uTopianTurtleTop

THE BIRD IS THE WORD

Went with the family to the Western Washington Fair in Puyallup on Saturday. Walking past a stage we heard a few minutes of a cover band doing a fine imitation of Orbison's "Pretty Woman." Looked out at the audience of 60-somethings sincerely rocking out. Rock and roll is old people's music. Nothing against old people, and nothing wrong with old people's music -- my parents are the youngest of the swing generation, just a few years younger than Elvis and Bill Wyman and a few years older than the Beatles and Beach Boys and Dylan; when rock and roll hit their musical sensibilities were already formed and though they didn't dislike rock and roll it didn't really reach them -- to them, it was just another style, which is what it has since become again.

Its partisans, though, say rock is an Extra Special genre, its Extra Specialness having to do with Dionysus and/or social seriousness and/or liberation and/or rebellion. I'll go along with this in one respect: "Surfin' Bird" was pretty unprecedented in popular music. R. Meltzer opened his mad ontological rock manifesto "The Aesthetics of Rock" with a transcription of the entire mad lyrics of "Surfin' Bird" -- and thanks to the internet, I can quote them too, without the bother of typing:

A-well-a, everybody's heard about the bird
Bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, the bird is the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, well, the bird is the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, well, the bird is the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, well, the bird is the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, don't you know about the bird
Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a

A-well-a, everybody's heard about the bird
Bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, don't you know about the bird
Well, everybody's talking about the bird
A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird's the word
A-well-a, bird

Surfin' bird
Bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb, aaah

Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa
Pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow

Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Oom-oom-oom-oom-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-oom-oom-oom
Oom-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-a-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, ooma-mow-mow
Papa-oom-oom-oom-oom-ooma-mow-mow
Oom-oom-oom-oom-ooma-mow-mow
Ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, ooma-mow-mow
Well, don't you know about the bird
Well, everybody knows that the bird is the word
A-well-a, bird, bird, b-bird's the word

Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow
Papa-ooma-mow-mow, papa-ooma-mow-mow...

Meltzer's book came out within a couple years of Jerome Rothenberg's anthology of worldwide traditional oral poetry, "Technicians of the Sacred," which featured incantatory ritualistic poetry not unlike "Surfin' Bird." The Trashmen's song is Over the Top. I agree with Meltzer that rock can go Over the Top more easily than other genres -- it takes less conventional musical technique to go Over the Top a la the Trashmen than in the manner of John Coltrane or Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

The aesthetics of "Over the Top" is an inner aesthetic that resists categorization or systematization. I hear it in late Judy Garland and in Bobby Darin's swing covers -- an excess of fervor. Most rock lacks it, and that's fine -- I have no problem with rock being just another genre. And I love it wherever I find it. The bird is the word!