“He’s gonna be here in 100 years”: The songwriter Jack Black thinks will outlive us all
Jack Black feels like an explosion on screen whenever he is given license to be himself under the spotlight.
One of the true entertainers of our world, Black has suitably found himself drenched in the applause of almost every format he has ever ventured into. Whether it is the laughter of comic cinema, the more dramatic moments of film or, indeed, his time as the lead singer of Tenacious D. For the most part, black has lived out the dreams of most artists.
Any band’s dream is to have something that will outlast anything else on the pop charts. It might seem easy to get anyone’s attention for the span of a three-minute song, but if you catch the ear of a generation, you have a responsibility to make sure that there’s some power behind the songs rather than a standard love song.
Although Jack Black always had a certain taste for rock and roll music, he knew that one specific artist would be around for centuries to come. The ability to deliver songs in the moment is part of what draws artists to make art, but the quest for legacy, to be remembered and revered beyond our years, is usually part of the human condition itself.
But not everything that lasts is necessarily radio-friendly. Even though someone like Leonard Cohen and Bob Dylan have written immortal words that will be etched into rock history for years to come, it’s not like every single one of their songs is easy to sing along to, especially with Dylan’s gruff voice.
That’s not how rock and rollers thought about their music. Most lyricists are looking to set up a scene in the listener’s mind every time they perform, and that usually means taking themselves out of the equation and taking on the sound of a character whenever they perform, whether that’s a lover who had their heart broken or someone on the run from the law.
While David Bowie had broken down doors for that theatrical approach to rock and roll, that left many people trying to set up their own scenes with music. The singer-songwriter scene in Los Angeles may have been littered with artists wanting to subvert expectations like Randy Newman, but once people had a good listen to what Tom Waits had to offer, they knew they were listening to something a bit more raw than usual.
It’s already insane that this man came from the same songwriting town that birthed the Eagles, but listening to albums like Rain Dogs or Bone Machine, he seemed interested in shaking his audience up rather than writing a catchy tune. There are still elements of beauty in every one of his albums, but he was also interested in channelling his inner Captain Beefheart half the time, like when he yelps in ‘Earth Died Screaming’ or sounding like some sleazy homeless man looking at an abandoned house in ‘What’s He Building’.
Although Black was already a massive fan of Waits, he still thought later albums like Bad As Me would hold up long after he was gone, saying, “Those first three tracks are worth the price of admission. He’s so real; he’s gonna be here in 100 years. Don’t you feel it? Objectively speaking, can’t you look at some people and go, ‘100 years — still gonna be here’?’”
And despite Black sounding absolutely nothing like Waits when he makes his own music, he does at least understand how to twist his voice in the same way Waits did. Despite his wanting to follow in the footsteps of metal vocalists, hearing him try out different spaces within his voice throughout Tenacious D shows that he has the same spirit that Waits has when making some of his masterpieces.
However, the main difference is in the presentation. Black can still make the crude humour that people will find entertaining for generations to come, but when Waits steps up to the microphone, no one knows what he will do. Audiences can find themselves laughing, crying, and shaking in their boots within the span of one song, and yet most of us wouldn’t have it any other way.
