Friday, July 29, 2005

John Lennon Comes to Grape Road

Something truly unsettling happened to me on Grape Road the other day and it’s all because of a song.  Not just any old song, but one of the most heartbreaking love songs ever recorded.  Here, let me play the opening of it: (music)

This is the beginning of John Lennon’s “Jealous Guy,” a song that sadly, but predictably, has been relegated to the oldies file.  I had always heard the song in a pretty clear manner: Lennon was having some problems with Yoko and out of their squabbles came one of the classic confessional tunes in rock and roll history.  Weirdly, though, I heard this song in one of those mega stores that dot our landscape.  So there I was putting light bulbs, tomatoes, and OJ into my basket one night, feeling a bit depressed about my sorry predicament, blinded by the fluorescent lights above me, and all of sudden I hear this song tumbling out of the speakers in the ceiling.  It awoke me from my induced passivity; Lennon’s trembling voice was all too clear.

Now, I had always understood the point of background music as rather straightforward.  It was used to put a little lilt into our step so that we’d buy that extra little goody, or, conversely, stop us merry customers--or “guests” in their lingo--from thieving.  But after hearing that piano, after hearing Lennon’s all-too sad voice and his mournful whistle, I now believe that playing this song goes well beyond the obvious rationale for Muzak.  I now think they played “Jealous Guy” in the hopes of making all of us behave differently once we left the confines of the store too.  You can’t help but hum along to it.  Are the powers that be now convinced that we will come back to their store because this song is now stuck in our head?  Such genius, such cruelty.

But back to the song.  The song’s lyrics are so spare and honest and harken back to the day when you could understand what rock stars were singing about.  Let me play some more of the song so that you can see what I mean: (music)

What is going on here?  When this work of art is being played on Grape Road all bets are off.  I have a sneaky feeling that when the store manager hit the play button for this song he was apologizing to all of us tired shoppers for getting us to come into his store and buy things that were probably not that good for us.  So, who is apologizing here?  How could they do this to me?  To Lennon?  To the very ideals of Muzak? Let me play a bit more of the song: (music)

God, if this song doesn’t get to you nothing will.  It would also seem to be bullet-proof to abuse and yet, as much as I can’t get the song out of my head, I also can’t get out of my head the truly subversive thing that that store on Grape Road has accomplished by playing it.  Authorial intent has now been decidedly lost, and “Jealous Guy” is now part and parcel of consumer America.  By this very act I feel I am looking into the real “Heart of Darkness” within modern America.

The only solace I take from this whole, sad affair is that outside of the Dakota apartments in New York, where John and Yoko lived (and where Yoko still lives), stands a guy who holds up a sign that says “Still pissed at Yoko.” I couldn’t have said it any better myself.  I can be a jealous guy too.  But these days, I guess, I’m just a consumer.

Broadcast by Jonathan Nashel on July 29, 2005
Arts & Entertainment • Commerce • Women & Men • Permalink • Printer Friendly
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