Rock-tober: Day 3

Bob Seger is not your typical rock star who came through the 80's. No product-laced, teased-up hair jacked to Jesus, no dark eye liner, no leopard print spandex pants. He's a dude's dude, and the soulful, no nonsense grittiness of his voice is that of someone who paid his dues to get where he is.

This was a hard decision. Seger's discography is a large part of all of my classic rock playlists. "Against the Wind", "Night Moves", and "Hollywood Nights" were all contenders, but I comfortably selected "Like a Rock". The older I get, the more I relate to this song. Seger was in his 40's when he wrote it, and the lyrics describe an older guy looking back on his life thus far, mirroring my own internal dialog. Do I have regrets? Sure, but none of them are incapacitating. Have I accomplished all the dreams from my youth? Nope. Some died while others have been changed or tempered and refined by life, and I still believe in them. Oh, and I still have no time for "these hucksters and their schemes".

Seger previously turned down many lucrative Mad Men type offers of corporate sponsorship, not wanting the strings that came attached with those relationships. The story is, an anonymous man changed his mind. Sitting at a bar, a stranger walked up to him and asked, "How come you never do any commercials for the auto companies and help us out a little bit?" The rest is history. Did Chevy actually have better trucks at that time? Debatable, but during one of the longest and most successful ad campaigns in history, Chevy, using "Like a Rock" as their tagline, sold a lot of trucks. Obviously, something about the song resonated with a lot of people. They just figured out something I already knew.