There was never any bullshit when it came to anything Lemmy ever said.
Love him or hate him, everything that came out of his mouth was going to be brutally honest, and if he said that someone was shit, it was going to take a lot to sway his opinion. He didn’t make bold declarations lightly, and even some of the biggest names in rock music were safe from his vitriol every now and again.
But if there was any credibility that Lemmy had, it was the decades of rock and roll that he had already seen well before most of his fellow legends even picked up a guitar. He had been the epitome of an outlaw throughout most of his career, and given the amount of people he’s inspired, his stories of seeing The Beatles before they were famous, and working as a roadie for Jimi Hendrix, are we sure that the ‘most interesting man in the world’ from the Dos Equis ads weren’t modelled after him?
It’s not like he shied away from talking about his history, either. Throughout every one of Motorhead’s albums, he was more than happy to put pieces of his life in his lyrics, but even when you thought you could pin him down as a swashbuckling rock and roll maniac, he still had a heart when it came to writing songs like ‘Mama I’m Coming Home’ or working with artists like Joan Jett.
While Lemmy had become more myth than man by the time he passed away, the rest of the rock world had found other artists to call their own. There was a chance that a song like ‘Overkill’ could scare off young children if it was played too loud, so instead of picking up whatever new piece of brilliance Lemmy was putting down, it was much easier for everyone to go for the blue-collar honesty of Bruce Springsteen.
‘The Boss’ did have a commanding presence whenever he got onstage, but as far as Lemmy could see, there was nothing rock and roll about anything he did, saying, “We’re the real rock n’ roll. Then you get poncers like Bruce Springsteen, you know, gets all the awards innit? And he’s not really, I don’t hear him as rock n’ roll. He’s been lucky he’s had a couple of good songs, that’s all. You know most of his albums are filler. You know, I don’t think he’s good at all.”
In all fairness, Lemmy does have a point about Springsteen being a bit of a safer choice when it comes to the rock and roll press. Anyone would have a great time listening to tracks like ‘Born to Run’, but if you were to ask them to delve into the demos that he was working on back in the day, it’s not like everything he touched turned to gold. But ‘The Boss’ did have a lot more adventurous tunes than Lemmy probably realised.
It would be easy to see an album like Human Touchget showered with praise and roll your eyes, but there were also records like Nebraska that showed him putting his momentum on the line by releasing an album that was all about the raw performances rather than the massive productions that most people expected from him.
Lemmy might not have seen the difference between Springsteen and your average musical industry plant, but that’s not the kind of fame that ‘The Boss’ was after. He was making mainstream music, and while the masses ate up every word that came out of his mouth, that was only because you could feel the faith he had in rock and roll being able to change the world, if only for a few seconds.
