Tenacious D as Metaphysical Poetry

Do you know Donne? John Donne, that is. The late 16th century poet is probably the most popular of what has been termed the “Metaphysical Poets.” These complex individuals wrote complex poetry dealing with the vagaries of life, love, and death, and did so through a conceit, or an “extended metaphor with a complex logic.” The most common example of the metaphysical conceit is in Donne’s poem “The Flea.” Donne uses the idea of a mosquito bites and sucking the blood of both him and his beloved as a way of explaining the deep connection between them.

So what does all this college English crap have to do with Jack Black and Kyle G’s comic rock group?

Tenacious D’s best song is, almost unreservedly, a track called “Tribute.” In this great track, the dynamic duo employ a conceit where the song they are singing is the “greatest song in the world,” but wait, no it’s not, “but this is just a tribute.” As Shakespeare would talk about the inability to quantify love and just as Colleridge would talk about the inability to really understand God’s mercy, Tenacious D is admitting to the inability to really craft the “greatest song in the world” — all attempts will really just end up being tributes. Who would have expected Plato’s myth of the cave coming from this pair of “devil’s rejects”?

Double Meaning in Green Day

I find that very often the things I think are the most simple and straightforward turn out to be anything but. This has been the case with the pop-punk leaders, Green Day’s, most recent album American Idiot. Not to say that this was on the surface an overly simplistic album. The title may or may not have been referring to our beloved commander-in-chief, as was the case with Radiohead’s 2003 release, Hail to the Thief.

Then there was the cover, which pretty much reinforced the political undertones of Green Day’s release:

(in case you need me to spell it out for you, the minimalist silhouette of a clenched fist has represented radical revolutionary activism since the late 1960’s (if not earlier) and the heart/grenade and red/white contrast tells us the contents are concerned with the conflict between humanity and violence/war)

But what I really want to focus on is the song that has turned out to be the most effective and powerful on the album. I am talking about “Holiday” – track 3 on the release. Here are the lyrics, so we are all on the same page…

A Fabulous Destiny, Indeed…

Here is an absolutely terrific piece of music.

See if you can place it.

 

(Windows: Right-click on image and select “Save Target As…” Mac: Option-click on the image)