Pure Punk Picks
Sex And Dying In High Society – X
“You started out this way. You’d do anything to stay.”
The lyrics and tone are angry and accusing. Also, wild and wanton, true and passionate. And against the dull placid music of the day they shined real and brightly at the time, like a pearl spotted amongst some tattered debris in a gutter.
X is one of my favorite bands of all time. And they are one of the best live bands I’ve ever seen, though I never did see them live until the nineties! But I’ve caught them three times since and each time they were phenomenal.
I believe, like The Clash, they are the best examples of the link between fifties rock’n’roll and punk, two of my favorite styles of music. I feel that punk, not rock music, is the real extension of rock’n’roll.
And though, this might not be my favorite song by this band- and certainly, not their best known, it’s still a great one- that I feel compelled to write about.
Ray Manzarek, keyboard player of The Doors, produced the first three albums of X. Both bands were from L.A., though, of course, different decades- but he saw some of the same poetic brilliance in this band as he experienced with Jim Morrison. And his careening keyboards is understated, but adds greatly to many of the songs X recorded.
As in most X songs, the guitar and drums work in perfect precision, (the two experienced, very adept musicians of the band,) while the bassist/male singer and female singer just sling intense, poetic words conjuring realistic, sometimes harrowing scenes. The passion and emotion of the singers fit in perfectly against the sound framework creating a great dynamic.
Not many music genres are accustomed to letting skilled and not-so-skilled, musicians work together. But punk always has and still does to this day, accepting that passion and emotion and ideas are more important than skill- and it is!
“And now you tell the maid to burn you on your back, with a curling iron. Hotter than hot! You say it’s good enough, you say it’s good enough, you say it’s good enough!”
What follows is my favorite line of the song-
“You say your pain is better than any kind of love.”
Though, I must admit the scenario is a bit ridiculous, that of a maid burning her madam’s back, at her request.
I feel it alludes to a rich person’s life where it’s often so vapid and meaningless, just floating through life in indulgence and self-centeredness. Never really hoping, never really striving, never really, fully achieving anything as everything is so easily, so freely, given to you.
A life lacking of any passion, any true desire, someone that will never experience any true joy or true sadness.
That’s “Sex And Dying In High Society.” The more they have the less, they truly have. Or maybe the less wealth of experience they have to choose from. The haves have all the money but, I feel, nothing really of worth, nothing I want, anyway. They have no love, no art, no true, strong feelings.
And they don’t have what is encapsulated in this song, wouldn’t even recognize it if it was brought right up in front of their eyes and ears.
That’s true, wild joy and pain! What exists in a richly, led life!
This song has an abundance of passion, guts and feelings and that’s something that money can’t buy.
I’ve thought about what if someone, somehow offered me millions of dollars with the only stipulation- that all of my memory, my love and desire for the music, art and literature that I’ve experienced and appreciated in my life somehow vanished, was evaporated from my mind.
And that I only liked the most mundane pop music, like Billy Joel. And that I had no appreciation of art. And that I had no desire to ever read a book.
Would I take the offer?
There’s no fucking way!
This song is as exciting as when the peak of sex occurs, it’s as real and definitive as dangling on the knife edge of life and death, or to balance on the thread between pleasure and pain.
This song contains all the riches anyone could amass, all the desires anyone could feel and enough emotion, passion and grit to fill and complete one’s lifetime.
And what is that- that I’m referring to?”
Why that’s “Sex And Dying In High Society!” My good man- You can feel it in your gut what I’m saying!
Do you even need to ask?
(Slimedog)
