Miss Direction?

So I'm a little ticked at Kid Rock.

Rock, born Robert Ritchie, is probably best known as one of the late '90s, early 00's so-called "white rappers." His lyrics were vulgar and pretty disgusting, but he seemed to have a sense of humor and an ability to not take himself so seriously, lacked by that hip-hop sub-genre's biggest name, Eminem. Rock once referred to his roots by mocking the fashion many rappers used to establish their bona fides: "I ain't straight oughtta Compton, I'm straight out the trailer."

In any event, Rock broadened his musical work in recent years, doing a duet with Sheryl Crow ("Pictures") as well as Hank Williams, Jr. ("The F-Word," which, as Williams explains to Rock, you can't say in country music). He's moved into much more of a southern-fried rock feel, even hanging out in the same Americana region as fellow Michigander Bob Seger.

But what I'm mad about is this new single of his, "All Summer Long," which is off an album whose title is probably in poor enough taste I'll leave it out. In it, Rock does a little remembering of a long-ago summer romance, and he uses musical themes from Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Sweet Home Alabama," The Steve Miller Band's "Take the Money and Run" and Warren Zevon's "Werewolves of London" to do so. Some might think it's silly to pair three 70s rock staples with a memory of a summertime sweetheart in 1989, but those persons never listened to the classic-rock format radio that saturated Detroit's airwaves in the late 80s as it did everywhere else. And in classic rock radio, it's always at least 15 years ago.

The song's not bad, although Rock and his ladyfriend were neither chaste nor did they say no to what you're supposed to just say no to. The source songs are played straight instead of sampled, and they weave together rather well, kind of an interesting thing in itself.

Well enough that when the intro to "All Summer Long" came on the radio, I thought I was going to get to hear "Werewolves of London," which is a song I can't hear enough of. Seriously, how can the line "I saw a werewolf drinking a pina colada at Trader Vic's. His hair was perfect!" ever get old? But I didn't get to hear it, so now I'm ticked off.

Wait, the both of you are asking. Financial crisis, historic presidential campaigns and the like and you want to blog about a Kid Rock single? Well, yes. When I logged on this morning, one of the news stories I found was "comedian" Margaret Cho suggesting how she would like to have degrading sex with Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin. Maybe there were folks around in 1984 saying similar things about Democratic VP nominee Geraldine Ferraro, but since there was no internet then they were confined to spreading them amongst the rest of their brethren whose diminishing supply of brain cells was swiftly eroding as they inhaled the mimeograph ink they used to print their hate. Now we all get to know about them.

So I'm going to blog about ephemeral songs I heard on the radio. Maybe until sometime around the 5th of November.