Who among us hasn’t dreamed of travelling through time? Who hasn’t contemplated the idea of going back in time to save lives, alter history, or gain financially? Who hasn’t wanted to seek out ourselves from an earlier stage in life to advise, instruct, or slap the living crap out of ourselves as a means of changing who we are and what we have today? Who among us hasn’t thought “if I could only go back in time…”? It is our nature. It is who we are. It is a universal desire despite being a physical impossibility, yet we still wonder. We still hope. We still yearn for the technology to alter some part of existence in ways that would mildly or drastically alter our everyday ways of life.
This is why Marty McFly is now and forever will be a cultural icon. Marty McFly experienced what each of us dream of. If not prior to, then at the very least, immediately following “Back to the Future,” Everyone wanted to travel to the past, everyone wanted to visit the future, and, quite frankly, everyone wanted a hoverboard. Marty McFly had it all, and we wanted it. We wanted it badly. Fortunately, “Back to the Future” is fiction. Doc never invented a time machine, Marty never travelled to 1955, 2015, or 1885, and the Delorian didn’t become a symbol of scientific advancement (depending on who you ask). We should all thank our lucky stars that “Back to the Future” is fiction. We should all be grateful that no such time travelling device exists. We should all breathe a sigh of relief that Marty McFly never existed because otherwise he would have ruined life as we know it, or at least a large part of it: if “Back to the Future” had been a true story, Martin McFly would have ruined rock and roll music for all time to come.
Rock and roll as we know it today would cease to exist. Certainly a variant form of rock music would have taken its place, but everything we currently know and love about rock music would not only stop existing, it never would have existed in the first place and therefore never evolved into what we now know as modern rock and roll music. We would have no concept of that which we love about it because it never would have happened. Some people fear heights, some people fear public speaking, some people fear death. I fear Marty McFly.
This, of course, is assuming that Chuck Berry is and always has been a musician with high integrity.
If you happened to be one of the three people between the ages of 5 and 105 who has not seen “Back to the Future,” or if your mind has been fried due to years of substance abuse or exposure to American politics, here is a little refresher course: At the conclusion of the primary storyline in “Back to the Future” Marvin of Marvin Berry and the Starlighters cuts his hand trying to free Marty McFly from a locked car trunk. Marvin, who is the lead guitar player and singer for the Starlighters insists that the dance has drawn to a conclusion due to his inability to play guitar with his cut hand; a detail that proves Marvin is not and never will be Pete Townshend or Jimi Hendrix. Marty begs Marvin to reconsider so that his future parents can solidify their eternal love through the magic of 1950’s Doo Wop. As a compromise, Marty, a 1980’s guitar virtuoso, agrees to fill in for Marvin for the purposes of ensuring his own future existence. So far so good.
As Marty is about to leave for his destined journey back to 1985, Marvin, the inevitable oracle says “let’s play something that really cooks.” Enter the end of rock and roll as we know it. At this point, Marty, not known for turning down an opportunity to quietly walk away from a challenge steps up to the microphone and introduces “an oldie where I come from” before launching into a blistering version of Chuck Berry’s legendary “Johnny B Goode.” Hubris never win in the end. See any piece of Ancient Greek literature for examples.
Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg are a couple of jokers. While writing, developing, and producing the film, they had some fun throwing in a few timing gags. In this case timing is in reference to the cultural boundaries one would encounter by traveling to the past (different slang, lack of knowledge of future historical persons or events, etc). One of their jokes occurred during Marty’s rendition of “Johnny B Goode” in which Marvin makes a phone call to his cousin who happens to be, you guessed it, Chuck Berry; original author of “Johnny B Goode.” Marvin is seen talking into the phone saying “You know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Well listen to this…” and holds the receiver in the direction of the stage and Marty’s innovative (or innovative for 1955) guitar playing, indicating that Marty’s homage to the Chuck Berry classic is actually that which inspires Chuck Berry to author the song in the first place. Very funny, you have just ruined us forever. The problem with this is that Mr. Zemeckis and Mr. Spielberg are guilty of not taking their own advice.
Anyone who knows anything about the birth of rock and roll will tell you the same thing; Chuck Berry was one of the biggest pioneers and, by extension, most influential musicians in the history of rock and roll. Berry exploded onto the music scene in 1955 with a completely unique sound that had never been heard before. Prior to Chuck Berry, the roots of early rock and roll were set in various combinations of blues, R+B, gospel, country, and the big band jazz era as founded by artists like Elvis, Ray Charles, and Bo Diddley. But as Eric Burdon of the Animals said “I always felt that Chuck Berry was the poet laureate of America” or as Carl Perkins once said “Chuck Berry was an act you didn’t want to have to follow.” Carl Gardner of the Coasters goes so far as to call Chuck Berry and Little Richard the kings of Rock and Roll. There is no doubt that Chuck Berry’s sound would go on to either directly or indirectly influence every guitar player that would follow, but none of that could have happened had he listened to Marty McFly play his song. Again, assuming Berry was a musician with a high level of musical and innovative integrity.
Artistic pioneering does not happen by accident. Artistic pioneering does not happen by coincidence. Artistic pioneering only occurs through either an innovative mix of current or past styles, or through the full rejection of current popularity. The 1960’s psychedelic movement occurred through innovation using blues and jazz with experimental electronic influences, the punk movement occurred through a rejection of the Woodstock era, the 1970’s arena and glam rock was born out of pushing live production value to an extreme, grunge was born out of rejection hair metal, all styles evolve through pushing boundaries of musical styling or full rejection. Chuck Berry’s innovation was no different.
When Marvin calls and says “you know that new sound you’ve been looking for” he actually single-handedly eliminated the influence Berry had on the world of music. Had Berry heard Marty playing in Berry’s signature style, it would have become clear to him that that style already existed, and therefore was not new or innovative, and therefore was not a pioneering effort. If we assume that Chuck Berry is a musician of integrity, we can assume that he had no interest in attempting to re-create a pre-existing style he heard elsewhere. If we assume Berry is only interested in money and fame and not about musical innovation, we can assume that he would have heard the efforts of this no-name band playing a high school dance and considered the style a failure from the start and not worth the effort. After all, who in their right mind would want to copy a band whose ultimate achievement was playing the Hill Valley High School “Enchantment Under the Sea Dance?”
Case and point, you will notice that following Marvin holding the phone up to the stage, Marty’s guitar playing turns from a distinct Chuck Berry sound to what can only be described as electronic noise, or punk, which is really the same thing. Most would argue that the transition is the result of Marty simply becoming carried away with his live performance antics, but perhaps Zemeckis and Spielberg were acutely aware of the detrimental implications of this particular time disruption. Perhaps they recognize that upon Berry’s hearing and rejection of what would ironically go on to become his own style, the influence that travelled from 1955 through the generations to McFly in 1985 would instantaneously become irrelevant and vanish. In other words, as soon as Berry hears McFly’s “Johnny B Goode,” the song “Johnny B Goode” and musical style of Chuck Berry as a whole would no longer exist (as Berry would have no interest in copying it, as opposed to writing it originally), and instantly reduce McFly to a fumbling maniac with a guitar who has no knowledge of “Johnny B Goode.” By playing the yet-to-be-written “Johnny B Goode” to and unimpressed Chuck Berry, Marvin caused the song to be instantaneously eliminated from existence altogether. Eliminating Berry in the past would render his music non-existent in the present and future. This is my nightmare.
It is hard to say how extensive Chuck Berry’s influence in music actually is. Ray Manzarek of the Doors has said that every guitar player was in some way influenced by Chuck Berry which is certainly an indication that his sound played a large part in shaping the future of rock and roll. Obviously when playing a Green Day, Kiss, or Metallica record, one doesn’t think immediately about how closely it sounds like Berry, but influence is everything, especially when playing the six degrees of influential separation game. Musical influence is a lot like the food chain. Any biologist, chemist, or garbage collector with some common sense will tell you that if humans no longer existed, animal and plant life would flourish beyond cognitive imagination, but if microscopic plankton no longer existed, all life on this planet would cease almost immediately. Music is the same way: Take away current, high grossing musicians, and the history of music doesn’t skip a beat (no pun intended), but take away the early founders of rock music, and everything we know and love about all media as a whole changes in ways we can’t possibly fathom. Life itself changes in ways we can’t possibly fathom.
Dick Clark’s most famous quote is “Music is the soundtrack of your life.” Besides being possibly the least profound and most obvious expression anyone has ever said about music, Clark managed to actually strike a chord people up with that quote. He is right. Music is not only the soundtrack, but in a lot of ways, it is the cornerstone of a lot of our memories and experiences. Music changes people. Music leads people in different directions. Music makes people think about who they are and what they want. What would have happened if the Beatles (whose covers of “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Johnny B Goode” indicate that they too were influenced by Chuck Berry) had never made it big and played Ed Sullivan? What would have happened to the Rolling Stones who never would have had the Beatles to chase? What would have happened to countless other bands who count the Beatles or the Stones as their number one influence? What if Bob Dylan hadn’t plugged in his electric guitar at Newport in 1965 and played “Maggie’s Farm” to a sea of booing folkies? What would have happened if there were no Woodstock? No Monterey Pop Festival? No Isle of Wight? No Altamont? No Bonnaroo? What would have happened (or not happened) in countless cars at “make-out points” across the county without “Stand By Me” “When a Man Loves a Woman” or “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida?” Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
It is not enough to say “we would have found our way eventually” or “if Chuck Berry didn’t do it, someone would have.” That is tempting fate, which is something we certainly can’t rely on. Don’t forget, if Marty hadn’t gotten his parents back together in 1955, he would have ceased to exist, too. Relying on fate is a lot like relying on the law of large numbers: sure, maybe it would have happened eventually, but there is no telling how it would have transpired, and there certainly be no way of knowing when or by whom.
The one consolation is that had Berry not gone on to be one of the most influential musicians of all time, we would have no concept of what music would be, and more importanly, we would have no concept of what we are missing. Maybe it would have been worse, but maybe it would be vastly superior. Either way we would have no concept of it what-so-ever. Think about it this way. It is entirely possible if not probable that somewhere in history’s past, someone who could have drastically influence the future of American culture could have been stopped from doing so, but we don’t know what we would have been missing. In other words; a Chuck Berry type person with equal innovative ability very well could have existed without actually influencing anyone or anything, but we don’t feel we are missing out on anything.
There is simply no telling what implications would have happened through the course of time had Chuck Berry not pioneered his corner of the musical universe, but, unless you believe in fate (which clearly the creators of “Back to the Future” don’t), all our lives would be drastically different in some way, maybe for the better, and maybe not, and luckily, we will never know. The moral of the story is simple: If you find yourself back in 1955 and someone asks you to play a song at a high school dance, pick one from a band that doesn’t matter like Nickelback or someone.
This is why Marty McFly is now and forever will be a cultural icon. Marty McFly experienced what each of us dream of. If not prior to, then at the very least, immediately following “Back to the Future,” Everyone wanted to travel to the past, everyone wanted to visit the future, and, quite frankly, everyone wanted a hoverboard. Marty McFly had it all, and we wanted it. We wanted it badly. Fortunately, “Back to the Future” is fiction. Doc never invented a time machine, Marty never travelled to 1955, 2015, or 1885, and the Delorian didn’t become a symbol of scientific advancement (depending on who you ask). We should all thank our lucky stars that “Back to the Future” is fiction. We should all be grateful that no such time travelling device exists. We should all breathe a sigh of relief that Marty McFly never existed because otherwise he would have ruined life as we know it, or at least a large part of it: if “Back to the Future” had been a true story, Martin McFly would have ruined rock and roll music for all time to come.
Rock and roll as we know it today would cease to exist. Certainly a variant form of rock music would have taken its place, but everything we currently know and love about rock music would not only stop existing, it never would have existed in the first place and therefore never evolved into what we now know as modern rock and roll music. We would have no concept of that which we love about it because it never would have happened. Some people fear heights, some people fear public speaking, some people fear death. I fear Marty McFly.
This, of course, is assuming that Chuck Berry is and always has been a musician with high integrity.
If you happened to be one of the three people between the ages of 5 and 105 who has not seen “Back to the Future,” or if your mind has been fried due to years of substance abuse or exposure to American politics, here is a little refresher course: At the conclusion of the primary storyline in “Back to the Future” Marvin of Marvin Berry and the Starlighters cuts his hand trying to free Marty McFly from a locked car trunk. Marvin, who is the lead guitar player and singer for the Starlighters insists that the dance has drawn to a conclusion due to his inability to play guitar with his cut hand; a detail that proves Marvin is not and never will be Pete Townshend or Jimi Hendrix. Marty begs Marvin to reconsider so that his future parents can solidify their eternal love through the magic of 1950’s Doo Wop. As a compromise, Marty, a 1980’s guitar virtuoso, agrees to fill in for Marvin for the purposes of ensuring his own future existence. So far so good.
As Marty is about to leave for his destined journey back to 1985, Marvin, the inevitable oracle says “let’s play something that really cooks.” Enter the end of rock and roll as we know it. At this point, Marty, not known for turning down an opportunity to quietly walk away from a challenge steps up to the microphone and introduces “an oldie where I come from” before launching into a blistering version of Chuck Berry’s legendary “Johnny B Goode.” Hubris never win in the end. See any piece of Ancient Greek literature for examples.
Robert Zemeckis and Steven Spielberg are a couple of jokers. While writing, developing, and producing the film, they had some fun throwing in a few timing gags. In this case timing is in reference to the cultural boundaries one would encounter by traveling to the past (different slang, lack of knowledge of future historical persons or events, etc). One of their jokes occurred during Marty’s rendition of “Johnny B Goode” in which Marvin makes a phone call to his cousin who happens to be, you guessed it, Chuck Berry; original author of “Johnny B Goode.” Marvin is seen talking into the phone saying “You know that new sound you’ve been looking for? Well listen to this…” and holds the receiver in the direction of the stage and Marty’s innovative (or innovative for 1955) guitar playing, indicating that Marty’s homage to the Chuck Berry classic is actually that which inspires Chuck Berry to author the song in the first place. Very funny, you have just ruined us forever. The problem with this is that Mr. Zemeckis and Mr. Spielberg are guilty of not taking their own advice.
Anyone who knows anything about the birth of rock and roll will tell you the same thing; Chuck Berry was one of the biggest pioneers and, by extension, most influential musicians in the history of rock and roll. Berry exploded onto the music scene in 1955 with a completely unique sound that had never been heard before. Prior to Chuck Berry, the roots of early rock and roll were set in various combinations of blues, R+B, gospel, country, and the big band jazz era as founded by artists like Elvis, Ray Charles, and Bo Diddley. But as Eric Burdon of the Animals said “I always felt that Chuck Berry was the poet laureate of America” or as Carl Perkins once said “Chuck Berry was an act you didn’t want to have to follow.” Carl Gardner of the Coasters goes so far as to call Chuck Berry and Little Richard the kings of Rock and Roll. There is no doubt that Chuck Berry’s sound would go on to either directly or indirectly influence every guitar player that would follow, but none of that could have happened had he listened to Marty McFly play his song. Again, assuming Berry was a musician with a high level of musical and innovative integrity.
Artistic pioneering does not happen by accident. Artistic pioneering does not happen by coincidence. Artistic pioneering only occurs through either an innovative mix of current or past styles, or through the full rejection of current popularity. The 1960’s psychedelic movement occurred through innovation using blues and jazz with experimental electronic influences, the punk movement occurred through a rejection of the Woodstock era, the 1970’s arena and glam rock was born out of pushing live production value to an extreme, grunge was born out of rejection hair metal, all styles evolve through pushing boundaries of musical styling or full rejection. Chuck Berry’s innovation was no different.
When Marvin calls and says “you know that new sound you’ve been looking for” he actually single-handedly eliminated the influence Berry had on the world of music. Had Berry heard Marty playing in Berry’s signature style, it would have become clear to him that that style already existed, and therefore was not new or innovative, and therefore was not a pioneering effort. If we assume that Chuck Berry is a musician of integrity, we can assume that he had no interest in attempting to re-create a pre-existing style he heard elsewhere. If we assume Berry is only interested in money and fame and not about musical innovation, we can assume that he would have heard the efforts of this no-name band playing a high school dance and considered the style a failure from the start and not worth the effort. After all, who in their right mind would want to copy a band whose ultimate achievement was playing the Hill Valley High School “Enchantment Under the Sea Dance?”
Case and point, you will notice that following Marvin holding the phone up to the stage, Marty’s guitar playing turns from a distinct Chuck Berry sound to what can only be described as electronic noise, or punk, which is really the same thing. Most would argue that the transition is the result of Marty simply becoming carried away with his live performance antics, but perhaps Zemeckis and Spielberg were acutely aware of the detrimental implications of this particular time disruption. Perhaps they recognize that upon Berry’s hearing and rejection of what would ironically go on to become his own style, the influence that travelled from 1955 through the generations to McFly in 1985 would instantaneously become irrelevant and vanish. In other words, as soon as Berry hears McFly’s “Johnny B Goode,” the song “Johnny B Goode” and musical style of Chuck Berry as a whole would no longer exist (as Berry would have no interest in copying it, as opposed to writing it originally), and instantly reduce McFly to a fumbling maniac with a guitar who has no knowledge of “Johnny B Goode.” By playing the yet-to-be-written “Johnny B Goode” to and unimpressed Chuck Berry, Marvin caused the song to be instantaneously eliminated from existence altogether. Eliminating Berry in the past would render his music non-existent in the present and future. This is my nightmare.
It is hard to say how extensive Chuck Berry’s influence in music actually is. Ray Manzarek of the Doors has said that every guitar player was in some way influenced by Chuck Berry which is certainly an indication that his sound played a large part in shaping the future of rock and roll. Obviously when playing a Green Day, Kiss, or Metallica record, one doesn’t think immediately about how closely it sounds like Berry, but influence is everything, especially when playing the six degrees of influential separation game. Musical influence is a lot like the food chain. Any biologist, chemist, or garbage collector with some common sense will tell you that if humans no longer existed, animal and plant life would flourish beyond cognitive imagination, but if microscopic plankton no longer existed, all life on this planet would cease almost immediately. Music is the same way: Take away current, high grossing musicians, and the history of music doesn’t skip a beat (no pun intended), but take away the early founders of rock music, and everything we know and love about all media as a whole changes in ways we can’t possibly fathom. Life itself changes in ways we can’t possibly fathom.
Dick Clark’s most famous quote is “Music is the soundtrack of your life.” Besides being possibly the least profound and most obvious expression anyone has ever said about music, Clark managed to actually strike a chord people up with that quote. He is right. Music is not only the soundtrack, but in a lot of ways, it is the cornerstone of a lot of our memories and experiences. Music changes people. Music leads people in different directions. Music makes people think about who they are and what they want. What would have happened if the Beatles (whose covers of “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Johnny B Goode” indicate that they too were influenced by Chuck Berry) had never made it big and played Ed Sullivan? What would have happened to the Rolling Stones who never would have had the Beatles to chase? What would have happened to countless other bands who count the Beatles or the Stones as their number one influence? What if Bob Dylan hadn’t plugged in his electric guitar at Newport in 1965 and played “Maggie’s Farm” to a sea of booing folkies? What would have happened if there were no Woodstock? No Monterey Pop Festival? No Isle of Wight? No Altamont? No Bonnaroo? What would have happened (or not happened) in countless cars at “make-out points” across the county without “Stand By Me” “When a Man Loves a Woman” or “In-a-Gadda-Da-Vida?” Maybe nothing. Maybe everything.
It is not enough to say “we would have found our way eventually” or “if Chuck Berry didn’t do it, someone would have.” That is tempting fate, which is something we certainly can’t rely on. Don’t forget, if Marty hadn’t gotten his parents back together in 1955, he would have ceased to exist, too. Relying on fate is a lot like relying on the law of large numbers: sure, maybe it would have happened eventually, but there is no telling how it would have transpired, and there certainly be no way of knowing when or by whom.
The one consolation is that had Berry not gone on to be one of the most influential musicians of all time, we would have no concept of what music would be, and more importanly, we would have no concept of what we are missing. Maybe it would have been worse, but maybe it would be vastly superior. Either way we would have no concept of it what-so-ever. Think about it this way. It is entirely possible if not probable that somewhere in history’s past, someone who could have drastically influence the future of American culture could have been stopped from doing so, but we don’t know what we would have been missing. In other words; a Chuck Berry type person with equal innovative ability very well could have existed without actually influencing anyone or anything, but we don’t feel we are missing out on anything.
There is simply no telling what implications would have happened through the course of time had Chuck Berry not pioneered his corner of the musical universe, but, unless you believe in fate (which clearly the creators of “Back to the Future” don’t), all our lives would be drastically different in some way, maybe for the better, and maybe not, and luckily, we will never know. The moral of the story is simple: If you find yourself back in 1955 and someone asks you to play a song at a high school dance, pick one from a band that doesn’t matter like Nickelback or someone.
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