I wrote that line back in 1994 as a response to the then current downsizing of GM. Ten years later, that ended up on What A Wonderful World, one of the most popular songs from Superpower.

The guy who screams:

“I’m fifty one years old… Are you gonna pay these bills?”

Is my best family friend of that era. He worked at Clark Street (Cadillac) in Detroit and although he himself did not lose his job (well… at least not until he got leukemia) he was fifty one years old and it was easy to channel the proper emotions from his experience (and those of many Detroiters; the air literally reaked with the smell of a dying era.)

As the auto industry continues to die in America, I’m struck by how even more poignant the lyric is today. Sorry if that sounds conceited, but that was the right song at the wrong time. The thing I’ve noticed about that song is that it was never as popular with Detroit crowds as, say, an […]

…even though both are quite ‘operatic’.

When I was in school (way back in aught ’75) we all had to learn something about ‘opera’. But of course, it was all a big joke. I mean seriously: fat people trying to play ‘cinderella’; screaming in a way that no ‘normal’ person sings; with plots so ridiculous even Harlequin Romances wouldn’t publish ’em. And they’re in… wait for it… eye-talian to boot!

And if that’s what I thought—someone who was trying to like that shi.. er ‘music’, heaven help the man in the street!

I now actually enjoy many of the classic operas, though no modern ones as of yet. And I think I’ve figured out why by watching some good ol’ Swedish Death Metal. In one phrase: alternative reality.

See what I couldn’t dig when I was 18 was that opera has to be appreciated strictly on it’s own terms. It’s an alternative world just as real as being inside ‘The Matrix’. You have to agree to it’s rules or it’s just no go. But […]

I decided I wanted to include at least a few new songs within Nice Cuts. The idea for Detroit came about after a trip back there this spring to do some shows. I was just dumbstruck by how awful the place felt. The fact is that it hadn’t really changed all that much; it’s just that all the recent press which labels Detroit as the poster-child for the economic melt-down finally got to me. I started seeing the city as it really is;  a tragedy of almost epic proportions. And then I thought of (of all places) Russia.

I have visited Russia several times over the years. Before during and after ‘the collapse’. They market a lot of amber there which is quite a metaphor; something very beautiful, but frozen in the past–and kinda delicate. That was Russia. The people were intensely proud, but it seemed as though they were oblivious to the fact that they were living in the past. All their ‘might’ was based on previous glories. People […]