It’s been 35 years or so since your writer was introduced to the glorious amalgamation of rock, soul, and reggae put forth by Graham Parker and the Rumour, and my passion for the singer/songwriter and his backup band hasn’t waned since they released their last album together 32 years ago. That said, it’s been a wild ride ever since – Parker subsequently issued several good solo albums and at least four or five that can be considered great or even “classic” whatever that means in this day and age. Add to this a busy touring schedule as evidence Parker hasn’t been acting the slacker over the past three decades.
Now Parker and his wayward cohorts have reunited for Three Chords Good, a fine return if not somewhat more mellow than the pairing’s initial heyday. The reunion was a done deal even before film director Judd Apatow recruited the act for his sequel of sorts to Knocked Up, entitled This Is 40, and due for release before Christmas.
The album features several songs wistfully acknowledging the passage of time, and display that Parker’s songwriting prowess hasn’t deteriorated over the years, nor has the musicianship of guitarists Martin Belmont and Brinsley Schwarz, bassist Andrew Bodnar, keyboardist Bob Andrews, and drummer Steve Goulding. Parker’s snarl, which has prompted frequent and too-easy critical comparisons to Elvis Costello and Joe Jackson, has been replaced for the most part by a middle-aged, Dylanesque gruffness that still conveys passion and sensitivity in equal measure.
If some of the crackling energy of the ‘70s output is missing it is perhaps as a result of the absence of ace producers Nick Lowe, Mutt Lange, and Jack Nitzsche that captured the fiery exuberance of the pub-rockers and their acid-addled, adenoidal frontman back in the ‘70s, or – just as likely – the result of the artists’ middle age, a lengthy sabbatical between gigs, and the introspective nature of all but a few of the new songs.
All of this leads to the lead-off single, “Coathangers,” from Three Chords Good, one of the album’s most invigorated rockers, and, if readers will forgive the pun, one of the most ill-conceived as it deals with abortion rights in the United States, the British-born Parker’s adopted homeland. If one follows the song’s internal logic, the political hackey-sack of abortion is a zero-sum game of either legalization in the interest of women’s reproductive rights on one hand or home procedures involving the title implement on the other.
Compare this ham-handed approach to Parker’s other song on the subject, “You Can’t Be Too Strong,” from the album Squeezing Out Sparks. In this song, Parker sensitively depicts the various points of view involved in a terminated pregnancy and stops shy of calling the practice immoral by declaring to the actors and audience: “You decide what’s wrong.”
The mother, anesthetized for the abortion, also anesthetizes her conscience with a half-hearted justification: “It’s just a mistake I won’t have to face/Don’t give it a place/Don’t give it a chance/It’s lucky in a way.” The sperm-
“Three Chords Good” is the first collaboration between Graham Parker and the Rumour in 32 years.
donor father abandons the mother to frolic with the boys “who’ll laugh when I say I left it overseas.” As for the doctor nervously performing “the service,” he “wishes to God he were dead.” And, yet, Parker asserts: “You can’t be too hard, too tough, too rough, too right, too wrong.”
Just so. The song works because it avoids the politicization that has muddied the waters on the issue, instead depicting the dehumanizing impact abortion has on all players in the equation.
The ballad was hailed and rightly so in 1979, but apparently hasn’t aged well with a certain segment of Parker’s audience or, maybe, not with Parker himself. As the agitprop lyrics of the rocking “Coathangers” display, subtlety and nuance have no place in today’s war against women. As a result, it’s all or nothing when it comes to addressing reproductive rights. Those opposed are, natch, all Bible-thumping, Old Testament possessors of the Y chromosome who stick their Billy Sunday noses into womenhood’s collective uterus.
These fellows all are “always on the prowl to strip your rights away/To send you back to the back alley/Back to a darker day./Here come the wrecking crew swinging their hammers/C’mon girls grab your coathangers.” This is all subtle as a flying mallet. But it gets worse: “The ancients are coming by camel or limousine/To criminalize your body and call it a sin/Working through the ranks right up to the highest court/Cause getting knocked up by your daddy that’s all your fault./Here comes the judges, swinging their hammers/C’mon girls get your coathangers.”
Regardless one’s view on legalized abortion, depicting it as a polarized choice between patriarchal judges in cahoots with daughter rapists and everyone else may qualify as lyrically clever but trivializes the headier moral issues in the areas in between. For example, one may acknowledge Roe v. Wade as settled U.S. law as well as embrace the tenets of Obamacare, but balk at coercing taxpayers to subsidize abortions and forcing Catholic and other faith-based hospitals to provide them.
Parker presents a false choice in his attempt to create a pop anthem, which is a tragic misstep in a body of work rife with examples of stellar songwriting. It’s terrific that the Rumour and Judd Apatow are assisting Parker reinvigorate his profile in the public consciousness. It’s unfortunate, however, that one song could sully the collaboration.
Excellent article, Bruce. This is emblematic of the vulgarization and politicization that have pervaded the nation’s culture in the past couple of decades. Subtlety of thought and appreciation of the complexities of life, and in particular of moral choices, were once respected but now have given way to the brute hand of the state, with its insistence on stigmatizing all real thought. The state has decided that the natural family is a threat to its power, so it has set about destroying it through every policy available. And people such as Parker–who undoubtedly consider themseles bold, independent thinkers (unlike the ignorant religious hordes)–do the state’s bidding with lame propaganda such as this. How puny and sad such people are.
You guys are funny. You talk about moral choices. The question is who should make those choices. The song is not subtle because it knows who should make that choice. Apparently you do not.
It seems to me you want the song to be something it’s not. Maybe you should write your own song about abortion.
It is Bob Andrews on keyboards……
JSL: “you guys are funny. . . . The song is not subtle because it knows who should make that choice. Apparently you do not.” Your arrogance and your inability or refusal to see the complexities and moral difficulties in life say it all. You are not funny.
John: Yes, I want the song to be something it is not: thoughtful. As to your suggestion about who should do what, different people have different gifts. Graham Parker was once able to write intelligent songs with lyrics that dealt with complex issues in a thoughtful way. He failed in this instance. That is worth noting. I am glad that Bruce Walker used his gift of criticism to do just that.
Robin: thank you for the correction, if it is indeed accurate. I will leave it to any interested parties to confirm it.
Well, I’m thankful for this article because I’m sure it’s exactly the sort of reaction Graham was looking for. Congratulations!
Yes, Robin, of course you’re correct. Thanks for pointing it out. The error has been fixed.
You do not know anything about me. I am quite certain that I know as much about the complexities of life as any human being. But that is not what this is about. This is about who makes a moral choice. When you take that away from someone you are going backwards and I think that is what the song is about. The funny part is that you talk about the brute hand of the state but you are the one who wants the state to decide this issue. I have more respect for those who say that in their mind abortion is killing a human life, but to dress it up the way you do is hypocritical and “lame propaganda”.
JSL: we know quite enough about you, thank you very much, and your claim that you are certain that you know as much about the complexities of life as any human being stoutly confirms our original assessment. So does your denigration of other people’s concerns about the taking of human life as “funny.”
A state that allows abortion on demand thereby refuses to accept one of the few responsibilities of government: to protect innocent human lives, which is what a child in the womb is. I want the state to do its duty and protect those lives, just as it has a duty to protect the lives of anyone within its borders unless that person has taken the life of another or committed a similarly heinous crime. A child in the womb has done nothing to harm anyone, and “the state” does indeed decide whether more than a million of those children per year will die in the womb unnecessarily when it decides to allow abortion on demand. That is a decision of the state, and it stems from the state’s fear of the family and other mediating institutions. That remains true whether you think it risible or not.
John: if Graham Parker wrote that song in order to spur a critic to note that Parker’s thoughtfulness has declined in the years since he wrote “You Can’t Be Too Strong,” he did indeed succeed admirably.
And THIS is why you lost the election. LOL.
Yes, the popularity of illogic would indeed explain it.
Thank you Bruce! I am Bob’s partner and producer–please check out our Invisible Love! It ROCKS. email me and I can send you the complete download–book arrives on Thursday–would love to send you one!-RKR
Huh? I spend my life taking care of children who were rejected by their first families. I sense from your compassion for protecting innocent lives that you do as well. I can tell you with certainty that the State does not.
I continue to believe that your idea about the State is funny. It is that institution that does not let E. T. Karnick live the life he chooses. If E. T. Karnick wants something, the State should make sure E. T. gets it. If E. T. does not want it, then the State allowing it is a brute force.
This has grown tiresome. I have some real issues to deal with that are more important than your spouting of nonsense about which you know nothing. But if you choose to answer please do not use the phrase “complexities of life” or “moral choices” or I will have to turn them into a drinking game which is weird because I don’t drink.
Bruce,
Really enjoyed your article but ultimately, you sound like an angry Republican, shellshocked that Romney lost. True? Come on, be honest. I would love to see you and GP square off on this issue. Mr. Howells, can that be arranged?
Thank you, Sam, for your always brilliant analysis, which cuts through the rhetorical flourishes and logical fallacies of those who trivialize life as nothing more than a choice. The criticisms of my review, however, immediately default to a polarized position that abortion is always a (net) good rather than a considered opposing piece. I admire Camille Paglia, JSL, because she’s at least intellectually honest in her opinion that abortion should be legalized. Paglia notes that infanticide has always been one resort of a family (oops, a woman’s choice) that cannot afford more children or whatever, and abortion is but one form of infanticide. But in all the shrillness of some of the comments above not one detractor addresses that abortion/infanticide has always been a “choice,” just not one always condoned by law. If laws shouldn’t govern women’s reproductive rights, shouldn’t that go both ways? I had a very sharp feminist tell me recently that the rhetoric surrounding the issue only obfuscates the fact that “sisters are doin’ it for themselves,” and have always done so regardless the terrain of the political landscape — safely, absent back-alley procedures and coathangers. In any event, why does the goal of granting women a “choice” further necessitate requiring that those of us opposed to one of those choices pay for it, condone it implicitly/explicitly through the legal/political system, or perform them in faith-based institutions? Why does a woman’s choice deny the rest of us our choices?
Cash — Truth be told, not much of a Republican. But to be labeled “angry” based on a post about Graham Parker is kinda funny. I prefer, like GP, “passion.”
Those who are pro-abortion had the cultural upper hand for decades; the back alley and the coat hanger captured the moral imagination of Americans who were ignorant of the realities of what inhabited a woman’s womb. Cultural elites used their standing in education, entertainment and the media to sway average Americans with their back alley propaganda. See “Revolutionary Road” for one pathetic example of Hollywoood’s take on the benighted 50s. But something funny (LOL) happened on the way to the abortion nirvana the left wanted: the facts!
As the technology improved it has become easier to peer into what exactly grows in a pregnant woman. The ultra sound of a woman 12 weeks pregnant shows a fully formed human being, legs, arms, eyes, ears, nose, not to mention a beating heart and a functioning brain. Man, that really looks like a person! This is why more Americans consider themselves pro-life than pro “choice”, and by a growing margin, 50-41% in the latest Gallup poll.
When Juno’s friend in the movie of the same name yelled to her as she walked into an abortion clinic, “It has fingernails!” it was a cultural watershed moment; this is a small example of the power of culture to mold the views of American citizens. The cultural high ground no longer goes to the back alley and coat hanger crowd; the separate human being growing in the pregnant woman, with its own DNA, its unique fingerprints, its own life can no longer be ignored.
Anger is such an extraordinary word…too be that it needs to exist.
But life being so short, I too opt for passion and on occasion, a dose of compassion.
Happy Thanksgiving to all.
Bravo, MDV! And, yes, Cash, an extraordinarily Happy Thanksgiving to you, your family, fans and friends. And the same greetings to all who posted here.
I simply cannot fathom why the desire to protect innocent life does not extend to living breathing children. They have fingernails too. In your fairyland the family takes care of them. In the real world they can use healthcare, food, shelter, and quality of life. Sorry if I glaze over when those who care so much about wombs don’t seem to care about the quality of life of living children. In any event, I share the great thanks of the season that so many of us have what we need including computers to have interesting discussions that change no minds. And a special thanks to S.T.(erroneously referred to as ET, sorry) who at least has the guts to let others with different opinions post on his board even if it may be just to insult them(smiling emoticon).
JSL: no one is saying that living, breathing children should not be protected. That is completely irrelevant, however, to the question of whether children in the womb should be killed. To suggest that compassion for children means that they ought to be killed in the womb is quite unfounded and indeed false, in my view. I believe that children in the womb should be protected from being killed, and that their parents, relatives, and local communities should do what is needed to take care of them thereafter. That is a perfectly consistent and, I dare say, compassionate position.
I agree that in discussing such matters there is little likelihood that either of us will change the other’s mind, but it is good to air these different lines of thinking so that others, who may have yet to make up their minds, may be influenced to think these issues through. I wish you a Happy Thanksgiving as well, and thank you for your comments.
Sometimes parents can’t, relatives won’t, and communities don’t. What then do YOU do? I mean YOU. Not him or her. YOU. Put burdens on others, say what is irrelevant, and then shrug your shoulders and talk about compassion. You only talk of what others should do but never about what you can do. You have cleverly devised an imaginary world where you justify your cold shell. Compassionate? Compassionate? Compassionate? Does the word mean anything?
JSL: I have raised my own children at no small expense, and have given rather a good deal to charity to aid others’. I never suggested that I have not been charitable in this way; you chose to impute that on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.
I have also paid a huge amount in taxes over the years.
What I do NOT do is “put burdens on others” by voting to tax them in order to “help the children.” That is not charity; it is forcible confiscation.
Mandatory charity is a contradiction in terms, as is compassion by proxy. You cannot be compassionate with other people’s treasures and time. It is up to you to choose to help others, as you say you do. If you can then persuade others to do likewise, that is a fine thing, and I will commend you for it. (But you should make sure not to accuse others of failure to give when you do not know it to be true.) If you fail in the effort to persuade people to help others, and you then turn to people armed with tanks and machine guns to force others to do as you wish, that is tyranny, not compassion nor charity.
Parents CAN, relatives SHOULD, and communities DO take care of little ones. Your suggestion that only the state can take care of people is simply false. The state is a cruel master, and anything that increases the state, ANYTHING that does so, is ultimately evil in its effect. And that includes the forced “charity” you wish to impose. Freedom is not divisible.
JSL: You’ve veered widely off-topic by inventing a straw-man with whom to argue. But I’ll bite so Sam can go back to beating puppies and kittens, behaving like a cross between Mr. Potter in “It’s a Wonderful Life” and Dickens’ Scrooge, and collecting the tears of orphans: 1) Compassion should be exhibited to both the born and unborn, not be mutually exclusive; 2) We’ve been talking about one injustice in particular, and t’other you bring up is a non sequitur as GP didn’t talk about the plight of unwanted or unaffordable children in the context of the song under consideration — instead he framed the argument about abortion and some invented “war against women,” period; 3) as someone who has raised two of my own children (one who was quite sickly, the other just remarkably accident-prone) to adulthood, and cared for one infant who did not, as well as just wrapped up much of the past two years assisting a parent with end-of-life issues — much to the detriment of my career, personal income, time and comfort — I resent your assertion that somehow I and people such as STK (who was a treasured confidante during my parent’s illness and displayed a remarkable compassionate disposition throughout and afterward) who share my views lack compassion; 4) you assume a moral high ground that may be warranted to you and those who know you, but have no bearing in this conversation.
Your quote…”ANYTHING that increases the state is ultimately evil”. Interesting from someone who wants the state to monitor every woman’s body. I think you have to admit that you are uncomfortable with giving the state that power. Resist it. It is the same state that you do not like and it is not equipt to deal with moral choices or the complexity of life. Oh there I go…now I have to take two drinks!
I think we are repeating ourselves.
JSL: “someone who wants the state to monitor every woman’s body”–already refuted above.
Bruce, I know that a discussion of personal charity, with us as villains, must be particularly galling to you in light of your personal history, and I am grateful for your patience and wisdom in dealing with this issue.
Bruce, your post intervened. I sincerely agree that taking care of ones own is the highest calling, and does not belong to others or the state, which is usually destructively meddlesome. I think it more primal than compassion that we would do anything for our family and friends. Perhaps it is my definition, but I think compassion is what we exercise to those who are not our family or friends just those, especially children, who need quite a bit of help. I simply do not see how your philosophy deals with this issue except to ignore it. Perhaps this issue is only tangentially related to the abortion issue, but I feel a connection because they both involve other people’s issues, not our own. I get it…you think abortion is infanticide. If I believed that I would agree that the State must become big enough to monitor every womb. I just think that you have to come to grips with the fact that because of this issue, you want a really really big government which pries into the most intimate details of some peoples lives. That is tricky for those who profess not to like government…Ah, the complexities of life(third drink).
I have followed Parker’s career only fitfully since the 80s, but he seems to have thrown subtlety out the window years ago. I stopped listening to him with both ears after “Harridan of Yore,” a vile aural screed against the Bush family that is unfortunately sung over a catchy tune
http://grooveshark.com/#!/search/song?q=Graham+Parker+Harridan+of+Yore+-+Graham+Parker
Not much subtlety here.
I’m so glad I checked back. It’s fascinating to see how absolutely obtuse a modern liberal can be, how they can be so wedded to their ideology that an empirical scientific fact is simply ignored as inconvenient to their argument. JSL, you are simply LOL laughable.
But just so others who happen to read this will get the point, though JSL appears incapable of getting beyond his talking points (got to be a dude to be this blind to biological reality), the fetus and the woman are two different people, have two completely different sets of DNA. The fetus cannot in any way no matter what kind of pretzel logic you want to use be considered part of a woman’s body.
As I stated above, most Americans, even those who consider themselves pro “choice” no longer buy into this obfuscation about a “woman’s body.” What a terribly inconvenient thing for the JSLs of the world.
Well I only checked in to apologize for my harsh tone and to wish everyone a happy thanksgiving. Hopefully what I add here will be in the spirit of peace.
Like Bruce, I lost a child. It affects everything I do at all times. I recall only once speaking to a woman who told me she was contemplating an abortion. All I told her that having a child is the greatest gift that god gives us.
This conversation is both about abortion and government. I can’t help that I think that if a woman is made to do the state’s work and carry a child to term, the state should guarantee to provide for that child when a family can’t. That is a big liberal government. Personally, I would favor that the state leave people alone in their decisions and then it would not have so much to do. I know that may not make sense to everyone here but it is how I feel.
I would further like to apologize for my high horse, making it seem like I am something I am not. I am just a guy trying to get by in a difficult world. I sense that Bruce and S. T. can say the same. I do not profess to know what they would say to a fragile woman who is facing difficult choices. I do believe that if it involved their family, the woman would be well cared for.
In any event…Happy Thanksgiving.
Bruce, S.T.: Graham still writes songs with a lot of nuance, if you would just take the time to listen to them. These days he has taken to writing more direct confrontational songs with a lot of anger. Coathangers is one of them. It is full of anger and in your face. The anger is directed at YOU, which is probably why you feel so uncomfortable about it.
JSL: Here’s hoping your Thanksgiving was a good one. Apologies accepted! JH: I never said GP wasn’t capable of writing songs of nuance. As a matter of fact, that was a major point of my essay — he chose to get up in listeners’ respective grills with Coathangers (and, I must concur w/ LK, that nasty song on the Bloodshot anthology)rather than make his case by showing rather than telling. The result is agitprop, not art. Successful art, to borrow a phrase from Ezra Pound, is news that stays news. Of course, EP was referring to poetry, not pop music, but GP has scaled the heights of poetry in songs he has written in the past whether I agreed with his conclusions or not, and indeed, other songs on the new album. You seem to think that negative criticism of one song requires a defense of the entirety of GP’s body of work, which is silly. I’m second to no one in my admiration of GP’s catalog, but sometimes he falls short of the mark artistically. Further, you’re very condescending to assume I’m a fitting victim for GP’s venom in Coathangers simply because you assume I’m a disappointed Republican voter (yeesh, that’s pretty lame,dude), and that somehow I might’ve been reduced to the vapors and demanded my barefoot and pregnant woman run back to the kitchen to fetch my smelling salts upon hearing it. My initial essay was one of aesthetics that compared two songs pertaining to the same subject matter, composed 30-some years apart. For me, one works artistically and one does not. You wanna go all PoMo and read into this critical comparison that I’m merely a disenfranchised, not nearly as sophisticated as you and GP, right-wing, Bible-thumping know-nothing really says more about you, the tenuousness of your arguments and your lack of a consistent critical methodology. Coathangers is simple-minded bomb throwing compared to You Can’t Be Too Strong. The latter works as art, the former is a bumper-sticker exercise that succumbs to all the failings I’ve listed previously as well as the points brought up by STK in the first post in this thread.
I know this discussion is over but since I have now heard the song many times I thought I would just comment on it since that is what this started to be about. When GP writes a song, there is often a personna which may be close to his real view but maybe not. In this case the personna starts the song by making logical arguements as to his views on abortion. Then the arguments start going over the top. By the end of the song it is the personna who becomes the sleazy voice…”you might need a stiff drink, maybe some slammers come on girls get your Coathangers”. Yea he reallly cares about the woman…he will sell her the stiff drink, sell the slammers(what ever they are)sell the coathanger and sell whatever else is necessary. The fade of the song has his sleazy voice repeating “come on girls” like a carnival barker as if to doubt that anything this guy says is useful. I think a true inspection of the song indicates it is really a rejection of the sleaze on either side.
Interestingly GP has reunited with his old band and is getting much notice for that. I think he finds that a little sleazy…like he is selling Snake Oil(first song on the album).
Now you may think that the song fails because most people who listen to it will not catch the depth of the message. I suggest that is the problem with the listener, not the artist. Of course, as with everything GP, I could be totally wrong.
BTW last night was the first show of the tour and he played both Coathangers and You Can’t Be too Strong. Confusing HUH.
I thought it was just me. I wrote a review of it on a website that says pretty much the same thing. Equating various objections along the abortion spectrum, from late term abortions to paying for others’ abortions, to going back to coathangers is brutish, simplistic, and unfair. There is a wide spectrum of attitudes on the subject and “you can’t be too strong” is sullied by this crude attempt at the same subject.
Sign of the times, I suppose. Nuanced thought is dead. Graham is a great talent but perhaps has lived in a bubble of farm life and unchallenged hippie commune type thinking so long he’s lost perspective. This song does not strike me as one from a man who’s ever been challenged by his friends on the subject.
Oh, I’m pro choice. But with a few reasonable restrictions. I guess I’m a cave man.