Post a controversial music opinion

I guess you could say it was ‘70s drug culture he was rejecting? There’s obviously a self-pitying edge to “I stay alone, eat health food at home,” but yeah that’s also why it’s “interesting” I guess

I don't think there's much doubt he was rejecting that - this despite hanging out with the Velvet Underground and the Warhol scene. Or maybe because? Anyway having short hair, not taking drugs and not dismissing the older generation out of hand singled out Richman as weirder than most of the the weirdoes and freaks in the late 60s. His fellow self-identified outsider Morrissey meanwhile was always a dick.

Jonathan Richman Q&A at Reddit:

My question is : in one of my favourite songs of yours "I'm straight", is Hippie Johnny based off a real guy? Was he a friend of yours that when he heard the song and knew it was about him?

That song was based on all the young guys who used to beg for spare change in Harvard Square at that time. You could see that they were intentionally playing up looking poor and helpless. It was equally clear that they didn't all have to be in that condition. Thirdly, I would watch young women our age being attracted to them, seemingly partly because of their helplessness. I was disgusted and made up the song. It was originally Hippie Ernie, the sound of which, I liked better. Our bass player, Ernie, suggested after awhile that we change it, so that he not be confused in people's minds with the Ernie I had intended. Hence, for that one recording, it became "Hippie Johnny" I was already tired of the song by that point, so I let it go. Control freak that I am, if I let something like that go, it means that I must be over the song.

lol @ the bass player anecdote

I like “Hippie Johnny” better… “Ernie” is too distractingly specific (also makes me think of Sesame Street, but that’s not his fault).

Jonathan and Ernie reunited for Joey's birthday:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_1sA0PVArw

Lol at vmic Jonathan asking the soundman for "a little less bass"

Love that this has turned into the Jonathan Richman praise thread

i mean all this slobbering over him is controversial to me, but

see but that's how you know you struck a nerve! <3

Wouldn’t call it slobbering tbh

Guys obvious flaws are baked into his persona as if in a hearty stonemason’s pizza oven. All fans are aware of them and realize they are minor compared the flaws of many or even most others.

Guys obvious flaws are baked into his persona as if in a hearty stonemason’s pizza oven. All fans are aware of them and realize they are minor compared the flaws of many or even most others.

Compared to

Ha, didn’t even notice it was double posted for any reason.

Zing wormhole transmission tribute to the extended live version of “Ice Cream Man.”

You could see that they were intentionally playing up looking poor and helpless. It was equally clear that they didn't all have to be in that condition.

am i bending over backwards to give him the benefit of the doubt here or was Hippy Johnny really Crustie Ernie

ayo. i'm straight! i want to take your place.

*chorus* WE KNOW. FUCK OFF.

viva jojo. (i din't know that was like, his nickname, and am def shockingly old).

Funny, almost went to see Richman last night, but didn't feel like it. Controversial?

no

xp btw sorry, my comment was to be 'funny,' i've never felt "fucked off" at on these hallowed grounds, y'all the best.

Josh – did you stay at home and eat health food alone?

I ate two large servings of tres leches cake.

this solution could have changed the future of punk and indie forever

Josh – did you stay at home and eat health food alone?

All criticisms of Jonathan Richman need to be deferred due to the fact that he used the lyrics "I still love my parents // and I still love the old world" as a straight faced couplet in a rock song. One of the funniest thing anyone has ever done with rock music tbh

Richman is a litmus test of whether rockists have a sense of humour (no offense haters)

there is a guy who used to sell art in harvard square in the 60s/70s who walks by my store 50 times a day and looks at the record covers every time he goes by. he looks like homeless gandalf. or my brother. one or the other.

self-pitying, conservative straight white male, whining about how women like bad boys instead of him and wishing he lived in the 50s. the "friendly" face deflatormouse talks about is the thinnest of veneers. the reason it works as a rock album is because underneath the dorky all american boy surface the record is seething with anger. reactionary anger.

― treeship.

i mean if that's your reading of it i guess that's your reading. all i can say is that i don't get that out of the modern lovers record (basically the only richman i've heard). he's friendly _and_ he's angry, he has strong emotions. a song like "i'm straight", that's something i can relate to. i've seen so many people get fucked up by self-medicating. i'm not any better for not doing drugs. i have my own unhealthy coping habits. i fuck myself up in other ways. i'm... glad that i don't have to deal with the shit people who use drugs as coping mechanisms do. i don't _blame_ my girlfriend for using her street chemistry skills to process her prescription ADHD meds into something she could shoot up. sometimes i can't stand what she does. sometimes i can't stand her. i thought about that song a lot the last time she was in the hospital. yeah, that's anger. i was angry. i did want her back in my life, i still do want her back in my life. i don't think of that as "conservative". a lot of the stuff he says resonates with me. his anger is genuine. so is his compassion. he doesn't put on this "everything's ok" front. fucked up shit happens. even when you're a "straight white male". because patriarchy hurts everyone. it doesn't hurt him _most_, but he has to live in this fucked up world with all this fucked up shit going on. he's not exempt. he's not immune. is he writing from a psychological hellhole? i don't think so. i think he takes this fucked up place and finds joy, finds things to celebrate in it, despite the pain. driving past the stop 'n shop. is it meaningless? sure. does it feel _good_? goddamn right.

idk. that's just what i read into it. i love jonathan richman. and i still love my parents. just because my parents abused me doesn't mean i don't love them. and i still love the old world. it's just time for it to go. burn out, fade away, i don't fucking care which. it just needs to malcolm k. mooney its ass out of here.

basically if straight white men acted more like jonathan richman and less like. i don't know. who's that motherfucker who plays "star lord" in the comic book movies. less like him. the world would be a lot better place. i think.

Great posts Kate

I didn't really get the modern lovers/richman till I heard "a plea for tenderness". I think that song shoes the heart of jonathan and the band for better or worse. It's an absolute cracker, would recommend all haters to indulge if you haven't already

"That summer feeling" also essential. Jonathan at his best when he's wistful and funny, not just funny

*shows, not shoes lol

he's friendly _and_ he's angry, he has strong emotions.

^^^this

i love how that van gogh song says it-
like, you think he's such a tragic figure? look at all he was able to feel

“That Summer Feeling” is the lead track on Jonathan Sings!, the solo album that I really like.

Great posts Kate

+1

For some reason, I've left this sitting on my desktop for two or three years: Jonathan Richman's graph of pop music in the late '60s (done for some Boston publication at the time--the Boston Phoenix?).

https://i.postimg.cc/rF3YPzXH/richman.jpg

Did people read the 33 1/3 book about "Roadrunner"? Which basically said it was an update of "Maybellene," iirc

I think that was the publication of the guy who ran the cult the girl in Zabriskie Point was in.

Whis is discussed in the the book Astral Weeks.

Mel Lyman

Avatar

Apparently Joe Harvard, who wrote the early 33 1/3 book (the 11th) about VU and Nico, originally set out to write one about the S/T Modern Lovers, but I guess his editor/publisher thought maybe it was a little too esoteric so soon in the series. Obviously they're a lot less normcore these days.

No, sorry, another zine called Vibrations, apparently.

Jonathan Richman's graph of pop music in the late '60s

Volunteers came out in November ‘69, so I’m not sure why the “Airplane” line is crashing quite as precipitously as it does…

That's where I found out about it, the Astral Weeks book--then found it online.

Josh Clover's "Roadrunner" book is a different series.

(Why does the “Who” line split up and the strands diverge like that; was the idea that the guys were all gonna do solo albums, KISS style?)

I have to agree that VU got closest to God at the end of 1970.

Yeah, sorry, the Singles series.