Over the weekend it occurred to me- what happened to all the great rock songs? No, not "rock" songs as in that being in the musical genre of rock (although, actually, whatever happened to great rock songs? Has any been released in the past couple of years?), but "rock" songs as songs about "rocking." You know, songs like "I Wanna Rock" or "I Wanna Rock n' Roll all Night" or "There's Only One Way to Rock." Hell, AC/DC had an entire ouevre of rock songs- "Let There Be Rock," "Rock n' Roll Ain't Noise Pollution," and, last but certainly not least, "For Those About to Rock, We Salute You."

There were even some bands that somehow managed to be both about rock and D&D style fantasy. Does it get anymore epic than Manowar's "The Gods Made Heavy Metal"? Check out these lyricss:
The Gods Made Heavy Metal And They Saw That It Was Good
They Said To Play It Louder Than Hell
We Promised That We Would
When Losers Say It's Over With You Know That It's A Lie
The Gods Made Heavy Metal And It's Never Gonna Die"

Or who can forget Dio's immortal "We Rock" and these lyrics?
So many voices
All giving choices
If we listen they will say
Oh, we can find the way
But we'll sail on, sing a song, carry on
Cause We Rock, We Rock, We Rock, We Rock
We Rock, We Rock, We Rock, We Rock/We Rock!"

Even great rock bands had their big rock anthem. The Who had "Long Live Rock," Zeppelin had "Rock n' Roll," the Stones had "It's Only Rock n' Roll," Neil Young had "Hey Hey/My My (Rock n' Roll Will Never Die) and Justin Timberlake had "Rock Your Body."

Where are those songs today? Where are the artists to call us out to rock? Does anyone want to rock anymore? No, it's all songs about "boo hoo ho, mommy didn't love me" or "poor me, I was a dork in High School" or "boo hoo hoo, technological and computerized society is making me increasingly paranoid about my humanity."

Is there anyone out there to Salute Us for rocking?

And here's another subject that no longer is sung about- the life on the road song. You know, the "God, it really sucks being in a rock band and having to tour constantly and play to millions of people, then party all night long while doing lines of coke off crazed groupies while having threesomes." You know, the songs that usually came with a video of lots and lots of black and white, slow motion shots of the band sweating on stage. Or looking mournfully through the tour bus at another sold-out stadium. Every hair band had to write at least one of those songs per album. It was in their record contract.

Eh, come to think of it, those songs sucked.