1 post tagged “shocking blue”

There are a great number of songs which I have decided to describe as "invocation and manifestation:" the first part of the song is all right, but it's really just preparing the way for what comes after.  The introductory portion serves as a ritual, the lyrics as an incantation, the musicians as vessels for the Music Gods who will be unleashed and flow through them if the ritual is conducted correctly.  (Mrs. Veneer tells me this is "building a cone of power.")  Think of "Free Bird;" the plodding verses and choruses are not the point of the song, they are the invocations, the journey that must be completed before High Priest Ronnie Van Zant can sing "Lord help me, I can't chay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yange" -- unleashing the God of Drums -- and then finally "Oh won't you flyyyyy hiiiiiigh, oh freeeeee birrrrrrrd, yeah," unleashing the full power of the Triple Guitar Gods* who lead the guitarists into a seemingly endless bacchanalia of soloing, duoing, and trioing, and the audience into a frenzy of cheering and air-guitaring (not to mention drinking and smoking), until everyone is spent and the whole enterprise grinds to a halt.

Skynyrd is not the subject of this post, though; The Shocking Blue (of "Venus" fame) is.  Their finest recorded moment is "The Butterfly and I," an invocation-and-manifestation song from their 1969 album At Home.  In this case the sitar-backed verses and choruses with nonsensical hippie lyrics and a "White Rabbit" beat summon up the gods of drums and horns: