The other week I really enjoyed the Greg Kihn Show as I drove into work. I love that show because the hosts are very creative and unafraid of being goofy. A few days in a row they were asking callers to help them identify as many songs as they could with nonsense words in them. “Rock and Roll has a great history of nonsense words,” Kihn declared, and I heartily agree. It’s part of what makes Rock and Roll really great Primal Scream Therapy. And there are so many songs.

Some of the songs were easy to think of — “Witch Doctor” by David Seville, for example. But I had to laugh when they got to the song “Whole Lotta Love” by Led Zeppelin. They got to the part where Robert Plant just goes crazy screaming and couldn’t figure out what his motivation was to make those sounds. Are you kidding? Really? The guy just got through singing:

You’ve been learnin’, baby, I bean learnin’,
All them good times, baby, baby, Ive been yearnin’,
Way, way down inside honey, you need it,
Im gonna give you my love,
Im gonna give you my love.
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?
Wanna whole lotta love?

At which point Plant starts making sounds that do not require a whole lot of imagination to assign to their proper place. He then follows up with:

You’ve been coolin’, baby, I’ve been droolin’,
All the good times I’ve been misusin’,
Way, way down inside, I’m gonna give you my love,
I’m gonna give you every inch of my love,
Gonna give you my love.
Yeah! all right! let’s go!

I’d just like to officially say the jig is up. The old fuddy-duddies were right. All Rock and Roll really is about sex. It just is. Put on any rock station worth its frequency and you’ll hear the following:

You shook me all night Long — ACDC
Whole Lotta Love — Led Zeppelin
Tush — ZZ Top
Scream — Billy Idol
Brown Sugar — Rolling Stones
Walk on the Wild Side — Lou Reed
Girls, Girls, Girls — Mötley Crüe
Fat Bottomed Girls — Queen
Pour Some Sugar on Me — Def Leppard
Cherry Pie — Warrant
Feel Like Makin’ Love – Bad Company
All I Wanna Do Is Make Love To You — Heart
Closer — Nine Inch Nails
Rag Doll — Aerosmith
Love In an Elevator — Aerosmith
Crash — Dave Matthews Band
Layla — Derek and the Dominoes
Sunshine Of Your Love — Cream

And on and on and on and on. They were right. It’s not about an awesome beat or catchy lyrics. Guys learn to play the guitar to meet girls. Sure they care about art and social messages and all that crap, but the following is a diagram that illustrates the motivation behing forming a band:

And writing songs:

99.7% of songs are about love triumphant, love lost, love unrequited, love causing agony, or love causing bitterness. .2% of songs are about music itself. There has only been one awesome song in the history of Rock and Roll that was about a guitar. And even “While My Guitar Gently Weeps” wasn’t really about a guitar.

Just sayin’.