Maybe We Can’t Change the World

I am a pretty lousy guitar player. I’ve learned to play a few songs, but I can’t really sing and play at the same time. I’ve taken lessons occasionally, but in the end, I just don’t play or practice enough to be of much use at all at it. I love it though, and whenever I pick it up and strum out a few notes, it makes me happy. I do occasionally watch videos to try and learn a new riff here and there, which led to the least metal moment of my life. Possibly the least metal moment of anyone’s life. 

A few years back, when my wife and I still lived in a messy, small apartment, I was noodling around on the guitar, trying to learn a few new songs. I got it into my head to learn one of the all-time great riffs – Iron Man by Black Sabbath. You know the one I’m talking about, that almighty ‘dun dun da-dun-dun-dun  dun-dun-dun-dun-DUN-DUN’.  I was playing it on an acoustic, so it was sounding a little piddly. I tried for a bit and was sort of getting it, and as I was strumming, the video ended, and auto-loaded the next video, which happened to be “Hold My Hand “ by Hootie and the Blowfish. Given the popular reputation and relative musical merit of the two bands, I think the natural reaction would have been to turn the computer off, throw it out the window, and possibly sue YouTube. 

Not me!

I vividly remember saying, not thinking, saying, “Oh Shit!”

I immediately forgot all about Tommy, Ozzy, and the rest and set about learning one of the most beloved and reviled songs of the 1990s. 

Turns out the main riff for “Hold My Hand” is not particularly difficult AND it’s fun to play. 

Since I’m just laying it all out there, I’ll go ahead and note that I enjoy “Hold My Hand” the song more than I enjoy “Iron Man.” I realize that is some level of heresy, but in my defense, come on, that song is awesome. 

I never really fully understood why people hated Hootie and the Blowfish as much as they did. “Cracked Rear View Mirror” is a genuinely fantastic and fun album. The music isn’t groundbreaking, challenging, or particularly deep, but it’s well done and catchy. Authenticity was important in the 90s, or at least the appearance of authenticity. “Sell out” was just about the worst thing an artist could be called. Being real was everything, and I think it’s hard to argue that there was any artifice to Hootie and the Blowfish, other than Darius Rucker’s name not being Hootie. They were a bunch of fun-loving party guys from South Carolina who made music meant to be enjoyed by fun-loving party guys from South Carolina. 

I suppose most of the blowback was a combination of the album’s incredible success, mixed with its lack of interest in creating new ground. When you look back at the 90s, you think of incredible albums like Pearl Jam’s “Ten,” Red Hot Chili Peppers “Blood Sugar Sex Magik,” Lauryn Hill’s “The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill and so forth. You can probably list 20 or so albums off the top of your head that are all-time classics and almost none of which will have outsold “Cracked Rear View Mirror.” 

In a way, they’re a lot like the Eagles. For years, the Eagles were kind of a joke, but when you look at the 70s and all the incredible music and movements like punk, disco, prog, and heavy metal, it was the laid-back guys from California that most people were listening to. 

Now you certainly can’t measure merit or worth based on sales. That’s a fool’s errand. I’m hardly arguing that Hootie and the Blowfish were one of the best bands of the 90s. They weren’t. The point is that it doesn’t really matter. They made fun music that people enjoyed listening to, and they did it while not trying to be anything more than what they were. And it’s good music! 

“Hold My Hand” is a genuinely great pop-rock song. The guitar sound is bright and rich. Rucker’s vocals are emotive and match the guitar sound in a way that just makes you smile. It’s got a big sing-along chorus that ALL of you have belted out when it came on in the car. You know you have. Don’t lie. 

The lyrics are not exactly poetry, but they get the job done. They even manage one legitimately memorable line in the 3rd verse opener, “See, I wasted. And I was wasting time.” No, it’s not “The ghost of electricity howls in the bones of her face,” but it’s not worth being recorded over, as the Simpsons suggested. 

If I’m being honest, I think we need a little bit of Hootie and the Blowfish these days. Everything is dire, hard, depressing, and it feels like the world is collapsing in on us nearly every moment. We could all use a quick four-minute and 18-second break that makes us smile and reminds us that life should be better than this. Who knows, maybe we could even hold each other’s hands.