Dear Dave

David Lee Roth answers your questions about life, love and the pursuit of happiness.

Dear Dave:

I’m writing you because my 26 year old son Phil has decided to throw away his life on drugs. It started with drinking and smoking pot in high school, and by the time he was 21, he was hooked on crystal meth. Dave, he’s abandoned his wife and 4 year old son and when we refuse to give him money he steals from us. We took him to see our pastor, then tried family counselling. We even paid for him to go to an expensive rehab center, which he left after 4 days. We’re at the end of our rope, Dave, but don’t want to stand by idly while he kills himself. What should we do?

-Heartbroken in Peoria

Dear Heartbroken:

“I was watching television one night and it was the five o’clock news and there was a fellow standing on top of the Arco Towers in Los Angeles and he was about to check out early, he was going to do the 33 stories drop - and there was a whole crowd of people in the parking lot downstairs yelling “Don’t jump, don’t jump” and I thought to myself, “Jump.” So, I wrote it down and ultimately it made in onto the record”

The Moral: As hard as it might be, we can’t help someone who won’t help themselves. The challenge you face is to find some way to transform this tragedy so that others might benefit from it. More specifically, try writing a totally rockin’ #1 song about it. Nothing is quite as transformative as fame and sweet yankee dollars, baby.

California: A Stately Pleasure Dome

As a kid growing up in Canada I was told of a promised land south of the border, where the people were enlightened and progressive.

“In California…” they’d tell me “they study Rush lyrics as poetry !!”

I could only marvel that such a magical place existed. The poetic nature of the band’s work wasn’t news to me. In fact, Rush’s songs had helped me through many a pre-teen crisis. Like the time I discovered a new technology that could add richness and individual expression to the lives of the masses, only to have my discovery suppressed by higher powers within the solar federation. I thought I was all alone in the universe until I heard sections IV. (Oracle: the Dream) and V. (Soliloquy) of 2112 and knew that somebody out there understood. It was a truly liberating feeling.

The poetry of Rush has touched me in a special place. This is why I was disgusted to hear that there was a scam artist copying their work and passing it off as his own. I don’t know who this “Samuel Taylor Coleridge” guy is, but I wish he’d cut it out.

As proof, check out these lyrics from “Xanadu” which are credited to Rush on their 1977 album Farewell To Kings.

To seek the sacred river Alph
To walk the caves of ice
To break my fast on honeydew
And drink the milk of Paradise…

Compare that to these excerpts from Coleridge’s “Kubla Khan” which, to the best of my knowledge first appeared in the Norton Anthology of Poetry in 1986.

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree :
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran…

…It was a miracle of rare device,
A sunny pleasure-dome with caves of ice !

… For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Like I said, I don’t know who this Samuel Taylor Coleridge is, but I bet they aren’t studying his lyrics as poetry in California.

Greatness is intimidating

In Irving Layton’s poem “Shakespeare”, his son asks him who the greatest poet is. Layton answers “Shakespeare” to which his son responds “will you ever be greater than him?”. After much consideration, Layton has to confess that no, he’ll never be better than Shakespeare: “there’s nothing to be done about that bastard’s unsurpassable greatness”.

That’s much the same way I feel while listening to ZZ Top’s Greatest Hits. Damn you Top !! Someday my son may ask me exactly what I did when I was younger. I’ll probably look at my shoes and tell him what I didn’t do. Write “Pearl Necklace”. That was the Top.

It isn’t just the quality of the material that leaves one feeling distinctly average, it’s the variety. “Legs” is done in one style, while “Sharp Dressed Man” or “Gimme All Your Lovin’” could be completely different bands. When one of those songs comes on the radio, nobody is going to say “it’s one of those ones with the car and the fuzzy guitars in the video, but I can’t tell them apart”. You can bet on it.

In the final analysis, it’s the scope and relentlessly high quality of the band’s output that intimidates. Shakespeare would have been great had he only written sonnets, so the plays almost seem to be taunting you with your lack of greatness. Similarly, one listens to “Sleeping Bag” and thinks “let me up, Top, I’ve had enough” only to get hit with “Planet of Women” immediately after. Some might say this album is “all killer, no filler”, but in honor of Shakespeare I prefer “all gossamer, no dun”. I think the Top would prefer that too.