In the picture above Keith Richards and Mick Jagger are working on a song, their producer Jimmy Miller is sprawled on the floor, some partially eaten melons sit nearby, a bong and a liquor bottle sit on an acoustic partition. Is this what leadership looks like? Is this a glimpse into the moment of inspiration and renewal? Not exactly, but to pick up the thread I began (and immediately dropped) in my last posting, the Stones were on to something when they recorded Exile on Main Street in a villa in Villefranche-sur-Mer. And, through my lens, their situation, and their approach to the recording process, resembles the circumstances that surrounded the recording of three other great rock and roll albums - Bob Dylan's Basement Tapes, Bruce Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town, and the Clash's London Calling.
In each case, something happened that interrupted the artists' normal creative process. Instead of simply churning out the next album expected by their fans and their eager record labels, they paused, immersed themselves in torrents of music - gospel, blues, rockabilly, soul, Preservation Hall-style jazz, carnival music, and country - and jammed, for extended periods, in rehearsals and with the tape rolling. Many songs were written in the studio, inspired by this tour through the musical legacy that makes up the foundations of rock and roll. In each case, the band worked as a unit - not always harmoniously - yet as if they were moving with a shared instinct, like they were a single organism. Years of work together had fashioned quick reflexes, band members anticipated chord changes, shifts in tempo, moods.
For me, this suggests a process for refashioning the political message, machinery, and mission of the Democratic Party. I'll try to unpack this over the next several posts. In a Cliff's Notes version: The Democratic Party has to realize that they can't think of the next election - in 2012 - as just another election. They have been led from the path they had been following. The 2010 elections suggested something that smart Democrats knew, but party leaders were stubbornly ignoring. The party is corrupt and lost and wandering through a landscape they no longer comprehend. The Democratic Party leadership should dig into the vast legacy of their party's sweeping interventions into American life - FDR's New Deal, the decisions handed down by liberal courts filled with Democratic appointments, LBJ's signature poverty and civil rights legislation - as well as the work of civil rights leaders and social activists that inspired and shaped this transformative effort. Then, with a preliminary blue-print in hand, the party should assemble as much of its rank and file as can be assembled, reach out to bloggers and commentators from what Robert Gibbs dismissively called "the professional Left," bring in union leaders and representatives from the vast network of agencies and organizations that take care of our poor, and create something new. The process is what matters, and this is what the Stones did right in the summer of 1971.
I'm not recommending party leaders indulge in vast quantities of heroin. Or shag each others' spouses. You're getting too caught up in the details. The Stones lived where they worked. They recorded everyday from 8 at night until the early morning. With all the tension between band members, and legal problems, and the allure of new love - Mick had just married Bianca - not everyone showed up everyday. But those who did, shook off the effect of the drugs and the wine, and worked through the songs. Long hours spent jamming, working on material that was being written as it was being recorded. Six hours spent playing one segment of Tumbling Dice, with the tape rolling. So many songs went on and on (only to fade out when they are sequenced on the album). Band members played instruments they don't normally play - Keith playing bass and producer Jimmy Miller playing drums.
But the result is alive, in ways no Rolling Stone album would ever be again. The music has sinew and purpose and character and swagger. To worry about the drugs and the marital infidelities and car crashes and arrests and everything else that accompanied the making of the album that summer is to miss the point. Rather - despite the drugs and the marital infidelities and car crashes and arrests and everything else the Stones had to push past, their creative process that summer produced a recording that was remarkable: shaped by gospel and rhythm and blues and gritty roadhouse rock and roll, authentic and persuasive.
The Democratic Party needs to recreate this. Retreat to its own Villa Nellcote, and dip deeply into the past, rehearse its message, fight things out, all with the tape rolling. Author the party's new mission while the conversation is going on. Make it something spontaneous and alive. Work for long hours, to grab hold of the thread of the thing that has always called to you. For the Stones it was rock and roll. For the Democratic Party it should be social justice, restoring a role for the marginalized, educating kids, keeping the promise the nation made in its founding documents and the 14th Amendment. In the end, refashion everything in a way that is conscious of the present. If you have to, carry the result back to be polished by experienced tweakers. The Stones did, overdubbing a few tracks in a studio in L.A. But don't spoil the authenticity of it, don't dispel the magic. And whatever you do, don't erase the lines that trace what you have created back to its origins. That's what makes it real and meaningful and relevant. Exile on Main Street wasn't just the latest Stones LP, in stores, as always, about a year after the last, ready to satisfy the appetites of the band's fans. It was the latest chapter in a long history, part of a conversation that included Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, Clyde McPhatter and Memphis Slim, Bo Diddley and Hank Williams, and an endless list of innovators and authentic voices. It was bigger than the commercial impulse that pushed recording artists to put out albums each year. And that's what the Democrats need. They need to shake off the dull repetition of competing every two years, sleep-walking through the process with a satchel full of old battle hymns. They need to go back to the wellspring of their inspiration, drink deeply, and return with something authentic and simultaneously timeless and contemporary.
While you're thinking about this, go listen to Sweet Virginia, and marvel at it. After starting out as a little country ditty, there's a point, after everyone has climbed on board, including Bobby Keys, playing an improbably swaggering sax, when Jagger sings: "You've gotta scrape that shit right off your shoes." That's what the Democrats need to do. Then, learn to thrill the audience. Not with cheap gimmicks, but with the real thing. After you're done listening to Sweet Virginia, skip ahead to Shine a Light. The gospel-style backup vocals, Mick Taylor's liquid guitar, Billy Preston's persistent keyboards. Doesn't that song make you want to cheer and cry at the same time? It's thrilling. The Democrats need that too.
I'm not recommending party leaders indulge in vast quantities of heroin. Or shag each others' spouses. You're getting too caught up in the details. The Stones lived where they worked. They recorded everyday from 8 at night until the early morning. With all the tension between band members, and legal problems, and the allure of new love - Mick had just married Bianca - not everyone showed up everyday. But those who did, shook off the effect of the drugs and the wine, and worked through the songs. Long hours spent jamming, working on material that was being written as it was being recorded. Six hours spent playing one segment of Tumbling Dice, with the tape rolling. So many songs went on and on (only to fade out when they are sequenced on the album). Band members played instruments they don't normally play - Keith playing bass and producer Jimmy Miller playing drums.
But the result is alive, in ways no Rolling Stone album would ever be again. The music has sinew and purpose and character and swagger. To worry about the drugs and the marital infidelities and car crashes and arrests and everything else that accompanied the making of the album that summer is to miss the point. Rather - despite the drugs and the marital infidelities and car crashes and arrests and everything else the Stones had to push past, their creative process that summer produced a recording that was remarkable: shaped by gospel and rhythm and blues and gritty roadhouse rock and roll, authentic and persuasive.
The Democratic Party needs to recreate this. Retreat to its own Villa Nellcote, and dip deeply into the past, rehearse its message, fight things out, all with the tape rolling. Author the party's new mission while the conversation is going on. Make it something spontaneous and alive. Work for long hours, to grab hold of the thread of the thing that has always called to you. For the Stones it was rock and roll. For the Democratic Party it should be social justice, restoring a role for the marginalized, educating kids, keeping the promise the nation made in its founding documents and the 14th Amendment. In the end, refashion everything in a way that is conscious of the present. If you have to, carry the result back to be polished by experienced tweakers. The Stones did, overdubbing a few tracks in a studio in L.A. But don't spoil the authenticity of it, don't dispel the magic. And whatever you do, don't erase the lines that trace what you have created back to its origins. That's what makes it real and meaningful and relevant. Exile on Main Street wasn't just the latest Stones LP, in stores, as always, about a year after the last, ready to satisfy the appetites of the band's fans. It was the latest chapter in a long history, part of a conversation that included Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters, Clyde McPhatter and Memphis Slim, Bo Diddley and Hank Williams, and an endless list of innovators and authentic voices. It was bigger than the commercial impulse that pushed recording artists to put out albums each year. And that's what the Democrats need. They need to shake off the dull repetition of competing every two years, sleep-walking through the process with a satchel full of old battle hymns. They need to go back to the wellspring of their inspiration, drink deeply, and return with something authentic and simultaneously timeless and contemporary.
While you're thinking about this, go listen to Sweet Virginia, and marvel at it. After starting out as a little country ditty, there's a point, after everyone has climbed on board, including Bobby Keys, playing an improbably swaggering sax, when Jagger sings: "You've gotta scrape that shit right off your shoes." That's what the Democrats need to do. Then, learn to thrill the audience. Not with cheap gimmicks, but with the real thing. After you're done listening to Sweet Virginia, skip ahead to Shine a Light. The gospel-style backup vocals, Mick Taylor's liquid guitar, Billy Preston's persistent keyboards. Doesn't that song make you want to cheer and cry at the same time? It's thrilling. The Democrats need that too.
No comments:
Post a Comment