As Life and Arts' resident literary critic, I recognize the need for underappreciated poets to be seen. Just like a supplement is necessary to properly understand James Joyce's literary classic "Finnegan's Wake," allow me to guide you with expertise through the transcendental journey that is Hurricane Chris' "A Bay Bay."
"Now if you looking for me, baby, you can find me banging in the Chevy, candy painted, swinging 9 deep."
The depth of this metaphor still confuses the academic community. Many scholars, however, maintain Chris' uncanny ability to explore the theme of commercialism versus spirituality. Most evidence supports the view that Chris is "swinging" through a moral sieve of nine distinct components, or "9 deep."
"Everybody tripping because I'm limping when I'm walking and I'm pimping when I'm talking."
A god of poetic devices, Hurricane utilizes an uncommon pun while shifting focus inward by way of the modernist approach to prose and poetry. Most listeners will only understand "tripping" as the act of stumbling or falling, thus overlooking the reference to urban slang. The use of dialect cements his name in the tradition of Mark Twain, Paul Laurence Dunbar and Alice Walker.
"Yellow bone chirping me; she trying to see where [I'm going to] be/You going to let me get up in your mouth - well, that's where [I'm going to] be."
Hurricane Chris masterfully departs from existential analysis with clever satire. The "yellow bone" whom the speaker implicates is a light-skinned woman of African descent, and alludes to the color symbolism of American poet Amy Lowell. Chris expertly resolves the reader's uncertainty of the speaker's future whereabouts when he reveals he will "Get up in [her] mouth." Compelling and rich.
- Jeremy Rougeau
Why? Why would somebody who has no idea about artistic depth even attempt to recreate a firmly-established artistic production?
What happened was this: Very recently I heard the Canadian "punk" princess, Avril Lavigne, cover a Bob Dylan song and was completely floored. Sure, it's a free country and she's entitled to, but it's the clueless infringement on sacred ground that horrifies and unnerves listeners everywhere. The song Miss Lavigne recorded was "Knockin' On Heaven's Door," one tune in a collection of many tunes that Dylan wrote for a soundtrack entitled Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, specifically written for the 1973 film of the same name.
This haunting song clearly communicates pain, defeat, hardship, weariness, human mortality and futility.
Other artists were intrigued with the song's mystique and covered it as well, specifically Eric Clapton in 1975, Guns 'n Roses in 1991 and Warren Zevon in 2003. These artists hold precedence over Miss Lavigne in that not only do they have seniority, but they also are true musicians who have insight of the "greats" before them, appreciate them, play musical instruments technically and intuitively well, and perhaps even understand artists like Dylan.
Lavigne's latest version is terrible; she has none of these attributes. In her video, she is clumsily hunched over a mixer while some tool sits behind her soullessly strumming away at the chords. Her voice is self-conscious in that she does not feel nor does she understand what she is singing, not to mention her poppy "yeahs" that substitute for Dylan's soothing "oooos" are more than obnoxious. Sigh, what a debacle. All I ask of you is this: If you hear someone singing this song and believe it to be by Avril Lavigne, please do this person a huge favor and correct him or her.
- Michal Durham
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