Foghat, "Fool for the City"

Ken keeps getting older, but Foghat stays the same

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Jun 28, 2023

Ken’s Pitch:

We like to romanticize the past; it doesn’t matter whether it’s old war movies (before the Platoon era, war movies for the most part were not based in reality), tales our parents and grandparents told us about life in the 1950s, or even political leadership. We whitewash it all. That’s why the political arguments today about reclaiming the “greatness” of bygone eras are so flawed. Sure, if you were a white male, the 1950s seemed pretty cool. But at the same time, Jim Crow was the law of the land, people with disabilities were left behind, and a woman couldn’t even have a credit card without her husband’s signature until the 1970s! But hey, a little asbestos and lead paint never killed anyone, right?

That’s why music is so incredibly powerful, none of it is real. We can romanticize songs from yesterday, 50 or 300 years ago because music is a complete creation of an artist. Sometimes it reflects real life, but even that’s up to interpretation. Music, in a sense, is timeless.

Richard Linklater’s 1993 film Dazed and Confused took a realistic, yet embellished, reflective look at a day in the life of high school students on the last day of school in 1976. It was America’s bicentennial, it was post-Watergate, it was a disenfranchised generation trying to figure out life. But for every party at the moontower, there were 10 abusive situations at home that were overlooked. For every underage kid walking tall because the clueless liquor store clerk sold him a six-pack, there were a handful of young girls traumatized for life because we simply didn’t discuss sexual assault back then.

But the 1970s were also the heyday of modern rock. Learning from their predecessors, music matured from “Johnny Be Goode” to “Nowhere Man” and soon we were in the throes of “Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars”. It was indeed a long, strange trip, and everyone wanted to get in on it.

Garage bands ruled the 1970s, with all their imperfections and simplicity. While not even close to the prowess of the A-list artists of the era, bands like The Stooges, New York Dolls, Paul Revere and the Raiders (started in the 1960s), and Foghat provided us with an upbeat, fun, sing-along playlist that perfectly shared the radio waves, sprinkled in between Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Pink Floyd.

I’m not naive enough to think that Mitch is going to let Fool For the City into the Newbury St. Collection. I’m not sure CJ will either, but that’s a closer call. I’m just asking them to remember 1976 as it actually was. It was a time that rock elevated itself to another, much higher level. But it was also a time when people all over the world danced along to “Save Your Loving (For Me)”, partied with “Fool For the City” and sang along to every word of “Slow Ride”.

Maybe Randy “Pink” Floyd was the most honest character in the movie when he said, “All I’m saying is that if I ever start referring to these as the best years of my life, remind me to kill myself.”

CJ’s Response:

I was born about ten years too late. If I had been 16 or 17 years old in 1976 instead of 7, I really would have enjoyed the heavy blues rock era that predominated the mid-’70s. Alas, I was more concerned with why my mom had given me plaid checked pants to wear in my Little League game at the time. Even then, fashion was not my friend.

Let’s pretend that I was 17 and living in Wooderson’s Austin, Texas, though. I feel like I’d be thriving. Me, Slater and Pink would chase the rising freshmen around in our souped up convertibles while Fool For the City blasted out of our factory-installed speakers. We’d be the nice guys, though. Anytime we caught a freshman, we’d only pretend to paddle him and then give him a beer instead. Maybe later I’d hook up with Parker Posey. It could happen.

Listening to Foghat this week, I was reminded of another great ‘70s-based movie. Almost Famous is a parallel coming-of-age story about an aspiring rock journalist following a band that is on the cusp of making it big. To me, Foghat is a more fully realized Stillwater (the fictional band in the movie). They’ve got the hit album, the radio airplay and the arena tour, but at heart they’re just a shaggy band of rockers who have somehow caught lightning in a bottle.

Can’t you see Jason Lee belting out the lyrics to “Slow Ride” while Billy Crudup crunches that tasty hook over and over? Imagine the guys sitting around in a haze of aromatic smoke and Jack Daniels while they jam out “Terraplane Blues” as Penny Lane dances clumsily around them. I can even picture them singing along with unbridled joy as “Fool for the City” plays on the tour bus radio after they pull Crudup out of a neighborhood swimming pool.

Foghat is straight up ‘70s rock. It’s fun, good-time party/road trip music. These tunes will live forever on Classic Rock radio. So why shoudn’t they live forever on Newbury St.?

Pitch Successful (My name is not Earl.)

Mitch’s Response:

You're all familiar with the 5 stages of grief, but I'm not sure if you've heard of the 5 stages of EONS:

Disbelief ("Is Ken really picking Foghat?")
Denial ("Is Ken trolling me with this Foghat garbage?")
Anger ("I seriously have to listen to fucking Foghat?")
Acceptance ("I guess I have to listen to Foghat.")
Anger ("I'm going to kill Ken for making me listen to Foghat.")

Even now, after listening to this utterly forgettable and totally regrettable album, and after reading Ken's pitch and CJ's response, I still can't believe we're doing Foghat. Then again, neither of them actually made a strong argument for the band or the music. They talked more about Dazed and Confused than Lonesome Dave Peverett's league-average vocals.

Fool for the City's worst crime is that it's boring. Just the same chooga-chugga boogie blues over and over again and a slide guitar that just won't quit. Worst of all, there's the fool's gold of "Slow Ride", the big hit song that entertains for about 9 seconds but goes on for over 9 minutes.

Just as I was languishing in the purgatory of the second anger phase, I had a realization. I've always thought of myself as a blues fan. Hell, I even owned a copy of The Complete Robert Johnson, which is basically 20 versions of RJ singing "Dust My Broom" in an old timey bathroom. There's no rock without the blues. Everything comes from the blues.

I think I hate the blues.

Or maybe I just hate Rod Price's slide guitar.

Either way, there's no chance Foghat is getting anywhere near Newbury St.

And while we're at it, "Dazed and Confused" sucked, too.

Pitch Failed ("Take It or Leave It" could have been a good song for Firefall)

Ken’s pitch was not successful and Foghat’s Fool for the City won’t graduate to the Newbury St. Collection. What’s your take on Foghat and/or Dazed and Confused? Which Top 20 album from 1976 would you have pitched? Please let us know in the comments.

Exile on Newbury St.

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