Let's Live Forever with Pat Bacon's Rebellion

Just because an artist hasn’t been sanctified, deified, certified and fried in butter by a major label doesn’t mean that they aren’t any good. On the contrary, these ears have seldom found a corollary between talent, performance and entertainment value and a debt-ridden big league deal; indeed, for an independent-minded musician, signing with a major typically means jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.

Which, really, leaves an artist with one of two choices: sign a sometimes equally oppressive deal with an indie label, or simply do the damn thing yourself. With radio playlists strangled by mediocrity and label A&R departments literally scared-to-frickin-death of anything that doesn’t sound like what’s playing on the radio rightthisminute, it’s no wonder that many serious musicians are choosing to go the D.I.Y. route, rolling the dice and hoping that their MySpace brings a few friends to their web site to hear the music.

Pat Bacon hails from Minneapolis, Minnesota, the same artistically fertile backyard that spawned Bob Dylan, the Replacements, Prince and the Jayhawks, and in the grand tradition laid down by his musical forebears, Bacon rocks. Although he just started playing music a relatively short time ago, it’s quite obvious to the trained and untrained ear alike after listening to Let’s Live Forever – Bacon’s third album, and his first with the talented Pat Bacon’s Rebellion – that this is a guy that has been chomping at the bit to make music since he dropped from the womb and hit the ground running. Sometimes it takes some artists longer than others to hit their stride, and by the sound of Let’s Live Forever, Bacon has been training for this marathon for some time.

Let it therefore ring eternally from the heavens this undeniable truth: Bacon’s “Let’s Live Forever” is one of the greatest fucking-fantastic roots-rock songs that any single artist has ever had the balls to put pen-to-scrap-o-paper and scribble out the demented lyrics. Sounding like a less-nasally young Zimmerman, Bacon begins with a verse that any and every rock obsessive can relate to: “radio waves singin’ in the nighttime/no one could convince me this ain’t the right time/no one understood how we could feel the music in our souls.” From here, he soars across 50 years of rock ‘n’ rebellion, kicking out verses that brilliantly include aspects of every great working class hero from Dylan, John Fogerty and Springsteen to Steve Earle and Joe Grushecky.

“Let’s Live Forever,” you see, is about the power of the music to transcend mortality and memory and the mundane reality of everyday life. This is the story of the young rocker of Springsteen’s “Rosalita” before the fame and fortune, of “Johnny B. Goode” going for the brass ring, and Bacon’s lyrics manage to capture all of the desire and ambition and naked want that any creative person has felt in their life, often with verses that would knock a lesser songwriter out cold with envy. The chorus is pure gold – “c’mon now, let’s fly together/throw all these chains away/break through the golden tether/c’mon now, let’s live forever.” Throwaway lines like “runnin’ on the backstreets, racing down the highway/win or lose baby, I’m gonna do this my way/I’m blinded by the lights but I’m growin’ up the way that I choose” do more than name check Springsteen, they also pick up the gauntlet thrown down by Bruce’s characters three decades ago and take them to new heights.

When the song comes to its rollicking conclusion, with the protagonist breaking his mother’s heart by leaving home in search of fame and the Midas touch (“you can change your mind become a doctor or a lawyer” she says), he sings “told her not to cry/man I ain’t comin’ home ‘til I can look you in the eye,” tossing out “if Rosie calls tell her I’m just staying busy staying gold” as he walks out the door, bringing the song full-circle and back to the mythical Rosalita. It’s a powerful piece of songwriting, superbly crafted and clever as hell in its references; sadly, you’ll probably never hear it on the radio the way that God and Elvis decreed it should be.

There’s nothing else on Let’s Live Forever that stands up to “Let’s Live Forever,” the song, but not for lack of trying. There’s no shame in this, though, ‘cause I’ve certainly heard albums that had less to build around than this fine opening song. There are plenty of other strong tunes hereabouts, all of ‘em plenty entertaining, illustrating that Bacon’s songwriting chops don’t begin and end with the first tune. “Outstanding” intros with a meaty Andy Smith guitar riff that echoes Lou Reed, Bacon opening with the wonderful line “she was standing in her driveway/lookin’ like Madonna in her prime/thought I saw her lookin’ my way/it mighta been a trick in my mind.” The song, about the fleeting beauty that any heart-on-sleeve romantic witnesses in everyday life, is both dream and reality.

“David Took A Shot” uses the Biblical tale of triumph to frame an argument for self-determination and sheer guts, concluding that it’s “better to have fallen down than never stand at all.” Bacon’s “I Just Might” follows a similar tack, casting aside the naysayers who are certain that you’ll never succeed, a screaming guitar line and the defiant chorus “I might just be another dreamer/it might turn out that they were right/I might not get to touch the stars/But I just might” drawing a line in the sand between those that never will and those that would wither and die if they never tried. “We Were Cool, Too” is a sharp slice of truth, flawless in concept and execution, as one aging generation tries to convince the next that “I know it’s hard to believe it lookin’ at us now/one day we were cool too.” It’s reminiscent of John Prine’s “Hello In There” in its simplicity and weight, a free-flowing song that reminds us of our place in the cultural scheme of things.

Many of the other songs on Let’s Live Forever follow the same gleaming star, Bacon a true believer in family, friendship, love and the power of rock & roll to save your soul. More so, he is a realist with a keen eye and no little wit, able to lyrically pin down a moment with emotion and passion. Although he often paints his characters in broad strokes, his words are quite capable in expressing the lofty conceptual flourishes in down-to-earth terms. Backed by a top-notch band of some talent – guitarist Andy Smith, in particular, stands out, but the rest of the guys do a great job of creating a lush yet subtle musical landscape behind the lyrics – Bacon’s pleasant, slightly-twangy vocals are sometimes overwhelmed by his words and the music.

That is a minor cavil, however, since the focus on Let’s Live Forever is on the wonderful chemistry between the words and the music, and stronger, more technically-proficient vocals would distract from and possibly destroy the warmth and humanity that Bacon brings to every song and story. With a rootsy, folk-rock Americana soundtrack that dredges up memories of CCR, the Byrds, the Band, Tom Petty and a dozen other fellow travelers, Bacon has delivered a strong, entertaining and truly magical collection of songs with Let’s Live Forever.

A gifted songwriter and musician, Pat Bacon joins a growing legion of talents like Joe Grushecky, Tommy Womack, Jason Ringenberg and Pete Berwick, among few others, that are just too damn good for our celebrity-obsessed, bottom-line-oriented modern media world. All of them are family men, rockers at heart, with talent and songs to spare, and not a single damn one of them will get the major label deal that might bring them a wider audience. ‘Tis more the shame, too, that more people won’t experience the sheer joy and sincerity shown by every song on Pat Bacon’s Let’s Live Forever. (Providence Records)

(Click on the CD cover to buy Let's Live Forever from CD Baby)