Comic Book Heroes
(Words and Music by Rick Springfield)
There's times when real people let me down,
when the temperature falls to zero.
I curl up by the fire with a good book,
and for awhile I am a superhero.
You really need to be a superhero.
'Cause many times people will hurt you
and try to mess you 'round
And anyway, my comic book heroes won't let me down.
Comic Book Heroes
(total playing time :44)
This song can be found on the Comic
Book Heroes LP and on Anthology. Rick performed this song in Mahnomen, MN
on 11/6/04
MORE FAN REVIEWS
I’ve always loved
this song especially the lyrics as they’re so true to life.
People are sometimes going
to let you down and it is just great to be able to escape from reality and into the land
of super heroes and let your imagination run wild.
I can just imagine Rick
curled up by an open fire fascinated by a good book and that image always comes into my
head when I hear this song.
I actually always wished
this song was a little longer as it is over too quickly!
This is such a short song, I ‘ve really
never thought of it as a song. To me, it’s
more of a preface, kind of setting the mood for the rest of the album.
In our house wee tend to
play this song twice to make it an itty-bitty bit longer.
LOL! Our way of “stretching”
a song...just play it twice! ;o)
Cute little ditty.
Hehe, I was gonna leave it
at that. Really, what more can I say that
hasn’t been covered yet -this “song” is so short. I love the guitar strumming, and Rick sounding an
awful lot like he did on Beginnings. I think
it sets the tone of the album off to a good start, with Rick being the storyteller of the
myriad stories to follow. He offers you an
invite to lose yourself and become a superhero and live in the world of the Comic Book
Heroes.
Love the Aussie accent and the acoustic guitar.
That said, I can certainly relate to this short paragraph. How many times have I buried
myself in a book to escape the outside world! A recurring theme here of people letting him
down once again so he finds solace in comic books, which I think shows his youthfulness
and naivete. Comic book heroes have no faults
and can do no wrong, unlike us mere mortals.
Although I haven’t actually listened to the
song recently, it’s got to be one of my all time favorites (I have a feeling I’ll
say that a lot with this album). This song is
short, sweet, to the point, and it will always remind me of Rick. Not even because he wrote it, and sings it, but
because in a way he has been my ‘comic book hero’. When the world is too much, I turn to Rick’s
music for a break from the reality.
"When the world is too much, I turn to
Rick’s music for a break from the reality"
I think this sums it up for
a lot of us. It’s ironic though, in many ways, he and his work are such “fantasy”,
but at the same time, he’s able to put our realities into words. Very real and unreal
at the same time. |
|
Of Rick’s older stuff,
this album is the first that I REALLY like pretty much all the way through. There aren’t
too many “cringe” moments on this one. Yippee!!
CMH the song feels more like an intro than a song of it’s own. The subject is
that of pain and escape-ism. A fantasy world where he is invincible and no one can hurt
him. No matter how inadequate and hurt and lonely he felt in the “real world”,
there was a place he could “go” to be this strong vibrant person he wanted to
be.
I don’t know what it is about listening to this stuff on my computer, but I always
hear things (instruments mostly) that I never hear or pick out listening on any of my
other CD players. It’s like the levels and mix are read differently on my
computer.
I picked up some sort of pipe/recorder (?) sound while they are singing the “and for
a while I am a super hero....” lines. Had never heard that before,or at least hadn’t
paid any attention to it if I did.
Well, it’s all
basically self explanatory. The comic book heroes don’t let you down, the good guys
always win in the end. When others disappoint
you, you can escape to another world with your comic books or any book for that matter.
This song starts out with
mellow guitar playing, then gets louder with some kind of horn. I wish it were longer.
Ahhhh, 1973. In college. We’re
all grown up now! The time of ‘Nam winding down, Watergate’s waters rising,
stuff still blowing in the wind, to what’s that sound everyone look what’s
going down. A simpler time.
Saturday morning cartoons still reined supreme and were not ½ hour product commercials.
Comics were the great American art form as well as classic every man, every kid
literature.
"There’s times when real people let me down, when my temperature falls to
zero" the grown ups, the man, “they” did it again.
"and for awhile I am a
super hero" Books worked like a charm every time for me and now we see for Rick.
I never thought of this song
as silly or simple. It just was. It was the light.
This guy from Australia
UNDERSTOOD exactly what it was like for me. This song comforted this little one's lost
soul back then through many a dark night. Into the light. It would be okay. And it was
good.
This is a great little “ditty”.
It emphasizes Rick’s love of reading, any type of material will do, a zeal we know
that still exists to this day. I’ve heard him call himself a “voracious reader”.
I can just picture him curled up by the fire with a good book, and then I interrupt him
with two glasses of wine, gently putting the book aside and running my fingers through
that soft, shiney hair....*oops, sorry........went off to “FantasyLand for a minute,
just as Rick described in this song.
Who hasn’t curled up
with a good book and seen themselves in the part of the heroine/hero? Nothing wrong with that. It could also be said that it was something you
did as a child; pretend you were someone else to keep yourself occupied when none of your
friends were around.
I don’t have this album
so I don’t know if I’ve actually ever heard this song so my comments are based
strictly on the lyrics. Seems to me this is a
result of Rick getting his first ‘real’ taste of how harsh the music industry,
especially critics, can really be. Fortunately
he found some place in his personal life (Comic Book Heroes) that allowed him to push the
negative stuff aside, if only for a short time, and not let it take over his world or his
ambition. |
