The Rolling Stones - "Shattered" (1978, from Some Girls)
It's fitting that the most punk of the Stones' tunes is the one with the most dominant bass line. In early punk, in the form of Pere Ubu, the Ramones, and the Clash, the bass carried the melody while the guitar(s) created a whirl of ringing noise. So it is with "Shattered", an apres-moi-le-deluge screed from what many consider the last Stones album of true artistic merit, and doubtless the one which encouraged Mick to copy Bowie's Young Americans soul-music phase, resulting in a slew of records for CBS that even stalward apologists loathe.
But enough history. "Shattered" transcends its album, dribbling contempt on the rotting corpse of late-70's New York City ("Bite the Big Apple...don't mind the maggots," sneers Mick), the sycophants of the rock scene, and even the self, without sounding weary at all, merely weathered. I almost went with "Respectable" from the same album, but "Respectable," good as it is, sharp as it is, is too much of a kiss-off song to really approach the awareness of "Shattered." In '78 the Stones were being (justly, based on prior product) derided as dinosaurs, 60's leftovers. Some Girls was meant to be the rejoinder to such. But the last song on the album has the singer describing himself as torn up, run over, food for the mindless. Meanwhile, the rest of the band chimes in with the kind of tongue-in-cheek doo-wop ("Doop, Sha-dooby, Shattered, Shattered") the Beatles employed on "Revolution 1".
It's a joke, but who's getting it? The honkies fleeing as the crime wave's goin' up, up, up, up, UP? The friends' comin' round to flatter, flatter, flatter? The Puerto Rican Girls who are just DYIN' to meetchoo? Methinks not. Methinks I hear the Stones hitting the end of their idea train, and just deciding to "Pile it up, pile it high on the platter," and keep serving it hot.
Which, according to many, they've been doing. And we've been buying. And but few of the bands that have come since have done more, either.
Can't say they didn't warn us.
#20
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