It was my introduction to Santana. I never really listened to the whole song...I remember vaguely processing the lyrics in my head "I'll change my life to better suit your moods" and filing away the results as cleverly sarcastic (I was mistaken, the song writer apparently meant them in all sincerity!
The thing about most of his music, and I say his because he owns any song he plays, is that the lyrics can range anywhere from aweful to slightly less aweful. Well okay maybe a couple of the songs he played just renadomly turned out to have passing good lyrics. That may have something to do with him being one of the greatest guitar players alive (he maybe great but nothing quite touches jimi hendrix). He may have this distinction solely because he is the only guitarist from the woodstock age who did not die of a Henroine overdose or of aids. Those two felled a whole generation of probably the most talented musicians in the history of the world.
As a point of reference I decided to go back and watch some of the footage of some of the live performances at Woodstock 69. These were live performances mind you, so you cant really expect a polished studio processed sound that you are used to now...and I was prepared for that. However what took me completely by surprise was the total lack of concern for "wanting" to sound polished or even rehearsed. In not one or two or three...time after time after time, you noticed really crude sounding bits in the music that nobody would THINK of putting in their music now. But you did get to have an inside glimpse of the artist....the human being. There were off note pitches, off beat chords and off track hummings. You got the sense that these were people singing about things they believed in and what was most important was to just sing. I heard Janice Joplin looking totally uncool doing her thing on the stage...without makeup too. What opened my eyes though was a close up of jimi hendrix' fingers in a close up while he played "Purple Haze". Those fingers did not look human. You have often seen the three fingered alien from mars....if you ask me they modelled them after Hendrix. And I was soon to see what those fingers could do. It was just so clear that there wasnt any disconnect between the tool and the person...it almost felt as if he wasnt doing anything heroic. I have not seen anything like that before or since. And then I saw Santana, at the time just 17, and already famous, doing his thing...it was distinctly Santana...even at that time (he had been playing since he was 4 violen and he has been playing rock since he was 8). But good as he was...he didnt even make an impression with his performance hedged in between two others...even the drummer seemed to outshine him(look up "soul sacrifice" on Youtube).
Most noticable amongst those who were playing at woodstock 69 was a certain rock country fusion. The sound of the singers and of the instruments harked back to the good old days of the Banjo...of the village bard and of ballads. There was a deep but understated political tone to the music. And often a political piece had no lyrics at all. The music was an abstract symbol of what it was supposed to say...it was pure and unadultrated and it was clearly from a person to another person. We grew up on processed music so it is difficult to not expect a flawless rendition. The music back then was not a bunch of sound engineers and a whole studio talking to you...it was a person or a band talking to you...with all of the attendant, but no less endearing flaws. Some of it was brilliant. It was like watching a shooting white star streak across the sky towards you and being amazed at how small and insignificant it looks streaking accross the immensity that is the sky, until it decided to burst open in a huge display of fireworks with all the colors of the rainbow with your standing in the middle of it. I felt that while I listened to Jimi Hendrix.
It may sound like a digression but this is the background to Carlos Santana's music...the "scene" that spawned him. This is and a certain latin american touch.I felt the difference when I was watching a video of him with a certain famous jazz musician from where this celebrity Buddy Guy introduces Santana in a typical African American big guy manner:
"Let me introduce you to a very good friend of mine (not really) who is going to he'p me play this song". It got funny as Santana then walked in and gradually took over the piece...gradually and slowly and completely. To the point that at the end you see this guy standing there wanting and trying to accompany santana but afraid to touch the strings of his guitar. Watch it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKo0FK6-O-E
Allow me to temporarily wrap it up here, I will get back to this with more rants later.