Yellow Submarine

For a long time, I didn't like The Beatles. They weren't real rockers, I'd say. The first 'Boy Band', was the epithet that I handed out to them. All that changed when I first heard "Norwegian Wood". Then other stuff started making sense, and I picked up other old bands like CCR. Rolling Stones still sucks, by the way. Wannabes...

And I used to publicly decry The Beatles, and (may I say it in the same breath?) even Bob Dylan. And at some time, quite recently, new age bands like Linkinpark.

The point of all this being?

No one's ready to debate with with me about exactly what it is that they like about the stuff that is trance (Rap, R&B etc. people still allude to singing).

I'm not saying that I'd listen to it with a dispassionate mind. I'm heavily opinionated. But, I'm also old. Older at any rate.

I happen to have a set of criteria for music. Essentially the same old classical stuff. Meter, notes, chords, lyrics, mood, and of course, lastly the tune. Debating the tune of a song is as insulting as talking about the syntax of a language, grammatical correctness of written communication, the smoothness of a spirit, the truthfulness in a relationship, the taste (not flavour) of food... it is a forgone conclusion.

Beats per minute? I know of human percussionists who can do more BPMs than the ear can tell apart.

I remember a short story by a popular author, a sci-fi thingi, that talked about a Utopian society. It was a society where all aggression was weeded out. Some poor fellow finds some Dylan songs (in print), and causes a revolution. And it's believable. I believe Trance can't do that.

It can't make people think.

That's the difference between good rock songs and great rock songs. Great rock songs make you think.

And this is the dissertation that I can't seem to make when I'm with my friends who listen to trance. I can't get them to make comparisons between the two, along the kind of arguments that I've posed just now.

Now, I shall go ahead and undo the entire dissertation by saying that there is such a thing as free will.

There is such a thing as free will. And people are free to chose, at least in this country, last time I heard, what kind of music they want to listen to.

It still makes a nice drunken conversation, if you are willing to entertain me. Like all other drunken discussions, it is guaranteed last and have no result in sight.

And in case you're wondering about the title of this post, what I've dared to talk about makes it amply clear...

Maybe my opinions should've been darker?

P.S. The lyrics are here.