Lyrically speaking, it’s a long, long way from Leonard Cohen to Bad Company, but one of my readers recommended Straight Shooter and it just so happened that I needed a shot of sex-drenched rock ‘n’ roll to cure my soul right fucking now.
Though I loved the experience of trying to decode those bits of Leonard’s literary genius, a lot of work was involved and I had to pull an all-nighter to publish the review on time. No such effort is required to understand the songs on Straight Shooter; in fact, I can sum up the meaning of all the songs in a jiffy!
- #1: “Get the fuck out of here, you cheating bitch!”
- #2 “Let’s fuck!”
- #3 “I’m sorry I was a jerk and I promise to make it up to you.”
- #4: “Rock ‘n’ Roll stardom is not for the faint of heart.”
- #5: “Thanks for the fuck, honey, but I’m not the marrying kind.”
- #6: “My balls are about to explode!”
- #7: “I’m the luckiest guy in the world.”
- #8: “Let’s do a soft crotch rock version of Bill Withers’ ‘Lean on Me’!”
That is not a knock on Bad Company. They simply weren’t designed to become the T.S. Eliots of rock ‘n’ roll, and neither I nor their fans would have wanted them to go there.
Bad Company is classified as a rock, hard rock, or (according to Rolling Stone) “crotch rock” band. Beyond the genre/sub-genre game, the band meets all of the qualifications described in the article “Going Against the Grain: The True Meaning of Rock ‘n’ Roll” provided by an unnamed blogger on Innovative Entertainment.
Rock ‘n’ roll is a form of music that is primal, passionate, and rebellious. It expresses the emotions of angst, anger, and lust in some of the only ways that are accepted by society. The history of this edgy music genre dates back to the 1950s. It was formed by a combination of the blues, gospel music, and country. Throughout the decades, rock ‘n’ roll has evolved and become famous for being the genre that’s continued to push the boundaries of music, and, sometimes, the cultural boundaries of society itself.
Rock ‘n’ roll pushed the cultural boundaries of society because it was primal, passionate and rebellious, and expressing lust was a large part of the rebelliousness. As Sam Kemp noted in Far Out Magazine, “In the 1950s, the dance floor became one of the few places where sexual desire could be expressed freely. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise; ‘rock ‘n’ roll’ was originally a slang term for sex, after all.” Many of the lyrics in the 50s and early 60s rock songs consisted of euphemisms and vocalizations that hinted at sexuality, but as the years passed and the sexual revolution progressed, more explicit depictions of sexual desire became commonplace. Bad Company staked a claim as one of the leaders of that movement with songs like “Can’t Get Enough of Your Love” and “Ready for Love” on their debut album.
I don’t know about you, but the last thing I want to hear from a sex partner is a poetry recital. I want to hear moans, grunts, screams of delight and naughty talk—the sounds you hear when Paul Rodgers gets it up. I would therefore argue that Bad Company’s lyrics are just as effective as Leonard Cohen’s, but in a different way. Context is everything.
The band’s follow-up album continues their exploration of eroticism while expanding their approach to include greater dynamic variation, the frequent use of vocal harmonies and more diverse instrumentation. Recorded a mere three months after the release of their massively successful maiden album, the band sounds tighter and more confident. Though I would have been happy with an album that featured nothing but sex songs, Paul Rodgers chose to veer from that path to create a song for the ages and Simon Kirke adds a touch of sweetness to the mix with his two compositions.
With cigarettes by my side in case of a music-induced orgasm, I am ready to rock the fuck out!
*****
“Good Lovin’ Gone Bad” (Ralphs): This is one of approximately one billion songs that have been written about cheating lovers. “Good Lovin’ Gone Bad” falls somewhere in between “Runaround Sue” (where the victim still longs for the bitch) and “Cathy’s Clown” (where to be taken for a fool is considered the ultimate in emasculation).
More to the point, it’s a great opening song that wastes no time confirming Bad Company’s rock ‘n’ roll credentials. The hips start to grind immediately after Simon Kirke’s thumping introduction when Mick Ralphs steps up to the plate to deliver the central riff loaded with blessed distortion. When Boz Burrell joins the party to give the syncopated transition passage a suitably strong bottom, the hips shift to thrust mode and I’m “ready for love!” The core of the song is loaded with power chords in the key of A major, a solid choice by Ralphs that allows Rodgers to sing at the top of his range, where his voice can convey the shock and angst of a guy whose woman has betrayed him.
If I hear you knocking hard up on my door
Ain’t no way that I’m gonna answer it
‘Cause cheating is one thing and lying is another
And when I say it’s over that’s it I’m gonna quit, yeah
Yeah, yeah, yeahNow I ain’t complaining, just tryin’ to understand
What makes a woman do the things she does
One day she’ll love you, the next day she’ll leave you
Why can’t we have it just the way it used to be? Ooh
Why can’t we have it baby?
At this point, the music slows down and the volume drops in sync with a downward melodic shift that not only gives Rodgers a break from peak range intensity but provides a more suitable background for expressing vulnerability
‘Cause I’m a man, I got my pride
I don’t need no woman to hurt me inside
I need a love like any other, yeah
Immediately after that admission, the anger swells up as he raises his voice and closes the verse with “So go on and leave me, leave me for another,” and the band returns to full power for the chorus and keeps on driving through Mick’s blistering, no-nonsense solo, triggering orgasm #1 and the need for a cigarette.
“Good Lovin’ Gone Bad” was the first single release from the album, and Cashbox noted that “Bad Company has helped define ’70s rock and roll and this song may be their most definitive statement.” The single only managed to make it into the top 40, in part because the second single proved that record buyers were more interested in fucking than infidelity.
And here it is!
“Feel Like Makin’ Love” (Rodgers-Ralphs): I love it when a songwriting duo merges disparate ideas into a match made in heaven. “A Day in the Life” is a shining example, but this one is even more impressive because the merging involved a gap of seven years. From Songfacts:
Vocalist Paul Rodgers began writing the song when he was touring with his band Free in 1968 in San Francisco. He recalled to Uncut: “The inspiration was somebody I had met at the time. Life experiences. I traveled, hitchhiking, up to Rio Nido and camped out in the woods with some people I had met. I was gone for days. It was a wonderful experience to be young and free in America in the ‘60s.”
Several years after Rodgers wrote the song, he played it to Bad Company guitarist Mick Ralphs, who came up with some big chords for the chorus. Ralphs recalled: “I came up with the riff, and I suggested we put the two together to create a song. I think that’s the feel of the song, the verses are very appealing to the ladies, probably more than the men; and then the riff comes in which is all bloody macho. It’s a big chorus and it worked out really well.”
Hold on, there, pardner—ladies love both! We appreciate it when you open the festivities with sweet nothings and tender kisses followed by no-holds-barred machismo—another match made in heaven! If you do the first without the second, we get bored, and if you do the second without the first, we just think you’re a horny bastard who would fuck any woman who happens to cross your path.
Hmm. Maybe my next gig should be “advice columnist for the lovelorn and horny.”
Paul’s song was obviously influenced by the natural setting near the Russian River, resulting in a lovely, mellow composition with a folk-country feel. Supported by acoustic guitar and sweet call-and-response harmonies, Paul imbues his vocal with noticeable tenderness:
Baby, when I think about you
Think about love . . .
Darlin’ I don’t live without you
And your loe . . .If I had those golden dreams of my yesterday (yesterday)
I would wrap you
In the heaven
Feel it dyin’ (dyin’, dyin’) all the way
I’d bet that when fans first heard the song, they thought, “This is nice, but where’s the Bad Company I know and love?”
Comin’ right up!
Feel like makin’
Feel like makin’ love
Feel like makin’ love
Feel like makin’ love
Feel like makin’ love to you
Mick’s “bloody macho” addition approximates the act of fornication as well as any other song you care to mention. The pattern of two ba-bas from Burell’s bass followed by Mick’s crashing BOOM punctuated by Kirke’s drums forms a series of ba-ba-BOOM moments that mimic the thrust of a man who means business. Paul’s all-out vocals confirm that he’s ready to get down and dirty . . . and goddamn it, I need another cigarette! I know they’re going to repeat the chorus several times, and Mick’s going to respond to Paul’s increasing intensity with seriously hot riffs high on the fretboard, so I have to make sure I smoke slowly enough so I don’t have to light up again and blow through my five-per-day limit when they come at me with a series of orgasm-inducing rockers.
Fuck! My plan failed when I had a petite mort during the fade! Only two left!
Those of you who may be uncomfortable with my openness regarding sex can relax now, because the next two songs are fuck-free.
“Weep No More” (Kirke): In another unexpected development, Bad Company chose to open this song with a string section providing contrast to Mick’s bluesy riffs. My initial reaction was “what the hell?” but it makes more sense once you listen to the song all the way through.
The curious intro leads to a song with a light rock beat, with Paul Rodgers taking a turn on the piano while Mick continues to provide blues riff counterpoints. An organ makes a brief appearance in the second verse, adding a touch of Lee Michaels to the piece. Paul strikes the right tone with his excellent vocal, his voice conveying regret and empathy for the woman he left behind.
Dry your eyes
Don’t you shed no tears
The sun is risin’
So, put away your fears
‘Cause I know I once done you wrong
I want to say I’m sorry
And I’m comin’ back home
So, don’t you weep no more
Don’ t you weep no more
The passage that convinced me of the value of the string section arrives when the light rock of the verses disappears and the strings make a return visit in the bridge, moving from melancholy support to a passionate crescendo in sync with Paul’s equally melancholic and passionate vocal:
I hear your voice in the wind
And I feel your tears in the rain
Shadows of night are falling
Don’t you hear me call your name?
Aha—so the strings in the intro served as a bit of compositional foreshadowing! Way to go, Simon!
The bridge is followed by a slick lead guitar solo from Mick over the light rock beat, leading to the closing verses and one last appearance of the string section at the end of the song. “Weep No More” may not strike you as something in the band’s sweet spot, but it shows that Bad Company was capable of much more than crotch rock.
“Shooting Star” (Rodgers): Paul had a story to tell, and like the best storytellers (O Henry and come to mind), he allows the reader to believe the story is about this before revealing it’s about that. For the first half of the song, we are led to believe that the “Shooting Star” is about how the Beatles inspired a young lad’s dream of rock stardom while gently reminding the wannabe that the music business can be a fickle beast and that success often has a lifespan approximating the flashes in the sky during a meteor storm:
Johnny was a schoolboy when he heard his first Beatles song
‘Love Me Do,’ I think it was, from there it didn’t take him long
Got himself a guitar, used to play every night
Now he’s in a rock ‘n’ roll outfit and everything’s all rightDon’t you know?
Johnny told his mama, “Hey, Mama, I’m goin’ away
I’m gonna hit the big time, gonna be a big star someday,” yeah
Mama came to the door with a teardrop in her eye
Johnny said, “Don’t cry, Mama,” smiled and waved good-byeDon’t you know, yeah yeah
Don’t you know that you are a shooting star?
Don’t you know, don’t you know?
Don’t you know that you are a shooting star?
And all the world will love you just as long
As long as you areJohnny made a record, went straight up to number one
Suddenly everyone loved to hear him sing his song
Watching the world go by, surprising it goes so fast
Johnny looked around him and said, “Well, I made the big time at last,”Don’t you know, don’t you know
At this point, one might assume that Johnny will find out that stardom arrives with a whole lot of unwanted baggage, and like the lead character in
Johnny died one night, died in his bed
Bottle of whiskey, sleeping tablets by his head
Johnny’s life passed him by like a warm summer day
If you listen to the wind, you can still hear him play
Motivated by the deaths of the “27 Club,” Paul Rodgers intended the song to serve as a warning to musicians everywhere. In a Songfacts interview with Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, he said, “It was a sort of homage to the pitfalls of being in the rock world. You can let the success go to your head and you can get strung out and you can die. It’s very, very simple. And, unfortunately, it’s happening with alarming frequency to this day. Addiction will always be with us.” That last sentence proved to be painfully prophetic; a year after “Shooting Star” was released, Paul’s former Free bandmate Paul Kossoff died of a heroin overdose at the age of twenty-five.
In the brilliant study “How Common Is Drug and Alcohol Abuse Among Music Stars: A Statistical Analysis,” conducted by Daniel Parris for Stat Significant (on Substack), the author notes that “Every analysis I’ve conducted on music stardom suggests a kind of existential pain endured by many in this bizarre industry.” He backs up that assertion with one depressing trend: ” . . . I found music stars have one of the shortest lifespans of any profession, with an expectancy comparable to boxers, military figures, and race car drivers.” The list of musicians who chose to deal with that existential pain by using drugs and alcohol makes for dismal reading; the death toll reveals a tragedy beyond comprehension.
The arrangement is sheer perfection, with the verses toned down and backed by acoustic guitar and light drums in contrast to the full power display in the chorus, strengthened immensely by the three-part harmonies on “Don’t you know you are a shooting star.” The instrumental passage is one of my favorite Bad Company moments with Kirke pounding those drums, Burrell ripping off a series of hot bass riffs and Ralphs soaring to the heavens in his lead guitar solo. Under other circumstances, the instrumental break would easily trigger a few orgasms, but the song makes me too sad to think about getting off.
“Shooting Star” also turned out to be surprisingly anthemic. In the version on Live at Wembley, the band goes quiet while Paul prepares the audience to sing along with him. The verse he chose was the death verse, and while the big screen displayed a series of photographs of musicians who died too young, the audience matched Paul word for word on the verse and all the way through the chorus. I only hope that plenty of tears were shed by the participants.
“Deal with the Preacher” (Rodgers-Ralphs): This nasty rocker flips the script on a couple of traditions. Instead of “Let’s walk to the preacher,” Rodgers “can’t make a deal with the preacher.” Rather than ruling out making a deal with the devil, he “can’t make a bargain with heaven.” After sharing his need for a love “I’ve never known before” and convincing a woman who happened to drop by that a good fuck will do her a world of good, he thanks her for having “filled him with a stronger love” then drops the bomb: “Somehow I know it’s time for me to say goodbye.”
What we have here is a paranoid male slut with a penchant for biblical references who is terrified of making long-term commitments :
Angel, you came to my window
Angel, you came to my door
I was a fool and I let you in
I sure ain’t no fool anymore!
I suppose Rodgers could have taken a tip from Willie Dixon and named the song, “I’m a One-and-Done Man,” but I don’t think the little girls would have been able to understand. Despite the presence of rough guitar and a solid performance from Burrell on bass, the song fails to trigger an orgasm. The mix is a bit fuzzy and Paul gets drowned out by the guitars in the chorus and fade.
“Wild Fire Woman” (Rodgers-Ralphs): Under normal circumstances, this song would have triggered a fourth orgasm, depleting my cigarette inventory down to one, but a mondegreen got in my way. If you’re unfamiliar with the term, allow me to enlighten you. A mondegreen is “A series of words that result from the mishearing or misinterpretation of a statement or song lyric.” From Wikipedia: “The American writer Sylvia Wright coined the term in 1954, recalling a childhood memory of her mother reading the Scottish ballad “The Bonnie Earl o’ Moray”, and mishearing the words ‘laid him on the green’ as ‘Lady Mondegreen’ . . . ‘Blinded by the Light’, a cover of a Bruce Springsteen song by Manfred Mann’s Earth Band, contains what has been called ‘probably the most misheard lyric of all time.’ The phrase ‘revved up like a deuce’, altered from Springsteen’s original ‘cut loose like a deuce’, both lyrics referring to the hot rodders slang deuce (short for deuce coupé) for a 1932 Ford coupé, is frequently misheard as ‘wrapped up like a douche.’
Much to my great misfortune, my mondegreen appeared in the first line of the first verse. I heard “Gonna drive my car way across the border” as “Gonna drive my car way across the boner.” I don’t exactly know how he would have pulled off that feat, but the image of a crushed dick stuck in my head for days.
In my defense, the song is about a guy with a perpetual boner, which is why he’s driving like a madman to hook up with his Wild Fire Woman. You can hear his erection-driven angst in Paul’s vocal, which makes me feel sorry for the guy instead of getting a tingle in my dingle.
“Wild Fire Woman” is a solid rocker that deserved a better fate than ruination by a mondegreen, so I lit up an honorary cigarette in tribute to Paul and the band. Down to one with two songs to go!
“Anna” (Kirke): This song first appeared on the Kossoff Kirke Tetsu Rabbit one-time collaboration album back in 1972. All Music gave it a measly two stars, noting that “The problem with this side project, besides the unexceptional music, is that Paul Rodgers was a vastly better singer than Kirke or Bundrick. This album would be a fine addition for Free and Bad Company completists, but few others.”
Problem solved! The Bad Company version is a tad slower than the original, and Paul’s vocal transforms it into a sweet soul song. Kirke seems much happier on the kit, varying his attack with diverse fills and plenty of oomph in all the right spots. Rolling Stone critic Ed Naha gave the album a positive review but saved the typical Rolling Stone vitriol for this remake: “It was vapid then and age has not improved it. Hearing Paul Rodgers croon lines like ‘Got a sweet little angel/And I love her so/She’s there when I need her/She understands when I say go‘ is downright embarrassing.” Apparently Mr. Naha had never learned that giving your partner space to do his or her thing is essential to a successful relationship, so he can go fuck himself. To my ears, Paul shows no sign of embarrassment, savoring the pretty melody with genuine emotion.
“Call On Me” (Rodgers): I have to say I’m disappointed that the band failed to close the album with a bang, but at least “Call On Me” isn’t a whimper. The lyrics pretty much repeat the theme of Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me” (or the Four Tops’ “Reach Out I’ll Be There,” if you prefer) with only the slightest hint of libido in the form of the oft-repeated Bad Company promise “to keep you satisfied.” I do like the simple arpeggios on the piano and I love Mick’s soulful fills, so I wouldn’t call the song a throwaway . . . I just wanted to hear more crotch rock.
But at least I still have one last cigarette left for tonight’s post-sex ritual!
*****
Next week I’ll continue my exploration of the Moody Blues with a review of A Question of Balance, setting up an interesting compare-and-contrast look at the broad range of approaches to rock ‘n’ roll. While the Moodies proved they knew how to rock in their limited pure rock offerings, I can’t think of a single song of theirs I would describe as sexy, and I have a hard time imagining what a Moody Blues sex song would sound like. It simply wasn’t their bag (to use a term my dad throws around from time to time), just as progressive rock wasn’t Bad Company’s bag—and I’m grateful that they never tried to go there. I love all forms of rock ‘n’ roll, but I love it even more when the music gets me off.
Cheers!