A long time ago, before World War 4
Tiger - The Bomb
There’s so much potential for failure in this song, by trying to follow up that amazing first line.
But this song is an ace, from the beginning open chord to the fade-out ending snare roll. It is a bomb, a gleeful and simple chugging tune elevated to greatness by a delirious mad hatter vocalist. It’s a perfect glam rock tune. 2:57 long and not a second of that is wasted.
I don’t know anything about Tiger other than they were Dutch, and they released two singles. And I only learned that from the comments on this video.
It’s easy to imagine how hopeful they would’ve been. The excitement, the energy of creating something that until that moment didn’t exist before. Certainly, they didn’t anticipate the rest of their non-Tiger lives, whatever those became. And certainly they didn’t picture getting 19, 961 views on an upload by a Youtube user by the handle of “MYENGLISHDISCO” some 47 years later.
Not sure where this is leading. Sometimes the energy of an idea is great enough to blind you to the realities of committing to it. Other times, life has beaten you down enough that you’re so overly cautious you don’t get past the point of writing it down in the little memo app on your phone. Some days you can rationalize not acting a gesture out through the lens of Conceptual Art. But it never really happened, did it?
It’s hard to be a dreamer, and depressing when people ask where it’s ever gonna lead because to be a dreamer means you may constantly be dreaming. For sure, the guys in Tiger clocked countless hours noodling, sitting around in practice, hammering things out that didn’t go anywhere, but still charging on…just to leave behind two singles. For sure there were the voices of people that loved them and cared for them, who said things like, '“But how are you gonna make this make you a living”, or, “You can’t keep doing this forever, y’know?”. And you may or may not feel bad about how it’s affecting the people you love, depending on either how generous you feel at the moment or how tired you are of struggling to make your dreams happen.
That’s a bummer to think about. Tiger dreamt up a rowdy little tune, preserved it on vinyl, and maybe that helps you dream a bit in that way when you’re young and ready to tear into the world’s heart. Or maybe it’s just a quick depth charge blowing another work week to smithereens come 5 o’clock. Maybe it’s just another 2:57 of your day.