To everyone that celebrates Thanksgiving, I hope yours was a good one. Mine was certainly different. I had never had one away from my family. I’ve never had a Thanksgiving dinner at a restuarant. I was with a good group of people. For the most part the dinner wasn’t bad, but the vegetables weren’t to great. Erin and I capped it off with a trip to see Casino Royale. Like most males, I’m a fan of Bond, James Bond. A connoisseur of Bond I’m not. I wasn’t unhappy with Pierce Brosnan. He makes a great spy as an actor. I’ll admit I wasn’t initially impressed with the new choice when I heard about it a year ago.
Despite my initial reservations I got curious. I heard some of the reviews and even one from my buddy Mike. Let me say that I’ve seen a bunch of Bond films and this by far and away is my new favorite. It’s how a Bond film should have been done. Now that I’ve seen it, I understand where the producers where going and why. It brought the series back to reality. It gave Bond a very dangerous edge. It’s awesome. The only thing I wonder is – are they going to start remaking all of the bond movies?
Sometimes copying or remaking something that was a true original works. It’s very rare for it to work in a way that is as good or better than the original. In the case of this James Bond movie – it most certainly does. In the case of Creed, it most certainly didn’t. Creed is a perfect choice for my Fallen Friday in so many ways.
Let me start by clarifying that Creed was never an original band in my eyes. To me they were a horrible copy of Pearl Jam. I remember the first time I heard one of their songs I was in a car in Santa Clarita. I thought man, Pearl Jam changed in a bad way. Then I was informed by Janice – who was driving, that it was a band called Creed. Needless to say I was less than impressed. Strike one.
Then of course is the uncanny title of the album it came from. Hmmm… Where the hell could they have possibly stolen that title? Could they have possibly been in Europe recently? Couldn’t possibly have been Jeff Scott Soto’s band Human Clay, could it? With such an outrageous title it couldn’t have come from anywhere else. Strike two for being unoriginal twice.
Radio is your friend as a musician or a band. It’s a powerful medium. People listen. Creed was doing an on-air interview in Seattle, the hometown of the band they’re a direct carbon-copy of, and someone in the band makes one of the most stupid comments you can possibly make. The gist of it was, Eddie Vedder wishes he could write songs as good as Scott Stapp. Talk about pissing off a lot of people. As a musician it’s never a bright idea to prop yourself up and being better than an icon. Pearl Jam were already icons at that point – especially in Seattle. Strike three for shooting off at the mouth.
But wait there’s more. Labeled as a Christian band you’d think their members would be upstanding individuals. Yeah right. Turns out that Scott Stapp isn’t as saintly as everyone would have wanted to believe. Nothing bothers me more than an individual that claims righteousness then behind closed doors is as immoral as anyone Christians label as a sinner. Strike four for having a phony holyier than thou attitude.
Despite all that, I’m absolutely amazed they became as huge as they did. Why did I choose the song then? Mostly because it ended up growing on my like damn fungus. I’m not a fan of Creed. But I ended up liking this song. It’s also funny because a couple of years ago I was asked to play guitar at a recording studio on a cover version of this song for some artist that was performing in Las Vegas. So somewhere out there in the world is a recording of this song as a backing track for someone that was essentially doing kareoke with their own hired backing tracks. Go Figure.
Chances are you have this song in your collection already. If not, I still think you should add it.
(** Disclaimer: If Creed’s label comes after me upset about exposing their dark side, I’ll do the right thing and wipe the audio. The post will remain to enlighten their path. **)