Fluxblog
July 31st, 2018 2:34am

Nothing Happening At All


The Velvet Underground “Rock and Roll”

You know how if you put a seashell to your ear you can “hear the ocean” in its hollow? The guitar chords of “Rock & Roll” are sorta like that, but the space between strums contains faint echoes of the Manhattan of the late 1960s. You can feel it in the tone, and in the attack – a hustling groove, but played with a bit of “so what?” slack. I’ve never been to that version of Manhattan, but I’m certain that’s the sound of it. It sounds just like it.

“Rock & Roll” is meant to do this. It’s designed to evoke New York City, and conjure a romanticized vision of a space full of exciting people where you’re not, but could someday be. The entire song is about the way sound can take you where you need to go, if only you can just hear it. The girl in the song, a stand-in for Lou Reed as a young man, finds love and life and meaning on the radio. The “New York station” is a beacon for everyone in range of its transmission.

When Lou Reed wrote “her life was saved by rock & roll,” that sentiment was not the corny Pinterest cliché it is today. The need for escape was far more urgent, the stakes were much higher. “Rock & Roll” expresses the joy of finding your people, even if you haven’t really met them yet. The sound is a map, and it takes you to a place. In this case, it’s Manhattan and it’s 1969.

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  1. Bill Angove says:

    I like the song! I’d never heard it before. I’d love to go to New York City one day. I’d like to go and watch the Mets baseball team.

    I’m 35 now but when I was a teenager I wanted to go to America, because in the movies everyone there lives in massive houses and there’s always a happy ending, and of course all the movies come from America and the movies are the only information we had about America. I had a friend who watched Neighbours (an Australian soap opera), and he wanted to go to Australia. I guess American teens dream of New York, or maybe England (my boring, dreary country) or maybe Japan.


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