Exhaustion in 70s rock

I've been listening to the Stones 70s oeuvre today (presently finishing Black and Blue), and "Memory Motel" triggered a thought that seems worth a thread here. Lots of big ticket 70s rock is "about" exhaustion. Think for instance of the last verse of "Memory Motel":

"On the seventh day my eyes were all a glaze
We've been ten thousand miles
Been in fifteen states
Every woman seemed to fade out of my mind
I hit the bottle and hit the sack and cried."

The narrator is stuck at the memory motel but the memories aren't comforting or relaxing or even all that clear; he remains lonely and without relief.

Other examples: Dylan on Planet Waves, Seger on Night Moves, Neil Young's "doom trilogy", much of the Dan's body of work. Think of what the guys in the Band say in The Last Waltz. And there are lots of other examples. Are there others you'd like to talk about? Let's see what we can do here.

I re-read Billion Dollar Baby a few years back (Bob Greene's account of Alice Cooper's 1973 US tour in support of Muscle of Love really made me think about how much of a grind these huge rock tours were before cell phones, ATMs, readily available credit, etc...I'm no musician, and I'm sure that touring today has it's own challenges, but it doesn't seem like artists sing many "the road, it just breaks you down" songs anymore, like Seger's "Turn The Page"...so maybe that's part of it, but I think you are on to something...

Yeah, the huge tours are a big part of this. Neil Young's 1973 tour was a huge affair and the doom trilogy was a response to that. At least part of what happened to Dylan post 1966 was tour-related (though Dylan bore a lot of other weights as he explains in Chronicles).

My favorite rock subject. Why? Because at their best, fagged-out rockers work harder. As Xgau noted of Exile on Main Street, "weary and complicated, barely afloat in its own drudgery, it rocks with extra power and concentration as a result." Same with There's a Riot Goin' On which stands with Exile as rock's supreme masterpiece of fatigue. Even the tracks that crawl over to you like "Just Like a Baby" or "Time" are capable of sharp reaction time (in fact, for that very reason, I find them easier to take than the chugging "Runnin' Away" which on the wrong day needs to be skipped entirely).

In a 1990 Spin, Simon Reynolds compared Tusk and Donna Summer's Once Upon a Time... to Riot and Exile. For me, the only way I can listen to Tusk from start to finish is precisely as a soft rock Riot. Same goes for side three of Once Upon a Time....

And speaking of which, exhaustion is all over disco as an album art. A lot of early Donna counts here as well as tons of Don Ray and Alec R. Costandinos, esp. the "Judas Iscariot"/"Simon Peter" disco opera under their Sphinx moniker. But my favorite example here is Tantra's The Double Album where side-long slabs of jet lag like "The Hills of Katmandu" and the remarkable "Wishbone" allow the listener/dancer to move in and out of consciousness (which the tracks themselves are doing anyway). At times, the entire project seems like an indictment of disco nihilism. Even the shorter, punchier song have a vaguely admonitory air to them.

I suppose the trick with all this is to draw distinctions between fatigue and bliss and disconnection, etc. But for now, I'll leave you with this hymn from "Wishbone":

Pull on a fishbone
Pretend it's a wishbone
Tomorrow is easy to see.
Running and hiding
You're only dividing
The power inside you could be so strong.
So strong.
Fire and water
A son and a daughter,
The mother will never be free.
On the horizon
It isn't surprising
The future is easy to see.
To see.

it doesn't seem like artists sing many "the road, it just breaks you down" songs anymore

this is because it's become a cliche that'll get you made fun of, though - touring still drives you pretty crazy (not in a "lol mama we're all crazy now!" sense, I mean "makes you really emotionally unstable"), I can't really even imagine what high-pressure genuine-fame stay-out-nine-months tours would be like. I know people who do, though, and it effects heavy changes on them.

like, when I think how few rock stars have killed themselves while on tour, it's genuinely surprising to me - if, while in a state of moving from place to place every day, you start following a thread of depression and hopelessness in your mind, it's like you've found the secret accelerated track to total desperation & you get there real fast

Kevin, you're on the money pointing out that "the trick with all this is to draw distinctions between fatigue and bliss and disconnection". And, I'd add, between these and the awareness of memory, of the weight of the past, which isn't necessarily the same as exhaustion. I was thinking about this in regard to Planet Waves, along with, as you say, the line between exhaustion and bliss (e.g. "Wedding Song"). Dylan sighs that "there's not much more to be said" ("Going, Going, Gone") and mocks those who "sing [their] praise of progress" ("Dirge"), but on the other hand the album has two versions of "Forever Young".

Because on tour you're on such a rollercoaster you don't have time to think about it, really, and there is a structure to the day and a goal every day you have to deliver a gig - the full brutal effects of touring don't actually HIT you until you get off tour. Without the daily structure, that's when the emotional damage takes its real toll, and there's noone to tell you to get up and get out of bed and no one to chuck you on the stage and do something and at that point it becomes impossible to deal.

(And I say that as someone who was never actually on the road for over a month, can't imagine what a longer one would do to you, though I've seen its effect in friends)

J0hn, I can totally see what you're saying: like, the person who flies around the country doing sales might be like "get over it, pampered rock star" but on the other hand, the rock star is expected to put on a huge show in which their personality is a huge part---"authentically" or not, either way it's got to be exhausting in a way not like e.g. traveling to sell wine.

Oh and J0hn D here reminds me that this thread can very easily be extended into post-punk and beyond. Check this awesome review where he talks about how 100 Flowers and fist pumping do not go hand in hand.

Most exhausted punk band was probably Subway Sect.

A tad off topic but I just got done reading Jen Trynin's Everything I'm Cracked Up To Be which contains so many devastating road tales that I could barley finish the thing. I got really choked up at the point where she finds solace in the front desk person who stays on the phone with her to make sure she actually wakes up for her wake up call.

BARELY finish....barley I can handle.

Juliana Hatfield's recent memoir talks alot about this kind of thing, but yeah, she doesn't really write songs about it.

Maybe the reason I singled out 70s rock is that it became a cliche then to write about "the weary road" or the like, and now you can't get away with it. I have mixed feelings about that. On the one hand, it's good to avoid cliched songwriting. On the other, writing about what you know is a way to be productive, and if this is something touring artists know, I'd like to hear more about it.

I just had a sad thought on this subject:

http://www.jacksondeerfieldband.com/lynyrd-skynyrd-street-survivors.JPG

those 70s dudes though, even down to today, some of those guys are doing 6, 9 month stretches. I feel completely confident that even one tour like that, with all the money in the world behind it, would break me - that I'd be never be sane again. maybe if you learned to completely phone in your performance so that there was exactly zero personal investment in it, that'd mitigate the whole thing, but then again, probably not, because you'd probably start to really hate how that made you feel.

I'm persuaded that the whole deal w/Axl is that he was a fragile cat to begin with and then - if you look at the touring after Use Your Illusion (28 months is the bandied-about figure) - no way for a personality to survive that intact.

Ain't it fun when you're always on the run.

There is a particularly memorable segment in Billion Dollar Baby in which the normally reserved Cooper drummer Neil Smith leads a band of roadies on a destructive rampage through a Holiday Inn, with maniacal glee. Bob Greene deduced that this sort of behavior was a pretty "normal" way of coping with the pressure/loneliness of a drawn-out large-scale rock tour. You really don't so much read about bands trashing motel rooms anymore.

SSRI's

people paying with credit cards that can be billed instead of tour cash means sudden sober minds prevail when it comes time to throw the couch into the swimming pool

Another center of this sort of thing:

http://www.presley.de/music/ftd/cover/ftd_75_ElvisCountry.jpg

aka Sister Lovers

2 other things that prevent me from throwing things out the window of the hotel room in which I am presently emcamped:

1) television
2) the internet

encamped, even

2.5) ilx

how have we gone this long on this thread without mentioning ILX's favorite band THE EAGLES

Or ILX punching bags Steely Dan

CCR - Have You Ever Seen the Rain, Someday Never Comes

Interesting thread and this is one of my favorite musical subjects, too. Not to derail, but IMO the lat few years of dance music ("minimal", the crate digging deep house and disco revival, even labels like DFA and genres like dubstep) have been about a kind of exhaustion which is often manifested in a kind of radical musical stasis where the goal is to maintain a constant languid plateau. I think there are parallels between arena rock tours and punishing DJ schedules, marathon partying (duh), and also the way digital music and culture are simply exhausting.

even labels like DFA

Ya know, I thought it was crazy to mention something like Black Leotard Front: "Casual Friday" when talking about disco above but I guess not. "Casual Friday" is the disco nap version of disco. It feels like 5/6pm Friday evening rather than Friday night raging dance party. I hope Euler won't mind if I call for more exhausted dance tracks.

Another one: Cristina: "Is That All There Is?"

Or ILX punching bags Steely Dan

They were mentioned in the very first post.

Euler, can you explain how Elvis Country relates to the thread? Not arguing just haven't heard it in years so...

"Casual Friday" is a good example, yeah. The Delia and Gavin lp on DFA is a good one, too. For me, the pinnacle of what I'm talking about would be Rub-n-Tug's Better With a Spoonful of Leather mix (NYC) and Villalobos' "Fizheuer Zieheuer" (Berlin). The German examples are beyond numerous though. Sometimes it feels like a strip mall of techno.

yeah, it's great to bring in dance music + disco! I don't know as much about it, so I can't bring in great examples. But the drugs seem key; certainly I hear Republic in this light.

Elvis Country is Elvis' weariest album, I think: it leads off with "Snowbird"! Even the rockers like "It's Your Baby, You Rock It" and "Faded Love" just want to make the world go away. I mean, just look at the song titles:

Track Recorded Song Title Writer(s) Time
Snowbird
Tomorrow Never Comes
Little Cabin on the Hill
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On
Funny How Time Slips Away
I Really Don't Want to Know
There Goes My Everything
It's Your Baby, You Rock It
The Fool
Faded Love
I Washed My Hands In Muddy Water
Make the World Go Away

Bowie's "Golden Years" seems applicable here. Maybe even all of Station to Station.

Paul Simon "One Trick Pony" (particularly the film)

Yeah, that's probably why Station To Station is the Bowie I return to the most. An interesting thing is that Bowie seems reinvigorated in his next phase. And while Black and Blue is exhausted, Some Girls has lots of life (though "Beast of Burden" is a throwback in that regard). Ditto for Neil Young, who recognized that rust never sleeps. Cases like Elvis and the Dan (and the Eagles too!) are fascinating because their 70s exhaustion is the end, at least for a long time (very long in Elvis' case).

xp

"Four in the morning
Crapped out, yawning
Longing my life away
I'll never worry
Why should I?
It's all gonna fade"

my fave result of the 60's love hangover was the singer/songwriter weary mind syndrome. soooo many sadsack dudes whose actual BRAINS were tired. and if there was a woman involved, hoo boy, look out. cuz then they had to sadly think about how weary they were of thinking about women that made them weary. and they were already really tired to begin with! which is why everyone just wanted to go the farm/country and sit on the porch and rest their weary bones. hell, it took me YEARS to get over the 80's, so i can relate. when i finally stopped seeing phantom acid animals scurrying around out of the corner of my eye i knew i was gonna be alright.

How about AC/DC - "Long Way to the Top"...and I think "Ride On" qualifies here too, not specifically, but that's the feeling I get there. Bon sings "Long Way" like a triumphant rocker, and has fooled generations of bogans into treating it like a celebration, but the lyrics are definitely from the exhausted playbook.

Kiss - Beth. More studio exhaustion than touring but seems to fit the thread.

Lou Reed certainly seemed exhausted by the late 70s but I'm not sure which particular albums/songs to cite

"Leave Me Alone"?

Also this, which came out in 1980 I think, but is pretty much an exhausted Lou Reed 70s record. Look at him! So tired.
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/410E55N4fmL._SL500_AA240_.jpg

Metal Machine Music seems like the effort of an exhausted person.

Look at him! So tired.

lolz

even his shirt is tired

Thought of maybe the ultimate on-the-road exhaustion 70s tune: "Motel Blues" by Loudon Wainwright III. Thing is brutal.

Frank Zappa made a whole movie about this topic.

I'm amazed at the way that Rush is able to stage these massive tours year in and year out. Those dudes must be taking some swell vitamins.

And I don't think they really had a road exhaustion phase...

Rush are kinda clean-living dudes, right? That would make a difference ... Also, Canadian.

(Tho I guess Neil Young rules out the Canadian argument)

The Who's 1978 album "Who Are You" is all about exhaustion of one kind or another. Touring exhaustion especially is the subject of the bonus track "No Road Romance".

Well, rambling ≠ exhaustion, though I'm happy to talk about both of these.

It often leads to exhaustion! Seems like a good idea when the singer sets out...

A lot of roving goes on, of course, as well as rambling

You're right! But not always: like in the Allmans' "Ramblin' Man", the narrator is ready to keep on going. But in Townes' "Waiting Around To Die", he isn't. Ramble on! Wow, there's a vein of songs about rambling, an expression I certainly don't use in my daily life but which seems to have a rock life of its own.

The narrator of Little Feat's "Willing" wants to keep on driving, but his pleas for weed, whites, and wine sound pretty exhausted.

Reggae exhaustion:

http://www.strictly-vibes.com/covers/W/WH4320.jpg

http://www.strictly-vibes.com/covers/D/DL5074.jpg

Gerry Rafferty's "Baker Street"

Excellent thread.

Other fagged-out masterpieces:

Big Star's Third.
Joni Mitchell's The Hissing of Summer Lawns

Third is kinda the apex of this no?

totally

In the Dylan faux bio-pic I'm Not There, there are some memorable scenes with Cate Blanchett where the authenticity of Dylan's exhaustion is thrown way into relief. I have always been curious as to whether Dylan himself made any comments on the film.

Dylan writes about his exhaustion in the New Morning section of Chronicles.

Another album that comes to mind here is Gene Clark's Roadmaster. The song "Here Tonight" in particular fits (though the title song doesn't really). Clark's voice is so tired sounding on his 70s albums generally, and he wasn't very vigorous-sounding on those Byrds albums in the first place.

what's some exhausted 70's punk? maybe the vibrators' baby baby baby?

Surprised Tonight's the Night hasn't been mentioned yet, esp "Tired Eyes" and "Albuquerque." But really permeating the whole record.

I was writing in code about the "doom trilogy" which includes Tonight's The Night, On the Beach, and Time Fades Away. Just thinking about those albums tires me out!

Oh yeah, sorry. I cmd-F'ed "tonight's" and also skimmed the whole thread too fast.

John Phillips and Dennis Wilson solo records kind of fit in here. Those dudes got so tired they died.

Yeah, D. Wilson really had the wind taken out of his sails.

This thread is so exhausting its like injecting ambien.

oh, The Beach Boys Love You. has anyone ever sounded more fatigued than Brian does on some of those tracks?

The dude was so goddamn beat he didnt leave his bedroom for 5 years and gained 700 lbs.

Read an interview with Brian Wilson once, where the journalist asked him what he did during those years in exile, and he said (at least the journo said he said) "I dunno, beat off a lot". Ace!

I know this is about 70s rock, but the thing is, I don't think this stuff has died out as much as it's represented above that it has. I can certainly think of several examples from 90s Brit rock (ironic considering those bands would go on whirlwind 1-month tours of America and come back claiming exhaustion)

Supergrass - Moving
Ride - OX4
Blur - Look Inside America springs to mind, though honestly, I think that huge amounts of the s/t album could probably fit under "tour exhaustion"

I'm happy to see the discussion encompass music from the 90s and music from all genres. One way to understand what was said above is that exhaustion expressed nowadays is often done in imitation of classic rock tropes and hence done self-consciously, as opposed to 70s expressions which were less compromised. I'm not sure I agree with that, but there's something to it. One point was that the massive touring of the 70s is incomparable to what artists tend to do today---well, I'm not sure about that either (jam bands seem to tour constantly) but artists with wide exposure seem to tour at a different scale than was standard in the 70s.

Upthread it was stated that this has become rock cliche, is the thing. So, yeah, I'm sure there are more examples from decades besides the 70s.

Oh, probably should have read euler's post before posting.

I was just listening to Zappa Radio and "200 Years Old" came on. The intro sounds pretty exhausted.

I was sittin' in a breakfast room in Allentown, Pennsylvania...
six o'clock in the morning, got up too early, it was a terrible mistake...
sittin' there face-to-face with a 75 cent glass of orange
juice about as big as my finger and a bowl of horribly foreshortened
cornflakes, and I said to myself: "This is the life."...

Read an interview with Brian Wilson once, where the journalist asked him what he did during those years in exile, and he said (at least the journo said he said) "I dunno, beat off a lot". Ace!

Rolling Stone interview, 1976 I think

One point was that the massive touring of the 70s is incomparable to what artists tend to do today

B.B. King toured more than 300 days of the year for decades on end, yet you never heard him complaining about exhaustion. face it, rock stars are just whiney-assed crybabies. that's just one of the many reasons why we love 'em after all.

^^^this

boomers are/were fucking whiny

it could be that running around the country or world for 300 days a year affects different people in different ways....

Yeah, I'd like a chance to be exhausted from touring the world, playing music every night, nailing groupies and doing drugs. Sounds totally intolerable.

John Phillips and Dennis Wilson solo records kind of fit in here

now we know why papa john was so tired : \

I don't think writing about being tired during/after a massive tour ≠ complaining about touring.

I think the trope of touring and the exhaustion in 70's rock wasn't just a rock cliche. I think it was a way for the musician to relate their own lifestyles of hard work to their listeners own blue collar life. Many of these artist came from that same background: they saw it in there parents, their peers back home. This idea of touring as work reflected the lives of factory workers, mill workers, truck drivers, even oil men. These people largely still listen to this same music, and these jobs have since gone to a different population. I'm not certain about this idea, but it makes since working around these people.

That's a great point. I'm thinking of Springsteen's "Factory", especially with the tale he tells about it on 1978 shows.

You post about springteen makes me want to go back and listen to his records again. I have all of his up till BITUSA. I've never really listened closely to him though. Should I?

LOL since=sense

Everything from the second album through Tunnel of Love is gold as far as I'm concerned.

ok 60s here, but "going back" by the byrds: it's not radically different from previous byrds singles, but it sounds so damn haggard, like they can barely muster the energy for the 'la-la-la' part after the chorus.

the alt. take of "going back" on the notorious reissue is even more enervated

"Artificial Energy" also comes to mind.

How about Aerosmith, "Draw the Line"? They'd just about had it by then.

Little River Band's days On The Road fits this perfectly.

Looks like no one answered the question about examples from punk. I'd say the recording of The Sex Pistols' last gig at Winterland, and Buzzcocks - A Different Kind Of Tension.

Wouldn't exhausted punk be Joy Division?

Billy Joel's "The Entertainer"

Dunno about Joy Division. Depressed sure, but still more electrifying than exhausted to my ears.

I'd pick the Jam's "That's Entertainment" for punk exhaustion.