| |
|
|
I started thinking
about Chuck Berry when I was sixteen one morning, and that was the end of
that, in a lot of ways: once a particular version of “School
Days” had lodged itself in my brain, it was as though
I’d been rewired. I’d get this or that line’s cadence running
on a loop in my ear, and would spend days and days driving around in wonder.
How did he write this stuff? Some lines, even and maybe especially throw-away
place-and-time-setters like “Deep down in Loosiana [sic] close to New
Orleans/Way back up in the woods among the evergreens,” would assert
themselves with a force as pure and direct as Shakespeare on a good day.
In a real and frightening sense of the word, Chuck Berry was mindblowing.
|
|
|
|
