Yes, I really am.

What is a rock opera, you may ask?  Well, here’s the Wikipedia definition, but to sum it up, a rock opera tells a story.  It is meant to be taken as a whole, even if it has individual songs that stand out on their own, and to tell the tale of some troubled individual seeking stability and meaning in life.  Some of the rock operas with which I am familiar are Pink Floyd’s The Wall, The Who’s Tommy and Green Day’s American Idiot.  Each of these fits the above criteria.

The Wall

The Wall follows the life of rock star Pink Floyd (the character) as he moves from overbearing mother and absent father to the drug-addled waking coma he calls a music career.  He builds a mental wall to the outside world, adding more and more bricks composed of troubling events in his life, until he is so secluded he starts having delusions.  Finally, he manages to burst through the wall and face his fears.  Some of Pink Floyd’s best-known tunes, including “Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2,” “Comfortably Numb” and “Hey You,” come from The Wall, and while these tunes work very well on their own, they fit much better as pieces of the whole.

Tommy

Tommy is the definition of rock opera, and is the first such case and the origination of the term.  In the shell of a nut, Tommy follows the life of a young man named Fred Sinclair… just kidding. Tommy Walker is born while his father is away, and he witnesses his mother and her lover murder his father upon his return.  They persuade Tommy to not see or hear anything, which causes Tommy to turn inward and become deaf, blind and mute, at least externally.  Tommy perpetuates in this state of, essentially, shell shock, responding only to pinball, until the mirror he gazes into is smashed and he reunites with the world.

The most well-known song from Tommy is without a doubt “Pinball Wizard,” a short but potent showcase of Pete Townsend’s incredible guitar skills.  Some other tracks still floating around the airwaves include “I’m Free,” “The Acid Queen” and “See Me, Feel Me.” As with The Wall, all of these songs work better in the context of the album.

American Idiot

Green Day blew away the world of modern popular music with their latest effort, the aptly-named American Idiot.  Here we have an endearing tale of a young man, known only to us as the Jesus of Suburbia, who is completely bored with his life at home.  He decides to part with his monotonous existence and see the world, and thus takes on a new personality called St. Jimmy.  St. Jimmy lives a life of drugs, romantic flings, and danger, until his girlfriend realizes he is living a lie and leaves him.  Subsequently, St. Jimmy “blows his brains out into the bay” and Jesus of Suburbia returns to his life of mediocrity as if nothing had changed.  Idiot features some smash hit singles, including “American Idiot,” “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” and “Holiday,” but ultimately it is greater than merely the sum of its parts.

My operatus rockamundus

Which brings me to my own work.  My creation in progress will be unlike any rock opera to my knowledge because it will feature a female protagonist who is more a victim of fate than actually in control of anything.  It will chronicle the start of her life in a broken home, the decisions she makes, and her untimely demise as a tragic casualty of the brutality of the human condition.  I don’t have all the details worked out yet, and what few details I do have I don’t want to release (so as not to ruin anything), but I do plan to put lots of time and effort into fine-tuning this album until it could be considered almost as good as those I listed above (which I don’t think can ever really be topped).

Why am I doing this, you may ask?  Well, because. 8) There are a number of reasons.  One is my enjoyment of music that has a greater meaning than what is immediately obvious.  I am particularly bad at reading meaning into works of music or literature unless I sit down to study it for a long time, so one thing I enjoy doing is reading interpretations of great works of music (Song Facts is a particularly good place for doing this).  I enjoy reading what other people say about a piece, then going back and listening to it again (and again) and discovering how all the interpretations fit together, significantly increasing my appreciation of the piece.

Another reason is to challenge myself.  I have already written a number of songs that would fit well on a normal CD of, essentially, singles (though many of them lack lyrics and some lack a melody, this isn’t too difficult if I’m especially inspired), so I wanted to do more than that.  Many great pieces of music hide the meaning beneath the surface, while more mundane songs tend to have more obvious meanings.  Therefore, it will be a great challenge for me to bury the meaning and grow as an artist.

In any case, whether this album gets produced or not, I have had fun beginning it and I’m sure I will continue to have fun completing it.  It seems to be somewhat easier to write when there’s a central theme to the work as a whole, as ambiguous as it may be, and where each song is but a piece of the puzzle.  I hope you all rush out to buy it the instant it hits stores.