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I’m old, now, and I need to sleep. Soon, I won’t be able to eat anything but tomato soup and cheese sandwiches, as I squint with failing eyes at Public Broadcasting programs about the Civil War.

Until that time, someone needs to explain to me what the matter is with kids today. In particular, they need to explain to me what the deal is with Kid Rock’s “All Summer Long.”

You may have heard this song on the radio. If you’re like me, you immediately thought you were listening to Warren Zevon’s “Werewolves of London,” because it takes the bottom of that song as its base, and plays it the whole way through. Except for a part where they stop and play the opening riff from Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Sweet Home Alabama.”

I need to know why this is okay. I don’t mean why it’s legal–that’s something to do with rights and copyrights and money and blah blah blah–I mean “why is this an okay thing to do?” Why do they play it on the radio station? Why is this single driving the sales of Kid Rock’s album Rock and Roll Jesus?

Why does this tool at About.com (to which I posed this very same question) seem to think that this song is awesome?

Well, it is awesome. It is extremely awesome. It is Warren Zevon’s extremely awesome song. Kid Rock didn’t do anything to it, he just put new lyrics in, and added a riff from a different extremely awesome song.

This doesn’t make any fucking sense! If I tried to make a new painting by gluing the Mona Lisa on top of Guernica, I would not be able to sell albums–I would rightly be mocked derisively by any and all concerned. If I tried to make a band whose single was me putting new lyrics to “White Room” and then adding the riff from the opening of “Stairway to Heaven” people would think I was retarded.

Why can Kid Rock do this, and no one says that it’s both extremely stupid and kind of insulting to the bands in question?

I mean, he doesn’t even juxtapose the ideas of the song in any intelligent way. The lyrics are all about how great it is to hang out in the summer. “Werewolves of London” has (extremely awesome) lyrics about werewolves looking stylish and mutilating old ladies. And, let’s face it: if you’ve heard “Werewolves of London” on the radio, it was either when Warren Zevon died, or during Halloween, which takes place in October. It is in no way related to fond summer memories. Even people who were Warren Zevon fans and who liked the song probably don’t have fond summer memories about it.

But, really, there aren’t that many Warren Zevon fans, and I get the feeling that Zevon’s fanbase doesn’t really overlap with Kid Rock’s. This all leaves us with important questions about the nature of music and authorship, perhaps the most pertinent of which is: is Kid Rock just riding on the successful work of a superior songwriter?

Yes. Yes he is.

Here’s a picture of him looking like a douchey shithead.

This entry was posted on August 20, 2008 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Braak with tags Braak, shitheads, Things That Bug Me. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.