Mr. Essex: You Do Not Rock

Is "Rock On" by David Essex the dumbest song ever? Seriously, we've all heard it a million times; tonite was the first time it came on and I took notice, really listened. Big mistake. After teasing with an opening bass line that somehow makes you think it's the bastard son of "Ball of Confusion" and "Papa Was a Rolling Stone," our guy David basically spends about 3 minutes listing old rock n roll cliches, lines and characters. Wtf? He plods along dropping in one pop culture/rock reference after another; a veritable laundry list of "hey.....who sings real songs, and what do they say? Really? Got it!" Name-dropping, reading out of an old Creem I suppose.

And his big payoff line is the refrain "where do we go from here?"

I dunno David, you pretty much just walked us back a whole generation; maybe for your next album you can list names of dead Civil War soldiers?

And this guy I'm sure has made STUPID money since then, just sits back and waits for those checks to roll in. Unreal. I'm now convinced I can write a song of myself counting from 1 to 10 and sell billions.

Are you ready...yeah yeah yeah, you ready? Let's go peoples! Alright alright alright now one.......one.....and one, yeah yeah yeah yeah one....one...the number one....oooooh, now baby two....two...twotwotwotwotwotwoTHREE!!!!!....aw, yeah three...three...threeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee can we go fo four? Can we do four? FofofofofofofofofofoofofofoffofofoFIVE!!! FafafafafaFIFE! Fie-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi-FIFEFIFEFIFEFIFE...six......................................................................................................................................................................................seven! oh, shnap seven! Sevenna-na-na! Sevenna-na-na! Sevenna-na-na! Sevenna-na-na!..and eight....oh yeah let's pray....eight...eightty-tat-tat-tateight....eight....aiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiyaight.....eiggggggggggghhttttttatatatatatatatat. NINE! NINE!! NINE!!! NINE!!! NINE!!!!!! NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! NINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!...............................ten.

Now where's my fucking money.