11/30/2018

Best Rock Song of All Time

Credit: Wikipedia
https://is.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jimmy_Page
I've been hearing people say Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven is the best rock song of all time since  the 1970's. I'm here to say they are all flat wrong.

Contrary to what you might think, Stairway to Heaven is NOT the best rock song of all time. Not even close. Stairway to Heaven is a ballad. While it's not a bad song it's really only fit for listening while recovering from a hangover. Or if you're pining for a lost lover. Stairway to Heaven does not lead up like a real stairway. Just the opposite. It just sends people into a downward spiral of depression and self-loathing.

The best rock song of all time and in all of history is Humble Pie's version of I Don't Need No Doctor. Specifically the version found on their 1971 album Performance Rockin the Fillmore.

Anyone who hears I Don't Need No Doctor instantly recognizes that it is superior in every way.  Especially the part about 8 minutes in when the band comes back from the quiet interlude and explodes with the refrain and the crowd erupts in cries of ecstasy. Lead singer Steve Marriott is possessed by Satan. The entire band is not singing the song but shouting it at the top of their lungs. The experience is like shooting adrenaline directly into your heart.

I Don't Need No Doctor was written by R&B geniuses Nickolas Ashford and Valerie Simpson (Ashford and Simpson). That's what makes it so soulful and amazing.  Zeppelin ripped off Randy California to get Stairway to Heaven, while Humble Pie made I Don't Need No Doctor their own by using raw talent and sheer rock force That concludes my TED Talk. Thanks for coming.


11/29/2018

A New Book

I just submitted a book proposal to a publisher. It's a story about a slick-talking Manhattan conman who travels around the country promising country bumpkins everything they desire. At first they believe him but after a couple of years realize they've been taken for fools. My editor rejected the idea because no one would believe it.