Bloodrock - D.O.A. (1971)

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One of the most notorious examples of a truly fabulous album track getting so badly mangled by editing that it was rendered all but unlistenable when heard on AM radio by FM listeners was this classic rock song from 1971. Indeed, if editing this 8 minutes, 30 seconds length vocal and instrumental experience down to a laughable 4:32 wasn't a ridiculous enough idea, the song was banned by many AM stations and high schools in the US besides. Still, it managed to peak at #36 on both Cash Box and Billboard on March 6, 1971. Although the inspiration for the song was lead guitarist Lee Pickens witnessing a deadly private plane crash involving one of his friends (after just getting off the same plane at a little airport a few minutes earlier), it became a cautionary rock anthem about the dangers of reckless driving and the potential consequences. For good measure, not only is the narrator (lead vocal) about to die, but his girlfriend, also injured in the car crash, is already dead. However, because of the style of the song, teetering on the verge of Black Sabbath type heavy metal with a lot of weirdness in the keyboard playing, the song had a double-edge sword appeal about it, making it seem to glorify death. It is thus an excellent example of "shock rock" ... the kind that would eventually be associated, not only with Black Sabbath, but with bands like Alice Cooper and the much later advent of darkwave in the 80's.

For me this song was timed almost exactly with an event that occurred in the spring of that same year: 1971. I was in my senior year at high school and a popular former student from our school who had graduated a year earlier in 1970, was involved in a horrendous car accident that got a lot of local media attention. He was speeding so fast his car went airborne, sheared through part of a tree, and crashed into the side of a house between the first and second floor. Both he and his girlfriend were killed. About a week after the wreck was dragged off, my friends and I (and most of the school) went down to have a look at it. Gazing with puzzled expressions at the crushed, almost compacted twisted metal it was hard to believe that two human beings had actually been inside of it. "D.O.A." was making the rounds on both FM and AM radio at the time, and it was hard to listen to without associating it with this very real event. Of course we all still liked listening to it because it was such a cool song.

I do not enter into the creation of this music video of "D.O.A." lightly. About 15 years ago I witnessed a high speed head-on collision at a "T intersection" between two vehicles. You could say I practically had a front row seat, close enough that if it had happened a few seconds later, I might have been involved. What I saw seemed surreal and utterly impossible: two machines did in a few split seconds what seemed to be against the very laws of natural physics. Imagine what violating those laws can do to a human body.

This is "D.O.A." by Bloodrock.
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