My friend, rock critic Ken Shane, posted an excerpt from Greil Marcus’ “The History Of Rock N Roll In Ten Songs” when it was first published, where Marcus wrote about a picture with Elvis Presley surrounded by girls like he was some sort of God Of Love, and Buddy Holly is hanging way back with the crowd. It was excellent, part of a longer review of “Crying, Waiting, Hoping” which reaches its zenith with the Beatles jamming on the song during the Let It Be sessions. It is worth the price of admission to the party and needs to be because the entire chapter is an aberration.
Marcus is an ill mannered, bad tempered, arrogant man, who is nowhere near as smart as he thinks he is and who has spent the last 40 years staring in a mirror and saying “I wrote the liner notes to The Basement Tapes once and I can do it again.” everything he does is about the by ways, he never deals with anything right on, you know, imagine, if you will, if all bob Dylan ever released were the Bootleg Tapes, because that’s all this guy ever does. As fake as the ‘N’, everything else, the other nine chapters are too fucking clever clogs by half. He is the perfect example of what that character in “Barcelona” said: “What do you call what’s above the subtext?” Marcus doesn’t know and it leads him on one blind stupid twist after another.
The nadir happens early, reviewing Joy Division’s “Transmission” Marcus decides to do it through Sam Riley;s performance in Anton Corbijn’s bio movie “Control”. This is the exact same thing as reviewing Elvis Presley’s”Heartbreak Hotel” through Kurt Russell’s TV movie. It is not simply that Marcus writes poorly about Joy Division, it is that he is smug and wrong headed about it. “Transmission” is a great song but Marcus misreads it. He misreads JD, JD are like Nirvana or the Doors, three yobs and a poet. Now is that so difficult?
But you could forgive Marcus for the self-important bullshit, for the terrible terrible terrible idea of imagining Robert Johnson having actually lived for 20 PAGES (he does the same with Holly but wastes less time on it) or really anything, if only you could hear what Marcus said you would hear when you listened to the music. Look, I love Amy Winehouse as much as the next guy and more than most, but I’m buggered if I believe Marcus here. The version we have of Amy performing “To Know Him Is To Love Him” is live on stage with just an acoustic guitar and Amy really sounds lovely, it is a moving and very simple take, she even manages the bridge with ease and depth. Nice catch, we’ve all heard it on the deluxe Back In Black. Here is Marcus: “With the slightly acrid scratch that sometimes crept into her harder songs dissolved in a creamy vortex, the feeling was scary, and delicious; in those three seconds, then moving on through the first lines with hesitations between words and syllables so rich with the specter of someone facing the Spector tombstone and reading the words off of it out loud, TO KNOW HIM WAS TO LOVE HIM, each word as she sang it demanding the right to be the last word, or merely wishing for it, the song expanded as if, all those years it had been waiting for this particular singer to be born, and was only now letting out its breath.” It isn’t true. Go and listen. There is no dissolving into a creamy vortex. A vortex? “Any activity, situation, or way of life regarded as irresistibly engulfing.” What is he talking about? He is talking about nothing. For the record, Amy is copying the original vocal basically pause for pause.
Marcus makes musical connections throughout the book which don’t quite sit well, his stretched out connect the dots between Christian Barclay (who dragged an electric guitar with his car and recorded the sound) to Jimi Hendrix and also to racial lynchings is hard to stomach .Much better is Marcus delving into “Money Changes Everything” though, yet again, listening to the songs tends to disprove everything he writes.
Perhaps the real pity is the concept itself doesn’t stand up to any form of scrutiny. The time shifts he uses as a sort of shorthand to get where it is going work intermittently but the fake histories don’t work ever and the entire book does not tell the story of rock in ten songs.
This is the D’Angelo of 2014, overrated. I love that Buddy Holly chapter I forgive Marcus a lot, I can see why Ken posted it… but the rest, to know him is to ignore him.
“Shake Some Action” – Flamin’ Groovies (1976)
“Transmission” – Joy Division (1979/2008/2010)
“In the Still of the Nite” – the Five Satins (1956/1959/2010)
“All I Could Do Was Cry” – Etta James/Beyoncé (1960/2008/2013)
“Crying, Waiting, Hoping” – Buddy Holly (1959/1969)
“Money (That’s What I Want)” – Barrett Strong/The Beatles (1959/1963)
“Money Changes Everything” – The Brains/Cyndi Lauper/Delta Moon (1978/1983/2005/2008)
“This Magic Moment” – The Drifters (1959/2007)
“Guitar Drag” – Christian Marclay (2000/2006)
“To Know Him Is to Love Him” – Teddy Bears (1958/2006)
Grade: C-