnny and the Hurricanes, and their instrumental hit “Red River Rock” (possibly the source of my lifelong obsession with squealy organ sounds in r’n'r.) One evening around that time in a restaurant with my parents, I was going to play “Red River Rock” on the jukebox, but I must have hit the wrong buttons, as my nickel produced Ricky Nelson(!) instead — oh, the humiliation! But maybe that planted a seed for my eventual rockcritical “career,” via my desire to inflict my musical choices nationwide, not just in a little beanery. It happens.
Richard – I actually agree with pretty well all you say. And, yes, Parker’s band remain one of my favourites, too. That turgid moment in US soft rock history is best forgotten – though no one, it seems, will actually let us forget Journey and that song!
S