The other day I saw “Crock Of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan” Oh, no, it’s ’Yabai’. In Japanese these days, “yabai” has come to mean “very”, but Shane MacGowan is yabai in the original sense, “dangerous.” If you ask me if I want to live like him, the answer is no. He’s cool, but no, I can’t. Maybe it ended to play in theaters, so if you haven’t seen it yet, wait for it to be distributed on net and see it for yourself… Drunk since age 5, drug addict in high school, lost a tooth, now in a wheelchair. I heard a little rumor that he recently got sober, but he drank throughout the movie. What I enjoyed most was the vivid depiction of Irish life when he was a small child. I can feel what Ireland means for him. Punking the richness of Irish melodies and rhythms is an innovation in itself. I didn’t pay much attention to the lyrics of Pogues, but when I saw the lyrics in the movie, I realized that the lyrics are also cool. The invention of literature x punk is also an innovation. In this sense, Shane is an innovator, even though he have kept on drinking a lot.

And he is doing what I like most about innovation, innovation of tradition, in a drunken state. One word: cool!

In this issue, I would like to introduce some music that, in my opinion, has innovated tradition. For now, let’s start with Pogues.

I don’t think Shane is a particularly good singer, but this song has to be Shane’s voice.

Next is a bossa nova. The idea of recreating the complex rhythms of samba by playing one guitar is not something that ordinary people would think of. I have heard that he stayed at home for quite a long time and invented it by playing the guitar incessantly in the bathroom because of the echo effect.

Once I visited his concert, I vividly remember that the moment he appeared on stage and played a single note on his guitar, the hall with a capacity of several thousand people was completely dominated by João Gilberto.

Next is reggae. I am not an expert on the formation of reggae, I personally believe that this is the result of Jimmy Cliff, Frederick ‘Toots’ Hibbert and others successfully combining ska rhythms with American rhythm and blues and soul music. Bob Marley and his group got into the groove by slowing down the speed, and this time, I would like to introduce this song as Ska x Soul.

And here comes the King. I’ll leave the story of the movie “Elvis” for the next time, there is a scene in the movie where Colonel Parker listens to one of Elvis’ records and mistakes him for a black man. For Elvis, who came from a poor background, black music may have been commonplace, but for America at a time when it was divided (and maybe still is), the combination of black music and white music must have been a shock to the country in a way that is hard to imagine today. It was the early 50’s, so I think that black and white people were already playing together in Jazz and it was heard all over the U.S. We can imagine that Jazz music must have been a dangerous music at that time. No, I was talking about Elvis. Personally, I love the Elvis of the late 60’s to early 70’s after his comeback, but I’ll leave that for another time.

Next, let’s look at the innovator who changed jazz from a music for dance halls and big bands, for people to dance to, to a music for people to sit back and listen to. I am the kind of person who thinks that Louis is the jazz, but of course I also love modern jazz after Be-bop. The first jazz music I ever heard was Charlie Parker. Charlie Parker in the late 40’s was truly an innovator, pushing himself to the limit and sublimating his ad-libs over the chord progressions of blues and standards. The song ends in the middle, but this break is extreme.

Now, for a change, let’s get back to punk. I personally feel that a lot of American rock and roll is quite influenced by Phil Spector. I’ll leave that for another time, but it seems to me that the Ramones were taking the music of America’s golden age and playing it at high speed in a very simple frame of reference. ”No need a TV idol or a technical rock band to do this, We’ll do it!

The result is music that makes everyone want to sing along and jump up and down.

Finally, we have one of the originators of soul. Soul was not created by one musician, but he is the king. There was a biographical movie about him. It was very good. I remember that the moment when soul was born was beautifully depicted. In this case, I would say that he mixed gospel and blues. The blues, which used to be played by one singing guitar player or a small band, was brought into the gospel format with a lot of people singing. In that sense, he might be the opposite of João or Charlie Parker. No wonder people in the gospel community at that time were so angry. He was playing the devil’s music in the format of God’s music. Come to think of it, Sam Cooke also crossed the gospel format with white pop songs, so I am sure that people in the gospel community must have been angry with him.

Finally, as usual, here is my song, which I wrote that day after seeing Shane’s movie and being blown away by how badass and cool it was.

Song for Punks　　 Lyrics: KANEKO Chalin

“So many times, you are too drunk”
“I just wanna give you fun“
“So many times, you made my parties bang!”
“I just wanna give you fun“
“So many times, you use dirty slungs”
“I just wanna give you fun“

“You shouted my name away from miles”
I just wanna make you smile“
“You don’t know why they don’t like your hair style“
“I just wanna make you smile”
“Don‘t you know that you are not cool like Miles”
“I just wanna make you smile“

You don’t want to be told what to do like a fool
the drummer’s counts and the super cool chords are running to you
and shooting through

Song for punks,
me and you,
and girls and dudes
We are lucky to have been born
Song for punks
We have blues
about love or truth
we don’t have time to moan
I don’t wanna break nothing else
I sometimes wanna break myself
for all punk dudes
with all punk dudes
We are all crude
but it is that useless fool is cool

“Ⅰnever mean to hurt any kinds”
“You glare at all cat you find“
“I never mean to hurt any kinds”
“You try to over the dead line“
“I never mean to hurt any kinds”
“You sharpen your knife to shine“

All rule you’ll follow is the love rule,
the drummer’s counts and the super cool chords are running to you
and shooting through