Exhibit A:
Hair rockers with a conscience Extreme’s 1990 hit “More Than Words”
Lasting Cultural Impact:
Joy, hope, and black nail polish for the masses.
Separated at Birth:
Anything by the Everly Brothers.
Verdict:
Extreme-ly moving.
Lyric Sample:
Saying I love you
Is not the words I want to hear from you
It's not that I want you
Not to say, but if you only knew
How easy it would be to show me how you feel
More than words is all you have to do to make it real
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know
Analysis:
If you’re anything like me, this has to be one of your all-time favorite records and without doubt one of the enduring songs of the modern age. Long after fads like Schubert and Rachmaninoff have been justly forgotten to the sands of time, future historians will still be debating the everlasting impact of Extreme. Their flame burnt all too briefly, it is true, but with a piercing brightness that can only be compared to that of the earth’s very genesis.
Standing out even more absurdly when surrounded by the superficial garbage being released in its day, trashy CDs even pressed on cheap and nasty plastic with cases that would not close completely, Extreme’s entire Extreme II: Pornograffitti album was a rare treasure that made the year 1990 seem even more like it were only a blissful dream.
Those wishing to lend a guiding hand to today’s aspiring songwriters – or if you yourself would like to be an aspiring songwriter! – should take this album as their own personal bible. Don’t just listen to it—fools! Study it, and feel your music muscles grow. Live with it, and as the years pass by it will reveal its secrets to you, like a highly-secretive woman.
The album’s signature track, “More than Words,” was an experiment. And it was wildly successful. Extreme gambled that the record-buying public was ready for a break from their normal punishing hair-metal sound, and the result served as an elegant baroque turn that caught the public completely off-guard, like a sucker-punch in the shower. Somewhat to my relief, the rest of the album still rocked in customary Extreme fashion. But “More than Words,” this was a special moment indeed. A quiet moment of reflection at the pinnacle of rock, climbed by intrepid glam-fags bent on discovering the truth at life’s very core.
What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you
Lead singer and band hair consultant Gary Cherone lent his vocal talents and remarkable coif to this beautiful ballad, adding textured layers of meaning to guitar virtuoso and band soul-possessor Nuno Bettencourt’s breathtaking composition. The intricate game of chess that exists between Cherone’s vocal phrasings and Bettencourt’s smoldering acoustic strumming cannot be fully explored even in twelve thesis papers—believe me, I have tried. Suffice it to say that even the song’s beautifully clear and supple lyrics, legendary in their own right and unmatched by any Dylan Thomas scribblings or Wordsworthian drivel, are only but a pale refection of the true genius residing in this song’s musical structure.
More than words
Now I've tried to talk to you and make you understand
All you have to do is close your eyes
And just reach out your hands and touch me
Hold me close don't ever let me go
More than words is all I ever needed you to show
Then you wouldn't have to say that you love me
Cos I'd already know
This verse in particular highlights Bettencourt’s wonderful sense of humor. He’d already know? Indeed. Many listeners miss this subtlety due to their sense of mesmerized awe over Nuno’s vividly realized landscapes of sound.
What would you do if my heart was torn in two
More than words to show you feel
That your love for me is real
What would you say if I took those words away
Then you couldn't make things new
Just by saying I love you
Few with ears can avoid being drawn into this song’s intense lyrical beauty, or its equally moving outbursts of extreme brutality and obscenity, vital organs being torn asunder by that cruel mistress that is true love! Like all of us, Bettencourt is trapped: trapped in the universe - and trapped in a body. Like us graceless mortals, too, he desires happiness and is averse to suffering. In this song, he is experiencing the agony of incarnation, the agony of being in a body. Nuno suffers from heat, cold, thirst, hunger, fear, desire, confusion, frustration, loss, pain, injury, terror, and ultimately death, all laid bare for our benefit within the course of a heart-stopping four minutes of pop heaven. Are you listening, Mozart? Perhaps if you’d lived a bit longer, you could have learned a thing or two about music.