David Essex – Rock On

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I think the David Essex song Rock On might be the actual classic rock radio track that made me swerve head on into rock n roll (definitely one of them, at least). Also another one that made me realize most cool music doesn't always come from the radio, even though that's where I first heard it. As far back as I can remember, it’s also about the earliest example of "less is more" that I can think of. Even though a lot of music from back then is cheesy compared to what we have today, they were real songs. Pretty much every one of them had riffs, beats, and a progression. And of course back then they loved throwing in a key change for dramatic effect. This is the first classic rock song I can remember with none of that. An almost open ended, unstructured cool sounding way to fill space. That’s why I liked it so much. I remember that is was the perfect song to be bored to. Breaking the silence, but not distracting. Background music for your thoughts. If the lyrics are supposed to mean something, I still have no idea what it is. But they sound so cool and flow like they have a profound message.

As mentioned before, I had no grasp on, or training in music at this point. It would be many years until I came to understand the amazing production of this track. All of the delay, doubling, sampling and overdubbing are what drew me straight to it, bypassing the other genres. Even though the music itself wasn’t really heavy or rockin per se, the weird, dark, complexity of the piece, and pop culture references gave this tune a heaviness of its own that as a kid I thought was so cool …. And actually I still do !