The Minutemen - "History Lesson Pt. 2" (1984)

There are plenty of love songs around, but how many artists have pulled off a love song to their audience?

The Minutemen's "History Lesson Pt. 2" gets away with it because it's also a song about the love between D. Boon, Mike Watt and George Hurley and the dreams that pulled them together and made life on the road endurable and even enjoyable. What sets it apart from similar songs and where it addresses their audience directly is the opening line, "our band could be your life".

Think about it, how many bands have ever broached such a promise? You certainly would not expect it from the weirdest trio in American hardcore. Who weren't even weird in any way guaranteed to have even a niche appeal among the more common brand of social outcasts. Just brainy guys who might have turned to prog rock or jazz if they hadn't fallen in love with punk.

Which is what the song is all about.

What's most obvious about the song is how un-punk it is. It actually sounds like a slowed down variation on the Creedence Clearwater Revival style (which is appropiate, given how great an influence CCR were on the Minutemen, who sound up covering three of their songs). The Minutemen were always a very fast, hardcore band, complementing an extreme willingness to experiment with an ability to swing that was unknown in hardcore at the time or since. And they always featured the bass as a melodic contrapoint and sometimes an extension to the guitar. Which is what they do here, only slower than usual.

Good thing too, as the lyrics would be too cryptic and full of private jokes to make out at full speed. Except for the line that goes "I was E. Bloom, Richard Hell, Joe Strummer, and John Doe". But the lyrics are not terribly important, because the warmth in D. Boon's voice and his slow, melodic guitar fills tell the story of a love and friendship that can't be described in words anyway. And the fat, dropping bass line seems to fortell D. Boon's tragic death in a car accident a year later.

(One of the most wasteful deaths ever. To put things in perspective, imagine if Bob Dylan had died in that motorcycle accident in 1967, leaving us Highway 61 Revisited and Blonde On Blonde but depriving us of The Basement Tapes, John Wesley Harding, Blood On The Tracks and everything he's done since the 90's.)