It Might Be The Devil Or It Might Be The Lord
If you know the song the title is from, it's probably already stuck in your head.
I recently read a phenomenal blog post written by Ted Gioia. The central thesis of the piece was based on research from the 1960’s by a researcher named Andrew Neher. He discovered that if you listen to music long enough, your brainwaves shift to match the musical rhythms of what you are listening to. Exposure to music physically altered the makeup of our brainwaves and induced a trance-like euphoric state.
Mr. Gioia contrasts the conclusion of the study with the nature of the modern song form. Modern songs, mostly due to commercial and technologically imposed limitations, max out at three or maybe four minutes. The effects of music on the brain only kick in when a similar rhythmic pattern and structure last for around ten minutes. In other words, music achieves its maximum effect when individual songs are ten minutes of length or more. Compared to the modern three-minute song and it is quite a contrast. So much of the power of music is neutered because of the rigid format that we assemble it into. The piece goes on to deconstruct the live scene and offer that the unconscious understanding of the importance of the “trance-like state” is the basis for the common practice of live renditions of songs to take significantly longer than the recorded versions. Additionally, and I think this is crucial, he points towards the tendency of the rabid music fan to listen to a new track on near endless loop.
“Listeners clearly crave songs that are longer than the short tunes favored by commercial radio or most curated playlists. This explains why fans will play their favorite song over and over—they are simply trying to get into a quasi-trance state, and a hit single that ends after three minutes prevents them from doing this.”
There are many areas that this could springboard into. If I were a fan of Phish for example, this would be a great way to describe the attraction of their frenzied jam sessions. If I listened to more classical music, I could point to hundreds of tracks that tap into their ten-minute paradigm. In country, it is far more difficult to find examples of this. One track, not quite ten minutes, but still significantly longer than the norm, after reading this blog post really stuck with me as a prime example of this idea.
At first, the appeal was a simple search for Alan Jackson deep cuts. A Spotify playlist dutifully pulled up a long list of Alan Jackson songs and I embarked on a shuffled journey throughout a string of Alan Jackson cuts. A song came on. It was pleasant. Perhaps a little less twangy than the typical Alan fare. I soon forgot it and moved on. Sometime later, I recalled the song and gave it an internet search. To my surprise, it was not on an Alan Jackson album nor was it an original cut. As it turns out, it was a cover of the classic Rolling Stones song “Wild Horses” and Alan Jackson recorded it on a Muscle Shoals tribute album. A great rendition of an all-time tune. Alan Jackson has a reputation as a straight down the middle country act and that certainly is deserved. However, he has been want to stretch himself on occasion. His 2006 album, Like Red on a Rose and his 2013 bluegrass album are both essential listening if you want to hear another side to one of the greatest country artists of the last thirty years.
However, the song that really stuck out to me on this tribute album to the Muscle Shoals studio was a cover of the Bob Dylan song Gotta Serve Somebody. The spiritual nature of the title intrigued me, but what really made me instantaneously drop everything and give the song a listen was the absolutely stacked lineup of singers featured on this track. Jamey Johnson. Willie Nelson. Chris Stapleton. Lee Ann Womack. It is only human to start salivating like a tourist at a Texas barbeque joint for the first time after reading the lineup.
I was transported on first listen. The arrangement is a delicate creature of organ and harmonica bouncing softly of each other. Jamey Johnson and his gruff baritone join the mix. As the vocals transition to the unmistakable tones of Willie Nelson, an acoustic guitar is introduced into the mix as the perfect Nelsonian companion of trigger has been for all the decades past. A choir transposes the key and summons the gritty bluesy guitars and drums to the song along with the rich and personable voice of Chris Stapleton. And then to top it off, the angelic voice of Lee Ann Womack puts the defining touches on the powerful solo sections of the song.
The song continues into the second verse with the singers effortlessly cutting in and around each other. The distinctive voices maintain their unique tonal identities yet blend harmoniously together whilst preaching the powerful message of the Dylan penned song. I’m particularly partial to the back and forth between Womack and Stapleton on the upper range of the vocals with Jamey Johnson supplying a gruff lower harmony as if he is needed to stabilize Chris and Lee Ann from taking off into the stratosphere. Willie almost devolves the melody into spoken word with his harmonic interpretation and it really brings out the meaning and flavor of the lyrics in the way only a seasoned vocalist can do. It is truly a magnificent piece of music.
It was only after I emerged from the mesmerizing reverie of the song that I realized the song was over eight minutes in length. I was surprised. It had barely felt like it was half the length of that. Upon reflection, I realized something. Most music, especially the burnished commercialized music fed to us nowadays, not only is usually three minutes maximum, but is genuinely incapable of stretched out further. The songs are too simple and the arrangements too shallow for the song to be much longer than a few minutes without needless repetition and uninspired repeating of choruses ad infinitum. To make a compelling long song, you need to thread a thin line of having a consistent core of repetition along with engaging and experimental elements to maintain novelty throughout. The obnoxious contrived dance remixes of popular country songs in the 1990s needed intentionally long stretches of bland drum beats only to top out at the five-minute mark. And to be honest, by the time those remixed versions of the song end, you are bored. In contrast, this eight-minute long song had me rapturously connected to the soul of the music for the amount of time that the radio would play three songs. It really was my first and nearly my only experience with a singular song inducing me into the “trance like state” described by Ted Gioia. It is an experience I will chase for it was that powerful a day when I stumbled upon the Muscle Shoals tribute cover of Gotta Serve Somebody.
Joe
It has been a doozy of a month. Hope yall enjoy. Hopefully I’ll have more time to put into this next month. There are some music reviews and some intriguing blog post ideas that are bouncing around my brain that I will try to get onto pixel.
Link to the Gioia article which inspired the post: