March 1, 2021 and October 3 update Gasoline - Report Card

 Well, I tuned the guitar down a step but it didn't exactly sound like what the You Tube instructor was showing me.  Went to a site that had the tabs down at the bottom.  First snag, I need a quick lesson in tabs.  That was very interesting.  I've encountered tablature in the far distant past as it turned out.  I went to the School of Rock website https://www.schoolofrock.com/resources/guitar/reading-guitar-tabs-for-beginners and learned a whole lot more. Muting, palm muting, bending strings, hammer notes, sliding notes, strumming; there is a whole 'nother world out there.

Well armed, I went back to the tabs for Gasoline.  Here is my report card:

_______________________________________________________________________________

Course:    GASOLINE 101

Student: EM

1. Playing on Steel Strings    B-  Student is able to create audible notes without crying or bleeding on the instrument.

2. Learning Gasoline            C    Learned chord progressions. Needs work to sound like someone playing the song.

3. Playing Gasoline              D-   Unless Seether meant this to be played as a dirge, student needs to speed it up.

Comments: Although EM can master the chord progressions with more practice, it may take more time than she has left to adequately come up to speed to make this classic rock song sound like anywhere near what it should. Student should have picked a slower song to begin with.  Projected future for playing and singing this song at the same time: Not a hope in hell.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________  

I may have to stop trying to learn Gasoline before I start cringing with jealously every time I hear it.  That's another thing.  When did Shaun start changing the lyrics slightly?  I went back through several recorded concerts and at some point the line, "I want to be that magazine that she wastes her life on" to "I want to be that magazine that she masturbates on".  Now that is an intriguing visual! 

Very early recordings have the original lyrics.  Certainly for radio shows.  Don't get me started on "clean" versions.  As someone who fights against censorship and banning books, cleaning up song lyrics rubs me the wrong way.  Radio stations are obliged by law to bleep out some words or get their station "bleeped out" altogether.  Sean does a lovely acoustic version of Fake It with nary a "fuck" in sight.  Very smooth refiguring. I can't think of any chance Beg has of being played.  If the radio station bleeped that one, the song would last 5 seconds.  The stations don't have a problem with "wipes her ass on", although the Walmart version of See You at the Bottom bleeps out the word whore.  Really? Really??

Does it matter if a songwriter wants to or needs to change the lyrics to his or her own song?  I don't know why or how "wastes her life on" became "masturbates on", but then I thought about an interview with the band talking about playing a song thousands of times.  Let's do the math.  Gasoline is 21 years old.  If Seether played it 6 nights a week for an 18 month tour that's 432 times a tour. If the tour/recording cycle is 3 years [and that's being generous] they've played it 3,024 times.  We are lucky any of the words are the same.  No wonder the chord progressions are so fast and smooth.  Practice, practice, practice, people.  Asleep, drunk, wasted. Dead?  Still able to play.

Yeah, I might of gone too far with that last.  Bands do screw up on their own songs sometimes.

So, final words about Gasoline.  I was listening to Seether and the intro to Gasoline came up in the queue.  "Oh" I said to myself "There's that song I can't play".  I still love it.  I love the line, "She gets high on Revlon."  Funny, sarcastic with a little truth thrown in.  And finally, "I wanna be the magazine she wipes her ass on."  What a guy! So willing to please. Seriously.  This girl should give him a chance.

EM

PS.  Since nobody's reading these anyway, I'm going to add a PS.  I'm fascinated comparing the Saron Gas (SG) version and the Disclaimer II (D2) version of the songs that are on both, the differences and the evolution.  For Gasoline, the most obvious difference is that D2 is in a lower key that the SG version.  They dropped the voice echo/doubling and changed the guitar sequence on the last repeat chorus from the one that cascades downward.  The drums are stronger in the D2 version, more balanced with the rest of the instruments.  Overall the earlier version has a lighter, more spare sound and Shaun's enunciation of the lyrics are clearer.  But he could scream like that from the beginning.  You go, Shaun!  The D2 version is more polished.  Which version do I like better?  The answer is "Yes".  Em

October 3, 2021 Update:  So it's been seven months since my unsuccessful venture.  In the meantime I had better luck with Remedy and the bass line to Fake it.  I went back to Gasoline and was encouraged that it actually sounded something like Gasoline.  Still too slow.  I am playing them on a classical guitar, however, and once you get up to the 12th fret you hit the body of the guitar with no cutout.  Makes those 12/14 fret notes in Remedy a bit iffy.