I toured with a famous rock band for seven years. We had just completed a long-awaited album of new songs, and they’d clearly gotten used to having me in the room. After having me at rehearsals for a week (ostensibly to make sure everyone did the right things on the new material), and progressively having me sing and play more and more parts, the band leader asked me if I wanted to join the touring band and go around the world. I could not say no. The next thing he said to me was, “you realize we aren’t just going to do the songs on this record, we’re doing mostly songs from our catalog.”
I remember how surreal it was for me to be able to say, “I know all your songs. Just tell me if you want me to sing high, middle or low.” Because in spite of not owning any of their albums (my dad had one), I knew every hit and most that weren’t hits. For the next seven years, I did what I might have done if I’d been in my car and a song of theirs came on – except there was no traffic and I had a shaker in one hand. I sang on most of the thirty-or-so songs every night, and I can honestly say it never got old. After a while it became sort of like a ritual – I had a job to do and did it, but it was a great job, to be part of this giant thing and see people in the audience who were reconnecting with something that meant a great deal to them.
To be able to contribute to making people happy like that is a rare privilege. Although the principal (original members as opposed to sidemen like me) guys joked about it sometimes – one used to say (and still does) to the crowd, “if I’d have known I was going to have to play this next song for the rest of my life, I would have wrote something else” – I know from personal experience that they loved and love what they do, and are grateful to the people who love it too, and give it everything they can. It’s who they are and what they do, so playing hit songs “getting old” is not part of the equation.
I can’t speak for every band but those guys mean what they sing. And perhaps the most important part – the songs are good songs. They make sense. They have balance, they tell stories. Sir Paul McCartney, in criticizing another band who seemed to resent playing the hits, has said that the people want to hear “Yesterday”, so he does it. That part is simple. Because he wrote it – and singing your words and music, when your songs are good, to adoring crowds screaming your name with great musicians is really kind of great. And it’s what those guys are here for.
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