NOBODY has mentioned this here yet? What in ALL THAT IS FUCK is wrong with you people?! He was the explosion, the originator, the innovator, the emancipator, the first punk rocker, the first gender-bender, HE WAS
IT. It's the kind of music that goes through your skin and gives you spasms on a subatomic level and blows up your sorry-ass molecules, it's the highest form of art, motherfuckers.
Jenny Jenny
Heeby Jeebies
Ooh! My Soul
Keep A Knockin'
The equipment wasn't meant to be treated this way. The needle is still in the red. —Tom Waits on the above.
A more, um, general take by Robyn Hitchcock:
The most important thing in the world — it's sitting on the couch. It's got spiky hair, it's defiant. It's filling itself with garbage. It's got garbage in little pots, and it's eating it. As it expands, it begins to eat itself as well. It feeds on itself. It feeds on its own excrement. It's delighted. It's very very happy. The more it comes out, the more it rubs into its hair. It's really pleased. It doesn't say hello when its parents walk into the room. It's that defiant. It raids the fridge completely disrespectfully. It may take, you know, two or three pickles out of the jar at a time. It stares out of the window. It doesn't wear its glasses in bad light. It smokes cigarettes. Sometimes it blunders into a manhole and spends days walking through the sewers. But it's not repentant. When it finally comes home, there's no "Hello, Mom. Hello, Dad. Where have I been?" — it's just, "I stink, and you're pleased to see me." It's the great civilizing force of the 20th Century. It's ROCK 'N' ROLL.