We Tell Ourselves Stories In Order To Live

I was discussing what I had just dubbed the Paul McCartney Paradox (I don't think it is a paradox but it is something) which involves Paul McCartney releasing a new album.  Imagine a younger person.  Paul McCartney and record labels and advertisements and prominent displays, and radio play, and press overage have all been telling this person to buy Paul McCartney's new album.  But they don't say.  You should buy all of the Beatles Albums, certain Wings albums, and certain superior Paul McCartney solo albums before buying this one, which frankly isn't his best, despite the catchy single, Dance Tonight.

So, should all McCartney albums have a sticker on the front with all the albums you should buy before you buy this one.  Or do you just have people buy it because it is new.

Anyways, I went into making fun of his 2007 single Dance Tonight which came out in favor of dancing tonight.  But, the song didn't make you dance.  Dance Tonight was offered up as a suggestion for something you could do later while listening to a different song.

This led me to the easy joke about rock bands always talking about rocking rather than rocking.  Kiss I'm looking at you.  Go ahead and rock all night and party every day, I am not stopping you.  And on stage always with the "are you ready to rock?" the correct answer is not yes but, "whoooo"

A day before, while watching A Serious Man  (which is really good but it has an air of them cashing in their No Money For Old Men Oscar chits.  The hardest I laughed was when the movie ended, because it ended when it did),
 
I saw a trailer for Pirate Radio  staring Phillip "Lester Bangs" S Hoffman and Bill "old rocker in Still Crazy and Love Actually" Nighy.  The trailer voice over contains the line, "The motley crue that saved rock and roll."  Why is Rock and Roll so contantly in danger.  How can something raw, pure and primal be so delicate as to necessitate lenghty rituals in order to prepare people to receive it.

It is easy, they go out of their way to be as shocking as possible in an attempt to generate controversy and perceived enemies.  Rock and Roll needs to be persecuted and it needs their Kenneth "the government drip in the trailer" Branaugh straw men to be opposed to.

All of this thinking kept reminding of one other thing that acted in very similar ways: Christianity and Christians.  They are always under constant threat - from people they invented, from things they brought upon themselves on purpose, or just ordinary straw men.  There are other links between Christianity and Rock and Roll, making me believe that Christianity had a lot of influence on Rock and Roll.  From heavy metals surface satan worship, to the ease the Creed and other Christian bands can just put in Jesus Lyrics into existing rock and roll and make it Christian, to the early call of Rock and Roll being called the devil's music, from the christian influence in the immediate pre-cursors to rock and roll.

But most of all the constant concern for its very existence.  The Devil or The Man is out to destroy Christanity and Rock and Roll - even though they are supposed to be super-naturally powerful forces.  There is more to this and someone has presumably noticed it before and looked into how much it is there.  At least, Rock and Roll came about as young people's participation in organized religion began to drop.  The mythology, the rituals, the sacred and the profane.  The sects and schisms.  I haven't thought it all out.