Sour Grapes from Old Fogeys

Actually this was on his new wave album, *Flush the Fashion*, wasn't it? The one where he wore a new wave haircut, imitated Gary Numan ("Clones" = "Cars"), and covered the Music Machine? Not to mention one of his best albums ever, in my (and nobody else I know)'s opinion.

"It's Only Rock and Roll to Me" by Billy Joel clearly fits here, though. And I think maybe "Kids Wanna Rock" by Bryan Adams, if that's the one about getting a weird haircut and dancing you life away.

And yeah, "Sheer Heart Attack" always seemed Ramones-wannabe to me (for instance how it was real fast. Hey hey hey, it's just the DNA).

There were probably a ton of these songs from when:
-punk emerged
-computers emerged.

But he DID, sort of. (And then Seger and Cooper both did, long before the Sex Pistols did.)

>>dancing you life away<<

I meant "your."

Oops. (But "I Love How It's Only Rock and Roll to Me," which mixes in Joan Jett, is even better.)

What's the matter with the clothes I'm wearing?
"Can't you tell that your tie's too wide?"
Maybe I should buy some old tab collars?
"Welcome back to the age of jive
Where have you been hidin' out lately, honey?
You can't dress trashy till you spend a lot of money"
Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound
Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

What's the matter with the car I'm driving?
"Can't you tell that it's out of style?"
Should I get a set of white wall tires?
"Are you gonna cruise a miracle mile?
Nowadays you can't be too sentimental
You best bet's a true baby blue Continental"
Hot funk, cool punk, even if it's old junk
It's still rock and roll to me

Oh, it doesn't matter what they say in the papers
'Cause it's always been the same old scene
There's a new band in town
But you can't get the sound from a story in a magazine...
Aimed at your average teen

How about a pair of pink sidewinders
And a bright orange pair of pants?
"You could really be a Beau Brummel baby
If you just give it half a chance
Don't waste your money on a new set of speakers
You get more mileage from a cheap pair of sneakers"
Next phase, new wave , dance craze, anyways
It's still rock and roll to me

What's the matter with the crowd I'm seeing?
"Don't you know that their out of touch?"
Should I try to be a straight 'A' student?
"If you are then you think too much
Don't you know about the new fashion honey?
All you need are looks and a whole lotta money"
It's the next phase, new wave , dance craze, anyways
It's still rock and roll to me
Everybody's talkin' 'bout the new sound
Funny, but it's still rock and roll to me

You used me like an ashtray heart
Case of the punks
Right from the start
I feel like a glass shrimp in a pink panty
With a saccharine chaperone
Make invalids out of supermen
Call in a "shrink"
And pick you up in a girdle
You used me like an ashtray heart
Right from the start
Case of the punks
Another day, another way
Somebody's had too much to think
Open up another case of the punks
Each pillow is touted like a rock
The mother / father figure
Somebody's had too much to think
Send your mother home your navel
Case of the punks
New hearts to the dining rooms
Violet heart cake
Dissolve in new cards, boards, throats, underwear
Ashtray heart
You picked me out, brushed me off
Crushed me while I was burning out
Then you picked me out
Like an ashtray heart
Hid behind the curtain
Waited for me to go out
A man on a porcupine fence
Used me for an ashtray heart
Hit me where the lover hangs out
Stood behind the curtain
While they crushed me out
You used me for an ashtray heart
You looked in the window when I went out
You used me like an ashtray heart.

I didn't get an anti-New Wave vibe from this song. I thought of it more like a _Family Ties_ setup - kid's embarrassed of his hipster parents. I mean, the dad's wearing a T-shirt that says "Gimme Pot, Not Booze!" You'd be mortified, too!

Supertramp had a song on _Famous Last Words_ called "Waiting So Long" that I think is the epitome of this subject. Wait, I've just Googled the offending lyrics:

Angry music, words of fire
Painted faces filled with rage
Even then they sound so tired
I must be set in my old ways

If this world is unimpressive
It's been that way for quite awhile
I don't need no heavy message
Just turn me on and make me smile

Yes I've been waiting such a long time
Just for something to ring true
Now I'd rather taste the old wine
Than mess around with something new

Yeah, of course - He was trying to KEEP UP with new wave, and was probably waffling about whether he liked it or not. Which is the same thing Alice, Queen, the Who, and so on were doing, right? (Not to mention Linda Ronstadt, but I don't think she did any songs about it.)

Neil Young singing about Johnny Rotten (and Warren Zevon covering the Sex Pistols) in 1979 are in the same category, in a way, I guess.

And I think the first Loverboy album had both pro- AND anti- new wave songs. (Though they weren't technically old fogeys yet, obviously.)

Everyone likes to talk like they were down with punk from the beginning, but the proof is in these songs, isn't it?

It's certainly my fave Cooper album as well, and you're dead right about the odd dichotomy there.....he's lambasting new wave on one track, yet sucking up to it (albeit entertainingly) on another. It should be remembered, however, that Alice was deep in the throes of chronic alcoholism at the time, and was probably a bit depressed about having his thunder stolen from him (though Johnny Rotten is an avowed AC disciple). The lyrics to "Dance Yourself to Death" even cite Devo by name. A snippet...

Mom's hair's all green and dirty
She wears a high-tech Devo suit
She changed her name to Xerox
She hides quaaludes in her boots
Oh, me, I'm all real embarassed
When i hear the things they do
They kinda comprimise my social position
And my coo-ativity's sufferin' too!

Also, consider the album title.

I'm having a hard time trying to read this as a commentary on any particular style of music. I guess you could see the word "punks" as suggestive - but given the ambiguous context, there's really no indication that he's referring to punk rock and not some other meaning of the word "punks". Given the "ashtray" connection some of these seem possible: Dry decayed wood used as tinder. Any of various substances that smolder when ignited used to light fireworks. Chinese incense. etc...

Yo I may be old school
but I'm not no old fool
Heard out your mouth words flee
bout "These niggaz ain't nice"
You just barbershop talkin
while we round the world walkin
B, you ain't D.M.C.
You slip and fall on my ice
No lyin, straight shinin
I give you supper from my upper diamond

Not a fan of regression, but this is a pretty nice tune. music's excellent, too.

Get over it
Get over it
It's gotta stop sometime, so why don't you quit
Get over it, get over it

You can call me old school, but I'm no fool
Cause back then, at least we had a hip-hop rule
And the rule was you got to be original
But in ninety-three it seems originality
is on the verge of becoming extinct to me
And some of you rappers just stink to me
And none of y'all really seem to think to me
about respect, or no type of dignity
And gettin pimped like a ho by the industry

Add to list:Smithereens-"Sick of Seattle"

Frank Zappa -- "Dancing Fool" (on Sheik Yerbouti, I believe, the title of which is obviously a parody of the much smarter KC and the Sunshine Band); a zillion other anti-disco records I can't remember.

Dire Straits - "Money for Nothing" (about "little faggot" bands with earrings on MTV); the much more warm-hearted "Where's the Dress" by Moe and Joe (where they actually decided to BECOME Culture Club).

And there must be rock ones complaining about rap music too, right?

And oh yeah, "Blondie" by the Iron City Houserockers, "So You Want to Be a Rock and Roll Star" by the Byrds (about the Monkees supposedly), and "Pop Goes the Weasel" by hip-hop's answer to Dire Straits (except not as good) 3rd Bass (about Vanilla Ice, whose best song was better than their best song.) And *Funkatelechy Vs. the Placebo Syndrome*, maybe -- actually, George Clinton whined about disco a lot, didn't he?

Christ, what am I doing, I'm defending Dire Straits!

"Did you know that in tinsel town the people down there
Think that substance is a bore
And if your new wave group looks good
They'll hurry on back for more
Of leather groups and plastic groups
And groups that look real queer
The tinsel town aficionados
Come to see and not to hear"

"Tinseltown Rebellion," Frank Zappa

Blue-suede tuneless wonders
Mass confusion--faithless blues
Night that spews out watchmen
Moping up another fortune
Fractured words and Branca-sonic
anger trapped behind locked doors
and right between the eyes.

The lyrics themselves are a bit cryptic, but I remember reading somewhere that it was a swipe at Sonic Youth for, I suppose, appropriating from 'No Wave' (hence the Glen Branca namecheck). If that's indeed true, what about the fact that both Thurston and Lee of SY served in Branca's guitar army? I defer to more informed heads on the subject.

Also, was Tin Machine really in a position to be taking swipes at others? I think not.

I always interpreted the lyrics as a dismissive "I've seen it all before" statement.

Quite agree....another reason I used to get agitated when he would crop up with shades and a leather jacket circa the abysmal "We didn't Start the Fire" like he was the fifth Ramone.

College Radio,
you make me feel so different now
and even though during the day
you're a stockbroker
but at night we read French symbolist poetry

Oh girl together we can change the worid
or at least the music industry

Alternative, progressive.
Alternative, progressive.
Progressive, alternative--
The cutting edge.

And girl with you I feel so safe and liberal
and you could never be a fascist I know
College Radio
you wouldn't lie to me
and turn out to be a top forty station
that's been bought by the major labels.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
College Radio. Woo hoo.

Stan Freberg definitely had a few.

Best alternative radio song ever: "Get Off the Air," Angry Samoans.

About the whole Billy Joel synth thing -- that was actually when I first started hearing his music much, one or two things aside, and in the cold light of history, I'm with Nicole on the extra-bombast with "Pressure," but I'm pretty sure the steel pipe beating rhythm on "Allentown" was the first time I ever ANYTHING even vaguely *cough* industrial. Einsturzende Neubaten he ain't, though.

To say nothing of the airy, lilting sneeriness in his vocals ("All...your...life...is...Channel 13."), though truth be told he was already using similar versions of the sneer in his "sensitive" mode back in the mid-seventies: witness "Always a Woman," the soft parts of "Captain Jack," probably even "Honesty" if memory serves. I remember being a kid and thinking Billy Joel felt new wave well before he actually went "new wave" (even as early as 52nd Street). He just seemed, I dunno (it's hard to elaborate on some vague childhood impressions, though that never stopped me before) just a little tougher and cockier (on the rockers) and cerebral and detached (on the ballads) than most of everything else on the radio.

"just a little somethin' to break the monotony
of all that hardcore dance that has gotten to be
a little bit out of control it's cool to dance
but what about the groove that soothes that moves romance"

Chumbawamba's entire ABCDEFG album is full of bitter songs ragging on how pop music suddenly isn't about music anymore but rather image and concept. Still bitter about Tubthumper making them money, I suppose.

i have to question whether any of these entries technically qualify as "sour grapes"

i.e. "sour grapes" presumes the fogey in question actually WANTED the desired object, then shunned it upon finding it out of reach

so i guess "who are you" counts if alex's story about it is correct

Lou Reed, "New York Stars"

Going way upthread here, but I don't really think Hey Hey My My is a sarcastic response to punk rock. Neil dug the Pistols, Ramones and Devo in particular. Likewise the free-rock freakouts at the end of most of the tunes in Weld could be represented as a 'look what we can do' to support act Sonic Youth, but I think it's more a case of a revitalised NY and Crazy Horse being duly inspired, rather than engaging in one-upmanship. There's also the interpretation that these heavy shows were a response to the first Iraq war.