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Dream On vs. Radio On: Massachusetts has a very Massachusetts fight over its official state rock song.
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| Contributor | 411 Name Removed |
| Last Edited | 411 Name Removed Mar 05, 2013 08:09pm |
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| Category | News |
| Author | Jack Hamilton |
| News Date | Wednesday, March 6, 2013 02:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
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Anyone who’s watched a Boston Red Sox home victory in recent years will recognize the Standells’ 1966 hit “Dirty Water.” It’s a rude, brutish song whose opening riff sounds like someone heard Keith Richards’ intro to “Satisfaction” and thought it too pretentious. “Dirty Water” was once a charming relic of ’60s trash-rock, but the Fenway faithful have bludgeoned it into a musical symbol for all that’s despised about Boston sports fans: the gloating tribalism, the thin-skinned vanity that mistakes itself for self-awareness. The song’s dumbness lurches from delightful toward despicable with each fist-pump to its refrain, “Boston, you’re my home.” The Standells, of course, were from California.
“Dirty Water” has thankfully not figured in to the new controversy that’s tearing apart the Bay State, namely the fight over the Commonwealth’s official state rock song. In the past three weeks, competing bills have been put before the state legislature, and, at the time of this writing, there’s no resolution in sight. In one corner is the Modern Lovers’ “Roadrunner,” beneficiary of a months-long grass-roots effort by Boston music maven and activist Joyce Linehan (who was herself inspired by a 2007 essay about the song in the Guardian) and state representative Marty Walsh. In the other is Aerosmith’s “Dream On,” the hard-charging late-comer backed by representatives Josh Cutler and James Cantwell (in true Massachusetts form, all of these people are Democrats). At first glance it’s an argument over two irreconcilable ideals of rock music and rock fandom, one that’s raised the hackles of everyone from the Boston Globe to Gawker to the BBC. Other states have named state rock songs—Ohio, Oklahoma, Washington—and have done so without drawing international attention. But Massachusetts has never minded attention, and something about this fight is distinctly of the Commonwealth, its every insecurity writ large, or hilar |
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