Rock and roll has and probably always will be about fantasy. I’m not talking about C.S. Lewis or Tolkien type fantasy (although if you ever listened to Man-O-War, there is a special little home for that type of fantasy), I’m talking about all the stuff you wish you could have done if you had a magic wand to make it happen, but you were too busy being responsible, having a life, and trudging through the daily grind to even attempt to accomplish it. There are many rock and roll fantasies, but the ones that come up again and again involve fast cars, hot chicks, growing your hair long (absolutely essential for the hot chicks to give you the time of day), and guitar-playing skills that would make even Paul Gilbert go “Dude, slow down. What was that middle part again?”
While indulging in fantasies is great, and Lord knows everyone needs the escape… especially now, reality looms like an oncoming freight train at the end of every fantasy to remind you how small you really are. However, every once in a great while, rock and roll not only serves as escape route, but also as therapist. Rather than showing you the things that you can dream about but never really attain, it will identify with you where you are. The reason for this is that anyone who has busted their hump to get where they are or has gone through a period of difficult times before having a measure of success can identify with a rock band. Whether you know you can or not. Everyone sees the excess and luxury that successful rock bands experience. Very few people see what a band has to go through to attain that success. If you want to know why bands often flip the double middle finger at their critics, that’s why. Teddy Roosevelt was right. What matters is the man in the arena… or in this case, the groups selling out the arena.
A prime example of a group celebrating the common man with there music and the common man celebrating them right back is the Vogues 1965 hit “5 o’clock World.” This song had to compete with the likes of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, and nobody celebrated the fantasy of excess like the Stones. Mick and Keith practically wrote the textbook on it. But people so identified with the Vogues that they made their song #1. And much later, a certain stand-up comic turned sitcom star would not only use it as his theme song for an entire season, but would build a choreographed dance number around it.
