Rock N Roll Threat - Foster Timms

Directed & Edited by Jeff McCarty / Contact: [email protected]

Greil Marcus review of song and video:
https://greilmarcus.substack.com/p/real-li...

Greil writes: “The beginning and the end of the song are kind of shocking. The montage is so quick that it isolates rock and roll gestures in a way that makes them absolutely convinced emotional responses in the moment rather than mandated cliches. I’ve watched three more times, and predictably I see more each time, but not predictably it expands and grows and becomes more exciting and painful, the ultimate losers’ anthem. When Adam Duritz shouted, as if helplessly, ‘I want to be Bob Dylan!’ the song was so radio irresistible you could believe he was at least on his way. When Foster says ‘She liked the way I held the microphone’ and people my age flash to ‘The Spider and the Fly’ and wonder where such a cop could be going, and he follows it with ‘when I was in the Rolling Stones’, the fantasy is as beautiful as it is damned. A perfect marriage of video and song.” (GM)

Lyrics: (by Foster Timms)

I could pepper this song with sweethearts
On a hot summer’s night
Running for our lives circa ‘75
On the New Jersey Turnpike
Holding hands in the sand at the shore
In a boardwalk Tilt-A-Whirl teenage fever dream
But nostalgia ain’t what it used to be
And I’m not Bruce Springsteen

I could splash this song with alcohol
Blow rings of Camel smoke
With saints disguised as barflies
Cracking wise holy jokes
And fall for the whore snoring on the floor
Of this splintered player piano
All hungover as Tom Waits
But nowhere near that great

Lately I’ve been drinking to forget
The wreckage and regret
Lurking in my past
And the demons in my path
I can’t escape or catch my breath
I’ll catch a break or catch my death
I’m still a Rock N Roll
I’m still a Rock N Roll
I’m still a Rock N Roll Threat

If I was suave as hell, clear as a bell
And lived at the Chelsea
Was a chivalrous, sexy Buddhist
In a monastery
Hey, hey, I’d be Leonard Cohen
I’d hum you a poem
A romantic, sly ass rhapsody
But I’ve only got the disease
And not the poetry

Lately I’ve been drinking to forget
The wreckage and regret
Lurking in my past
And the demons in my path
I can’t escape or catch my breath
I’ll catch a break or catch my death
I’m still a Rock N Roll
I’m still a Rock N Roll
I’m still a Rock N Roll Threat

Yeah, I could fill this verse with perversity
And trash the penthouse suite
Black chicks with whips and heroin
At my chateau in Switzerland
With two rooster headed guitar gods backing me
In an orgy of underage groupies
Who loved the way I held the microphone
When I was in the Rolling Stones

Lately I’ve been drinking to forget
The wreckage and regret
Lurking in my past
And the demons in my path
I can’t escape or catch my breath
I’ll catch a break or catch my death
I’m still a Rock N Roll
I’m still a Rock N Roll
I’m still a Rock N Roll Threat

(guitar solo)

It’d take him half as long to write this song
Twice as beautifully
But twice the time and twice the rhymes
If Bob Dylan were me


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