It's partly about talking about America and partly about his strained relationship with Rick Davies.
On wikipedia there's a quote "As I remember, that song was written with two things in mind. I think it was a little bit, maybe my equivalent of "Gone Hollywood". Maybe looking at America and seeing how Americans are living and possibly, also a song to Rick a little bit too, because we did live totally different lives. And life styles, possibly. So maybe it was a little bit of, a little bit of a song to him. In retrospect it was a little judgmental of me, but I think it was probably…we weren't getting on with this album. It was becoming more and more difficult to work together and we were really wanting different things out of life. And I think this was my song to him, as "Casual Conversations" was, I really believe that was a song that he wrote to me. We weren't communicating very well through this album and it tells a lot, that song".
--Roger Hodgson, In the Studio with Redbeard for The Making of Breakfast in America(first aired in June 1990).
@IntravenusDeMilo Seems like a fair interpretation. I’m not a Supertramp expert but they and Brian Wilson wrote the soundtrack to my formative years. I myself worked in rock bands playing keyboards (B3) from ages 18-24 and got to know a lot about band culture.
@IntravenusDeMilo Seems like a fair interpretation. I’m not a Supertramp expert but they and Brian Wilson wrote the soundtrack to my formative years. I myself worked in rock bands playing keyboards (B3) from ages 18-24 and got to know a lot about band culture.
Really it’s like a family, where you’re in each other’s face 24/7 (esp. when touring) and after a while the little peculiarities of a bandmate will begin to grate on others and if not held back can get nasty!
Really it’s like a family, where you’re in each other’s face 24/7 (esp. when touring) and after a while the little peculiarities of a bandmate will begin to grate on others and if not held back can get nasty!
Example: when driving everybody around (I had the only car) I had the habit of opening my window even when it was cold, at stoplights or stop signs. One day after I’d done the 25th time our normally easy-going bass player screamed at the top of his lungs, “Why do you keep doing that?” I tried to explain calmly that one of my uncles was a railway guy and recommended it as a safety measure. Well, when it's 25 below in January in Ottawa Ontario, people don’t have time for logic.
Now, consider that most musicians are loners and yet they have to work closely together to get that tight sound people want from a group, especially a pop group — which I consider a Supertramp to be. And that isn’t a put-down. Pop is the hardest music there is to be successful at.
It takes a lot of patience and unbelievable hours of work to get a song right. And if you’ve been getting on each others' nerves for the past couple of years, yet another layer of potential bad vibes must be factored in. You try to be cool but it gets personal.
Supertramp were the embodiment of a live that could replicate the studio production quality of their albums. Hodgson was aware that the fans who thronged to see them live wanted the exact same sound they were so addicted to from listening to their albums over and over. And thanks to superb management, organization of everything from the lighting to the all-important sound system, and exceedingly disciplined playing, Supertramp were able to give the fans what they wanted. If you’ve seen the “Paris” live performance video, you see the effect they could produce on an audience that for the most part could not understand the lyrics of their songs.
I think it's all down to Hodgson. He kept that disciplined workstyle going after he went on his own.
But still it’s the original Supertramp recordings I like best. Pop and rock need the energy of youth to drive them forward. And once they got into a groove, 1970s Supertramp could hold their own with anybody. Anybody!
But what broke Supertramp up is what broke up the Beatles. Only one creative genius is permitted in a band. And that is because the band invariably becomes his or her backup group.
Roger Hodgson deserved and needed his own band. He had the laser-like vision that ultimately made Supertramp a worldwide phenomenon. His songs are their great ones, with that unique combination of intensity and love of life. I’m from Canada, and we were among the first countries to “get” Supertramp.
Now back to this lyric: I don’t know if Rick Davies was a party animal in the old days or what. (I certainly was.) But Hodgson is such a sweet-natured guy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a problem cutting some slack for associates with darker personalities, or human weaknesses that he was immune to. Hodgson comes across to me as the most well-adjusted pop/rock musician out there. He was Supertramp's Paul McCartney to the Beatles' John Lennon.
So yeah, I can see this song as calling out Davies and maybe even all of the self-indulgent Americans Hodgson encountered during their historic tour. As Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, “Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”
So must Davies have felt when he became aware of slim, clean-living Hodgson whispering his band away from him. And I can totally understand why he would be resentful. And how in self defense Hodgson would use Davies's self-indulgent ways to rationalize why he was the band's natural leader.
Probably I’m reaching beyond my grasp here. But since rediscovering Supertramp a few months ago, and being astounded how well an old guy like Hodgson continues to perform — and in the process wears out fellow musicians young enough to be his grandsons — I just had to take a closer look at the their material.
As I said earlier, I think this is Hodgson's most deeply-felt song. Now that I see the lyric clearly I can agree with the interpretation of the band's interpersonal differences providing a springboard to a roundhouse swing by Hodgson at America's greedy, self-indulgent culture.
Ironically, America's obsessively consumerist, reinvent-yourself-and-get-rich culture is what captivates outsiders like Hodgson (and me), even when we express disgust at the sheer excess of it all, from three-ton SUVs to gigantic-sized soft drinks guzzled by 12 year olds.
I blame a lot of my adulation for American cultures on the songs Brian Wilson implanted in our adolescent minds in the early '60s, and how he so effectively captivated the whole boomer generation.
And, I think Hodgson is aware of his puritanical streak and also of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds him — his huge American fan base. So I will let him have his way with this song, pay less attention to the words, and focus on the unstoppable driving groove they touch on at during the song's beginning and relentlessly hammer home toward the end. I only wish I could have seen them play it live.
It's partly about talking about America and partly about his strained relationship with Rick Davies. On wikipedia there's a quote "As I remember, that song was written with two things in mind. I think it was a little bit, maybe my equivalent of "Gone Hollywood". Maybe looking at America and seeing how Americans are living and possibly, also a song to Rick a little bit too, because we did live totally different lives. And life styles, possibly. So maybe it was a little bit of, a little bit of a song to him. In retrospect it was a little judgmental of me, but I think it was probably…we weren't getting on with this album. It was becoming more and more difficult to work together and we were really wanting different things out of life. And I think this was my song to him, as "Casual Conversations" was, I really believe that was a song that he wrote to me. We weren't communicating very well through this album and it tells a lot, that song".
--Roger Hodgson, In the Studio with Redbeard for The Making of Breakfast in America(first aired in June 1990).
@IntravenusDeMilo Seems like a fair interpretation. I’m not a Supertramp expert but they and Brian Wilson wrote the soundtrack to my formative years. I myself worked in rock bands playing keyboards (B3) from ages 18-24 and got to know a lot about band culture.
@IntravenusDeMilo Seems like a fair interpretation. I’m not a Supertramp expert but they and Brian Wilson wrote the soundtrack to my formative years. I myself worked in rock bands playing keyboards (B3) from ages 18-24 and got to know a lot about band culture.
Really it’s like a family, where you’re in each other’s face 24/7 (esp. when touring) and after a while the little peculiarities of a bandmate will begin to grate on others and if not held back can get nasty!
Really it’s like a family, where you’re in each other’s face 24/7 (esp. when touring) and after a while the little peculiarities of a bandmate will begin to grate on others and if not held back can get nasty!
Example: when driving everybody around (I had the only car) I had the habit of opening my window even when it was cold, at stoplights or stop signs. One day after I’d done the 25th time our normally easy-going bass player screamed at the top of his lungs, “Why do you keep doing that?” I tried to explain calmly that one of my uncles was a railway guy and recommended it as a safety measure. Well, when it's 25 below in January in Ottawa Ontario, people don’t have time for logic.
Now, consider that most musicians are loners and yet they have to work closely together to get that tight sound people want from a group, especially a pop group — which I consider a Supertramp to be. And that isn’t a put-down. Pop is the hardest music there is to be successful at.
It takes a lot of patience and unbelievable hours of work to get a song right. And if you’ve been getting on each others' nerves for the past couple of years, yet another layer of potential bad vibes must be factored in. You try to be cool but it gets personal.
Supertramp were the embodiment of a live that could replicate the studio production quality of their albums. Hodgson was aware that the fans who thronged to see them live wanted the exact same sound they were so addicted to from listening to their albums over and over. And thanks to superb management, organization of everything from the lighting to the all-important sound system, and exceedingly disciplined playing, Supertramp were able to give the fans what they wanted. If you’ve seen the “Paris” live performance video, you see the effect they could produce on an audience that for the most part could not understand the lyrics of their songs.
I think it's all down to Hodgson. He kept that disciplined workstyle going after he went on his own.
But still it’s the original Supertramp recordings I like best. Pop and rock need the energy of youth to drive them forward. And once they got into a groove, 1970s Supertramp could hold their own with anybody. Anybody!
But what broke Supertramp up is what broke up the Beatles. Only one creative genius is permitted in a band. And that is because the band invariably becomes his or her backup group.
Roger Hodgson deserved and needed his own band. He had the laser-like vision that ultimately made Supertramp a worldwide phenomenon. His songs are their great ones, with that unique combination of intensity and love of life. I’m from Canada, and we were among the first countries to “get” Supertramp.
Now back to this lyric: I don’t know if Rick Davies was a party animal in the old days or what. (I certainly was.) But Hodgson is such a sweet-natured guy, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a problem cutting some slack for associates with darker personalities, or human weaknesses that he was immune to. Hodgson comes across to me as the most well-adjusted pop/rock musician out there. He was Supertramp's Paul McCartney to the Beatles' John Lennon.
So yeah, I can see this song as calling out Davies and maybe even all of the self-indulgent Americans Hodgson encountered during their historic tour. As Shakespeare wrote in Julius Caesar, “Let me have men about me that are fat, sleek-headed men and such as sleep a-nights. Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look. He thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.”
So must Davies have felt when he became aware of slim, clean-living Hodgson whispering his band away from him. And I can totally understand why he would be resentful. And how in self defense Hodgson would use Davies's self-indulgent ways to rationalize why he was the band's natural leader.
Probably I’m reaching beyond my grasp here. But since rediscovering Supertramp a few months ago, and being astounded how well an old guy like Hodgson continues to perform — and in the process wears out fellow musicians young enough to be his grandsons — I just had to take a closer look at the their material.
As I said earlier, I think this is Hodgson's most deeply-felt song. Now that I see the lyric clearly I can agree with the interpretation of the band's interpersonal differences providing a springboard to a roundhouse swing by Hodgson at America's greedy, self-indulgent culture.
Ironically, America's obsessively consumerist, reinvent-yourself-and-get-rich culture is what captivates outsiders like Hodgson (and me), even when we express disgust at the sheer excess of it all, from three-ton SUVs to gigantic-sized soft drinks guzzled by 12 year olds.
I blame a lot of my adulation for American cultures on the songs Brian Wilson implanted in our adolescent minds in the early '60s, and how he so effectively captivated the whole boomer generation.
And, I think Hodgson is aware of his puritanical streak and also of not wanting to bite the hand that feeds him — his huge American fan base. So I will let him have his way with this song, pay less attention to the words, and focus on the unstoppable driving groove they touch on at during the song's beginning and relentlessly hammer home toward the end. I only wish I could have seen them play it live.