"Everybody Knows Rock Achieved Perfection in 1974": A Homer Simpson Mix-tape

To spread some peace, love, and rock 'n' roll while everybody is enjoying their summer holiday, I've decided to share my hand-crafted Homer Simpson mix-tape titled, "'Everybody Knows Rock Achieved Perfection in 1974': A Homer Simpson Mix-tape." It's a compilation that Homer himself would have tirelessly assembled on an 8-track tape sometime in about 1985 to relive the glory-days of 1970s rock music before all those opportunities to "rock-out" faded with the onset of family with Marge. While Bart naïvely called Homer's favourite music, "dinosaur bands," and this might seem true for a self-centred ten-year-old, Homer's music taste actually has some really groovy and hard-hitting riff-rocking magic that's reveals something about Homer's rebellious, but optimistic, 1970s adolescence.

Shinin' On - Grand Funk Railroad - 1974

Frankenstein  - Edgar Winter Group - 1972

Two Tickets to Paradise - Eddie Money - 1977

Mississippi Queen - Mountain - 1970

Louie Louie - The Kingsmen - 1963

Logical Song - Supertramp - 1979

Come Sail Away - Styx - 1977

The Joker - Steve Miller Band - 1973

Taking Care of Business - Bachman Turner Overdrive - 1973

We Built This City - Starship - 1985

Hot Blooded - Foreigner - 1978

The Dream Police - Cheap Trick - 1979

Queen - We Are The Champions - 1977

Won't Get Fooled Again - The Who - 1971

In A Gadda Da Vida - Iron Butterfly - 1968

Homer was a little too late for embracing the peak of 1960s counter-culture (however, as a toddler he did dance to Jimi Hendrix's rendition of the 'Star-spangelled Banner' at Woodstock with his mother, his disgruntled and conformist father, as well as his mother's hippy friends Seth and Munchie). Homer grew up in the uncertainties and ambiguities of post-Vietnam America; the Carter-Mondale "Malaise Forever." The economy hit hard times. Nixon resigned in shame, only to be pardoned by his Vice-President Gerald Ford (Homer later befriends Ford after George H. W. Bush runs amok on Evergreen Terrace). Homer's mother, Mona, had been designated a wanted criminal after destroying Montgomery Burns' germ-warfare lab, forcing his negligent father, Abe, to raise him. Homer had a rough time at high school. His grades began to fail, and the girl he fancied, Marge Bouvier, wasn't interested in him. She was taken to the school prom by the pretentious and arrogant Artie Ziff.

However, what kept Homer going was his love for rock music. It is his solace and guiding light when times get tough. He is instantly transported to the past when he hits his portable radio out of frustration, causing it to change frequency, thus revealing the chorus of Eddie Money's 'Two Tickets to Paradise.' He sings along amusingly and approves of the, "excellent guitar riff." The song itself is symbolic of Homer's desire to have a ticket to his very own rock 'n' roll paradise. He shared his love for music with his best friend Barney Gumble, often conducting a cappella sessions with him in his bedroom. Homer wasn't afraid to sing along to Steve Miller's 'The Joker' while driving his car, or perform the odd air-guitar solo. This might explain his musical talent as he can certainly sing, and play the piano. It might also explain his alcoholism:

When I was seventeen,

I drank some very good beer,

I drank some very good beer

I purchased with a fake ID.

My name was Brian McGee,

I stayed up listenin' to Queen

When I was seventeen.

While Homer often clings to his 1970s rock bands, he is isn't afraid to dabble in what is new and hip as evidenced by his stint as a cannon-ball-absorbing-freak on the 1996 Hullabalooza music festival tour. He runs into Cypress Hill, Sonic Youth, and smiles politely for Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. Although, Peter Frampton is pissed-off when Homer accidentally releases an inflatable pig that he bought from Pink Floyd's yard-sale. Homer also loves to share a musical moment with Marge, from making-out while listening to Iron Butterfly's 'In A Gadda Da Vida', to sharing a duet of Debby Boone's 'You Light Up My Life' shortly before (accidentally) conceiving Bart in a small windmill at the miniature golf course Homer was employed at.

Homer's music tastes reveal the complexities and richness of his past. Homer is the epitome of the suburban white working-class American male of the late 1970s. For him, in the 1970s, the American Dream seemed beyond reach. But this was not through his lack of ambition as shifting economic conditions in America meant tough times. The lyrics of Supertramp's Logical Song resonate with Homer's resistance to conformity and struggle to find a comfortable identity in a society that is quickly changing to something he doesn't like:

There are times when all the world's asleep.

The questions run too deep for such a simple mind.

Won't you please, please tell me what we've learned?

I know it sounds absurd.

Please tell me who I am.

Homer's dream of working as a pin-monkey at Barney's Bowlarama never came to fruition, but somehow he was employed at the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant under "Operation Bootstrap" despite him neither enjoying the job, nor being qualified for it. It was just a pay-check to raise his growing family at the onset of the Reagan era. He was "woking overtime" and "taking care of business—everyday."

Homer's favourite music is a window to the past, of youth and innocence, through his nostalgic eyes. He longs for a time when he had hopes and dreams, despite the odds being  stacked against him, when life was free of responsibility, and when his only concern was chasing girls and rockin' out. However, Homer's nostalgia often distorts his sense of the past, and perhaps makes him forget how good his present is too. He has a stable job (most of the time), a caring wife, three wonderful children, many friends, and an exciting life ahead of him. However, the past remains the past. Homer is no longer cool. Abe disconcertingly says to Homer sometime in the early 1970s, "I used to be with it, but then they changed what it was. Now what I'm with isn't it, and what's it seems weird and scary to me. It'll happen to you," to which Homer responds, "No way man, we'll be rocking forever, forever, forever, forever—" We love the music from our youth because it allows us to hold on to the past and escape the present as our lives become busy and filled with responsibilities. We used to "rock and roll all night, and party everyday," and then it became, "every other day", and now we're, "lucky to find half an hour a week in which to get funky."

———————————————————————————————————————— "... we can explore space together, both inner and outer, forever in peace." —W. M. Hicks.