Friday Night Jukebox, Vol. XXXII--Bob Seger: Night Moves

If the Union of Super Songwriters (note:  pretty sure no such organization exists) conducted a poll to find the top ten rock and roll songs ever written--strictly from a lyrical standpoint--and "Night Moves" by Bob Seger made the list, I wouldn't bat an eye.  It is ridiculously well-written.  And, oddly enough, it's the only song Seger ever wrote that I would even put in a top 1000 of songs with incredible lyrics let alone a top ten (not that he didn't have plenty of songs I loved, just nothing that quite captured everything that rock and roll can be quite like "Night Moves").

Admittedly, unlike many critics, I don't pooh-pooh song lyrics--give me a lyric sheet from an album and I'm in heaven.

Seger hails from my adopted city/state of Detroit, Michigan and while he may not be as revered here as much as Springsteen is in New Jersey, he's pretty damn close.  Concert dates sell out in minutes.  New albums (few and far between as he's gotten older) are waited for like a six-year-old waits for Christmas morning.  Seger has had a long and storied career--starting out and spending years as a journeyman rocker, becoming a regional hero throughout lower Michigan, releasing Live Bullet (considered one of the ten best live albums ever--note that I detest live albums and even I think it was a great record) which put him on the map nationally, and following it up with his best selling album ever, Night Moves, which made (and deservedly so) Seger into a superstar.  He would follow it up with multiple platinum selling albums, Grammy Awards, an Academy Award nomination (for a horrible song), all of which would lead to his induction in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004.

Not bad for a Detroit boy (and  a la Springsteen and John Mellencamp, he still resides in his home state--bravo!),

As for "Night Moves," it was released in 1976 and eventually reached #4 (with a bullet!) on the Billboard Hot 100.  Truth be told, I was not a fan when it first came out--and this may be because I was only 17 and the song is most definitely written about the process and progress of getting older.  It was while driving to work about a dozen years after it was released that I heard it on a local radio station and it dawned on me how great of a song it truly was.  Starting with a lighltly strummed guitar, Seger reminisces with his raspy (and wondrous throughout) vocals that he was "...a little too tall, could've used a few pounds...".  Seger's vocals are neither rose colored nor sad--rather, they remain worldly-wise.  More instruments are added and some beautiful gospelesque backing vocals as Seger winds his way through his highly personal tale of a decidedly sexual teenage relationship, both of them waiting for so much more, until he awakes one night a much older man and the song circles back to the lightly strummed acoustic guitar and the much older man remembers a tune from 1962 and that so much more never came.  And how much different the night moves the older you get.  It closes with Seger rattling off "ain't it funny how you remember" again and again as the backing vocalists scream "night moves" knowingly and hauntingly.  I don't believe a rock and roll song has ever evoked the joy and sorrow of youthful memories quite like "Night Moves."

One last thing:  if you've ever lived in what is known as the American Midwest, you know that spring and summer can bring some thunderstorms that bespeak of the wrath of God.  Early on you are taught that if you see a strike of lightning you can begin counting "One-Mississippi, Two-Mississippi..." until you hear the crack of thunder and each "Mississippi" will tell you how many miles you are from the center of the storm.  I have no idea whether this is true, but when Seger sings "Woke last night to the sound of thunder/How far off I sat and wondered..." know that he has written the quintessential lines for the quintessential rock and roll song of the American Midwest.

Enjoy:

Peace,
emaycee