Tuesday, October 21, 2014

The Allman Brothers: Jessica

Number nine.

Jessica, by The Allman Brothers



Current Knowledge: Like a million and a half people have asked me about this song in one way or another. I'm not a big fan of having one of the most common female names of the 21st century, so I never looked this one up mostly out of spite. Not a fan of my name, not gonna bother with the song; this was the mindset. Nauseatingly petty, I know. Begrudgingly, I am about to change this.

First Thoughts: Agh. It starts out so awesome. It sounds hard as heck to play, honestly. The melody riff is so catchy, and the song overall falls somewhere between folk and... Caribbean sounding, maybe? It goes back and forth between so many parts, it's hard to discern what style the Allman Brothers are supposed to be based off this song alone. (Wikipedia says they're American Rock.. whatever that means.) Is this a jam band? Because this is definitely a jam band song. Everybody gets a solo for three minutes! And at the halfway point I've decided there are definitely no words to this song. Which I don't mind, I can certainly appreciate a good instrumental. I can't argue that it's not great as a musician. As a listener, though, by minute five I'm definitely a bit bored. Someone, somewhere, loves every second of this 7 minute song, I'm sure.

Verdict: It's a really technically difficult jam song, basically. Jam bands aren't really my thing, but as far as lyric-less songs go, it's solid. I am nowhere near good enough at the guitar to attempt this, so there's a lot to be said about the skill it would take to cover this one, for sure.

One last thing.. why in the world is this called Jessica? Because it drags on and is almost boring after five minutes? (That's only my worst fear as a human being) Or because it is a technical masterpiece and requires a cultured palate to appreciate it?
We're gonna go with the latter. ;)

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