Repetune - The Songs of our Heads

David Essex - Rock On

Writing by Segal on Thursday, 18 of October , 2007 at 10:49 am

It’s always somewhat discombobulating to hear a song and like it, then find out later that it’s a cover. When I was eight or nine or ten, Michael Damian (remember him?) put out a single called “Rock On”, and I guess what with Corey Feldman being in the video, and having just seen The Lost Boys, I latched onto it like a baby onto mama’s teat. I kind of figured out that it wasn’t the original version when R.E.M. integrated some of the beat and lyrics into their track “Drive” off of Automatic For The People. I didn’t hear this version, ostensibly the original, until about two years ago.

What makes this song a repetune is the way it stands out musically. Again, being a repetune doesn’t necessarily mean a song is great, but I enjoy this song enough to have actually purchased it off iTunes. Considering I’ve paid maybe twelve dollars in the past year for music (and four of those dollars went towards Radiohead’s latest album), this is a great honor. I definitely got my $0.99 worth anyway.

The flow is actually commendable considering the song splits itself into many little sections due to the dubstep-inspired bassline and the weird cardiac percussion. For the first 30 seconds, this could be Pink Floyd. Getting down to brass tacks, Essex’s vocals fade in, disembodied and laconic, like he’s singing to himself. There are lots of little backing vocal effects that don’t make a lot of sense, like the Barry White-ish iteration “James Dean” at the end of verse one, and how later in the song, Essex chants “Jimmy Dean” and “Rock on” with equal aplomb. Just a few seconds later, the cacophony of a detuned strings section underscores what the song pushes forward - the image of young Dean, his car screeching sidweways along Highway 46 near Cholame, just about to hit a tree, the songs of the angels and monsters trailing the Li’l Bastard down his short steep path to immortality.

If this song can be taken as a testament to the power of youth and the loss of days gone by, when one actor in a short burst of air could sum up in three movies what it’s taken the young actors of the last half-century to iterate about the struggle between being too young to matter and too old to rock, then rock on, David Essex. Rock on, James Dean. Even you, Corey. You rock on too.

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Category: David Essex

What is a repetune?

It has happened to us all. For any reason, and sometimes for no reason at all, some obscure song we have heard but try to avoid manages to sneak itself into our head. It does nothing but repeat in our head over and over until one day, we realize it is gone. Then it only comes back again. These are those songs. These are repetunes.