[max_power29]

Ever since I became aware of what's really going on (peak oil and whatnot), I've seen the song Highway to Hell by AC/DC in whole new light. Before I only thought of it as purely a rock'n'roll party anthem. However, it is totally a peak oil song about 90 percent of 'murricans. Angus has been tryin' to tell us something profound for years. Consider the lyrics:

Living easy, living free
Season ticket on a one-way ride
Asking nothing, leave me be
Taking everything in my stride
Don't need reason, don't need rhyme
Ain't nothing I would rather do
Going down, party time
My friends are gonna be there too

I'm on the highway to hell

No stop signs, speed limit
Nobody's gonna slow me down
Like a wheel, gonna spin it
Nobody's gonna mess me round
Hey Satan, payed my dues
Playing in a rocking band
Hey Momma, look at me
I'm on my way to the promised land

I'm on the highway to hell
(Don't stop me)

And I'm going down, all the way down
I'm on the highway to hell

-We (americans are literally on the highway to hell)!

[KevO]

It seems to me that you are a night prowler or some sort of problem child sending this cheap mail.
A dirty deed done dirt cheap no doubt. Not an expolosive TNT post is it?
Ride On
Gone shootin

Rosie

[Omnitir]

It’s barely about anything except rocking/partying hard. When Young and Scott were pissed out of their mind in a Melbourne pub penning those lyrics, you can be pretty sure that they weren’t thinking of the profound implications of hydrocarbon depletion. Saying otherwise is as bad as saying that the bible predicted peak oil!

AC/DC rock, by the way. Best Aussie band ever.

[gg3]

Speaking from professional experience in the music industry (recording/production), most songwriters in the rock tradition and its lineage don't sit down and deliberately compose lyrics with a specific set of goals and meanings in mind. Instead the process is largely spontaneous, and the specific choices of words are often made on the basis of the sound of the words as sung, i.e. the melodic and rhythmic qualities of words as they interact with other instruments and parts of a song.

What I often saw went like this: You start with a jam -the musical equivalent of random brainstorming; then you hit on a part that everyone feels is good; then you refine that part and create other parts to knit together into the musical component of the song; and then the singer/songwriter joins in with nonverbal vocals that are musically consistent with the sound of the song thus far; then the singer/songwriter refines that material into words, and then finally writes out lyrics and refines the written lyrics. The result of all of this is a song in its raw form, which is then played live for audiences and further refined based on their responses to it.

And also, quite specifically, starting with a set of lyrics and then trying to build a song around that, usually produces results that sound terribly stiff and contrived. There are probably exceptions, songwriters and bands who can pull this off, but not that I saw.

A songwriter often has a general idea of what s/he is going for, a feeling or an idea or a visual image of a story line or other theme. And what makes good song lyrics popular is the same thing that makes religious scriptures timeless: the ability for a given set of words to fit a wide range of actual situations and experiences, depending on the context that each audience member has in their own heart/mind/soul. The intended meaning (what the songwriter is thinking/feeling) may have little or nothing to do with the perceived meaning (what the audience member brings to the experience of listening to the song).

What "Highway to Hell" is "about," is *the feeling of exuberant recklessness,* which is something almost every person has experienced in some way and can relate to. And it uses a set of metaphors that are virtually universally understood by AC/DC's audiences. Now it turns out that those metaphors had a kind of prescient quality to them in light of present circumstances. But the converse is also true; here on this board we use language such as "party 'til you drop" as metaphor to refer to the energy crisis.

This is not an instance of reductionism applied to art; but an acknowledgement that creative works are at their best when they are most universal, and that each individual audience member is also a participant in the creative synthesis.

Audience members tend to externalize the sense of meaning entirely into the band, but in fact it's something they also participate in creating. I used to tell this to kids at shows (in the appropriate language for the context), speaking as a member of a band's crew, and almost always it "blew their minds" and gave them a sense of their own capacity for inspiration that they never expected to discover.

[max_power29]

Good points everybody. Of course I didn't really mean literally that AC/DC were thinking specifically thinking of hydrocarbon depletion, but yeah that "reckless exuberance...and whanot".

I've had a feeling for a long time that something was profoundly wrong and that the party could not go on forever...Which led me to eventually learning about peak oil, debt-based global uber-growth economy, and other peak resources (peak environment destruction?) Maybe AC/DC has had this feeling too. (I know im projecting) but "Hell" is a pretty strong word.

On another note, I think Jimmy Buffett is an excellent example of writing lyrics first. although I think he does use at least a six-string while song writing before the coral reefers help him write the rest of the music. But yeah I agree AC/DC is about first and foremost ROCKING and secondly the actual lyrics.

Anyway rock-on everybody!

[sklump]

Next up, same topic name.

Suppose I get myself a bike generator to charge a battery. Pardon the naive question, but what magic box do I need to plug my AC appliances into it? Does anyone know where I can get such a thing?

- Stephen

PS - re: Postmodernism vs. AC/DC, I think you may be trying to get blood from a stone here. I don't think there's that much in it, fun stuff as it is. My favourite lyric to yell out over rock and roll is, "MUL-LET! MUUUULLL-LEHHHHI-YEHH-YEA-YET!" It scans gorgeously.

[gnm]

What you need is an inverter... produces AC from DC current. Most inverters produce an approximation of sine wave (clean AC) power by a stepping method. There are also pure sine wave inverters out there but they are more expensive. Inverters run from 30 watts on up to tens of thousands of watts. I am afraid you will find that trying to charge a battery by human power will barely keep a light going for you. Try wind or solar PV...

-G

[sklump]

I'm in good shape; I can manage 100 Watts for an hour at a time; that will produce enough charge for a small appliance for a half-hour.

Clearly, this would be a back-up / stopgap measure while I muster enough money to get the real (solar) system.

[max_power29]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('sklump', ' ')My favourite lyric to yell out over rock and roll is, "MUL-LET! MUUUULLL-LEHHHHI-YEHH-YEA-YET!" It scans gorgeously.