What Were We Really Going To Do Instead, Roll Against It?

Personally, I would prefer to roll in perpendicular relation to it, but if I ultimately must roll "with" it, I suppose I will.

The Ray Charles of Yuppie Rock scored some mighty ubiquitous hits in his day, but he never quite rocked the Montgomery Ward parking lot like he did during that magical Summer of '88. At the time it seemed like "Roll With It" would come on the radio first thing in the morning, last thing at night, and every hour in between; whether one enjoyed or loathed the single, one simply just had to ... roll with it. The rest of the accompanying album, which I figured I might as well listen to in preparation for this blog post, doesn't quite hit me the way the title track hits me. "Don't You Know What the Night Can Do?" No, Steve, I don't know what the night can do. I hope it can do more for me than the tracks on Roll With It that aren't "Roll With It" can do.

Back in 1988, I had no idea what Motown was, so I had no idea that this was a Motown "homage," and I certainly had no idea who Junior Walker and the All-Stars were, but apparently, per Wikipedia, someone else did: "Publishing rights organization BMI later had Motown songwriters Holland-Dozier-Holland credited with co-writing the song due to its resemblance to the Junior Walker hit '(I'm a) Roadrunner.'." (Spoiler alert: this same Dozier might soon be making an unexpected guest appearance in a Phil Collins post near you.) The sax break with the key change also calls to mind the solo from Aretha Franklin's "Respect." My cherished illusion of '80s Steve Winwood as an artist of unimpeachable integrity and originality has just been shattered, I tell you, shattered!

Meanwhile, he's mangling his lyrics worse than peak John Fogerty. I decided to play a little game here. I attempted to guess what the lyrics were, and then I went and looked them up to see how well I did. The results:

Guess: I'm done knocking on your door/I'm tellin' you, oh nevermore
Actual: Hard times knocking on your door/I'll tell them you ain't there no more

Mine almost has more of an Edgar Allen Poe flavor to it.

Guess: People there gettin' down and out/You shouldn't work, it's all about
Actual: People think you're down and out/You show them what it's all about

In my version, it's a bitter commentary on Thatcher-era unemployment.

Guess: Nairobi Monday/You'll get there baby
Actual: Now there'll be a day/You'll get there baby

Hey, maybe "Nairobi Monday" was slang for really sweltering heat or something.

Guess: You'll lift bad times, we get high/There'll be no good times on your mind
Actual: You'll leave bad times way behind/Nothing but good times on you mind

A dark warning about the perils of substance abuse?

Frankly, I think I prefer my lyrics to the real ones.



Winwood used the video, filmed in tasteful black and white by a pre-Paula Abdul/Madonna/George Michael, etc. David Fincher, to finally live out his chitlin' circuit fantasies. It's a smokin' hot day in this Southern roadside bar, but Steve is getting down with the local blues pickers and sharecroppers' daughters like he was raised with them from birth. Fincher tries admirably to sexy up a Steve Winwood video, inserting shots of: a woman wiping her sweaty Southern bosom with a rag (0:30), a couple making out in a doorway behind an exhausted-looking black girl in a 'do rag (1:21), a vaguely Latin-looking couple attempting to do the Lambada right in the middle of the dance floor (1:28), a bookish fellow in glasses and tie (possibly anticipating Fincher's later video for "Rock the Cradle"?) being thrown to the floor by what appears to be a younger, wilder, less inhibited Miss Daisy (2:10), a woman trying to audition for one of the Fly Girls on In Living Colour but clearly having found her way to the wrong set (3:00), a lady sensually pressing her lipstick against a napkin (3:12), and finally, an old, wrinkled gentleman popping the top button off his shirt (3:45). I feel like erotic slow-motion shots of this sort are ultimately more effective when the individual on camera is Madonna instead of, say, Grampa Joad, buy hey, everybody's got to start somewhere. I mean, if Madonna's agent isn't calling yet, you better take that Steve Winwood offer, and you better like it. I've never heard Fincher's thoughts on this clip. Perhaps the first rule of the "Roll With It" video is not to talk about the "Roll With It" video.