Questions of Note
Evidently the Black Eyed Peas are not scientists. For that matter, neither are The Supremes, Pink Floyd, George Thorogood or the dreaded (literally) Baha Men. In fact you’d be safe to assume that, if the person in question slings a guitar and
attempts to make money while doing so, they
are definitely
not scientists. Scientists, you see, make it their life’s work to
answer questions. Musicians, it would seem, are content simply to ask them.
There is no official number as to exactly how many musical questions have been posed throughout history, but it’s personally estimated at somewhere between twelve and six billion. It’s thought that the first musical question may have been asked by Johann Sebastian Bach in his 1712 Operetta,
Why the Long Face Leper?, in
G Minor. Follow that right up to The Fixx’s 1984 single
Are We Ourselves? and, the one consistency that
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Questions of Note
Evidently the Black Eyed Peas are not scientists. For that matter, neither are The Supremes, Pink Floyd, George Thorogood or the dreaded (literally) Baha Men. In fact you’d be safe to assume that, if the person in question slings a guitar and attempts to make money while doing so, they are definitely not scientists. Scientists, you see, make it their life’s work to answer questions. Musicians, it would seem, are content simply to ask them.
There is no official number as to exactly how many musical questions have been posed throughout history, but it’s personally estimated at somewhere between twelve and six billion. It’s thought that the first musical question may have been asked by Johann Sebastian Bach in his 1712 Operetta, Why the Long Face Leper?, in G Minor. Follow that right up to The Fixx’s 1984 single Are We Ourselves? and, the one consistency that rings (sings?) true throughout musical history, is that musicians love to ask them but aren’t realistically expecting any answers.
Take Dionne Warwick for example who, in 1968, asked Do You Know the Way to San Jose? Well Dee, I’m not sure of your preferred method of transportation, and OnStar is still a couple of years ahead of us in the future, but I’m thinking that maybe sourcing out a Road Map might help a little. And don’t be surprised if you find that the way to San Jose may have a lot to do with where you’re located when you actually ask the question.
Some musical questions seem way too easy to answer which obviously means, that the question was likely induced by some sort of powerful hallucinogenic when it was originally written, guaranteeing an answer so totally philosophical and profound in its simplicity that non-musical heads simply explode when hearing of it.
For example:
Can I Get a Witness? Bad Company
Do They Know it’s Christmas? Band Aid
Are You Lonesome Tonight? Elvis Presley
Do You Want to Know a Secret? The Beatles
Are You Going to Go My Way? Lenny Kravitz
All of the above can be answered with a simple Yes, a simple No or a Maybe We Should Talk About This. But it can’t be that easy can it? A heartfelt ballad, from an old school Emo, Original-Blend, must need more than just a one-word answer to set the karmic lyrical world back in order, wouldn’t it? Yes? No? Somebody??
Of course, for some questions, there’s the lauded Ninja Factor – that is – only a real Ninja can defeat a real Ninja, although in this case, Ninjas are musicians, defeat means “to answer” and Nunchucks are strictly optional (except for Tokyo Police Club who are still in their three year probationary period and must carry them at all times).
To wit..
In 1992 U2 asked us Who’s Gonna Ride Your Wild Horses?
Five years later Paula Cole asked/answered with Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?
Therefore, all of Paula’s cowboys have gone to ride Bono’s untamed stallions.
Then there’s the questions that are literally answered within the questions, much like a snake that consumes its young or a snail that feels it necessary to buy tennis shoes:
Like those FBI-friendly Baha Men, who asked us, rather loudly and repeatedly, Who Let the Dogs Out? Well yes, Rhythmic Men of Ganja, Who did indeed let the dogs out. You may remember him playing All Star class first base way back in the late 30s. Yes, that’s him. What? Yeah, on second.
Some artists – as only true artists are apt to do – are all about the music and seem to have interest in little else, like breathing for example..
Trisha Yearwood asks us How Do I Live? Well Trish, to be honest, we’re all quite amazed that you’ve come this far considering. To assist, here are three basic rules of thumb that should get you through most of life’s troubling, little rough spots:
1. Righty, Tighty. Lefty Loosey
2. Veggies green. Meat brown. Never the reverse.
3. When in doubt – flush.
In the 70’s, Creedence Clearwater Revival seemed to have this strange obsession with - see if you can guess - 1970: Who’ll Stop the Rain?; 1971: Have You Ever Seen the Rain? First off, it’s beneficial to actually see the rain before trying to stop it. And - unless you have a long beard, a serious passion for sandals and this glowing aura around your cranium – it’s probably well beyond your scope to regulate global precipitation.
Finally, what’s all this fuss about love? Without question (I mean including question) the predominant subject musicians have been pondered, lamented over and fixated on over the years, has been Love. I mean, look at this stuff:
Who do you love?
Where is the love?
Where did our love go?
What’s love got to do with it?
How deep is your love?
What is Love?
What is Love? Seriously? Merriam-Webster defines love as:
(1) : strong affection for another arising out of kinship or personal ties
(2) : attraction based on sexual desire
(3) : affection based on admiration, benevolence, or common interests
So, by my count Love is emotional, chemical or comical. Finally, we have a question with a definable and definitive answer. Love has headings, and categories, and subsets. Love is quantifiable and scaleable. Love is that little rabbit in the box that we feed and we pet, and that sometimes bites us. Right?
This, of course, will not sit well with the modern rock troubadours. Love, it is said and written, is the most troubling and confusing and obscure thing this world knows. It is beautiful and vague and infinitely beyond our constant grasp. It is the ultimate in rhetoric. In short, there is no answer.
But in 1979, didn’t England Dan and John Ford Coley – one of their very own - tell us that Love is the Answer?
And here all along, I thought that was the question.
