I went on vacation and I never called my girlfriend.
She thought I'd collided with my old life and had forgotten her.
But the truth was I didn't know any better. I was at the limits of my relationship experience.
The uptake on the connection was fraught with bumps. But, we'd finally gotten over the hump two weeks before. After an absence, after living our separate lives, we reconnected for a previously scheduled assignation and we ended up in my apartment in an embrace in the dark as the stereo played "Gold Dust Woman". As I stood there, with my arms around her back, and then her beautiful rear end, which had attracted me to her in the first place, I knew now there was no turning back, because I needed this, I wanted this, I'd been waiting my whole life for this.
And having waited so long, having sat on the sidelines for so long, I wasn't familiar with PROTOCOL! I wasn't an expert at BEING a boyfriend. I didn't understand relationship RULES! I was as close to her as ever, she was in my mind, but her parents were visiting her, I felt we were together, I didn't need confirmation. But she did. Most people would.
When I returned from Utah ten days later, I was worn out, spent, sick. I stumbled in the front door stunned that I'd made it home. I collapsed. I WANTED to call her, but I wanted to be my best self, I didn't want to fuck it up by being less than perfect. So I didn't.
But the next day, she called me. She didn't beat me up. She was more worried that I'd FORGOTTEN her. I'm still trying to grasp how you can have the power in a relationship when you think you're one misstep away from being fired.
We didn't see each other until the following Saturday. I was just that out of it, just that sick. But even though I didn't see her, I did do one thing. I went to the record store. Music Odyssey on Wilshire. To buy the new releases I'd missed when I was away. I bought Supertramp's "Even In The Quietest Moments".
"I can see you in the morning
When you go to school
Don't forget your books
You know you've got to learn the golden rule"
In "Blink", Malcolm Gladwell states that an expert can tell quality in an INSTANT! I only had to hear the first NOTES of "School" to get hooked. Oh, there's a caterwauling harmonica, like a stray cat in a dark alley, crying out for attention. And then the subtlest guitar enters the landscape and you hear the above lyrics.
It may be hard for you to believe, but rock music used to be based in ALIENATION! The people who made it were OUTSIDERS! Who questioned the status quo. Listening, you felt there was someone who GOT YOU! I knew that school was bullshit, but here was this whole ALBUM, "Crime Of The Century", about how formal education was about stripping your creativity, turning you into an automation, just like everybody else.
Not that "Crime Of The Century" was a gigantic hit. It INFILTRATED the landscape. You'd go to someone's house and see it in their collection, you'd hear it at a low level party and you'd whisper to the host, "you like this too?"
Oh, make no mistake, by the midseventies, the sixties were dead. "Saturday Night Fever" was just around the corner. The hoi polloi, the great mass of average humanity, it was throwing overboard counterculture values and embracing leisure suits, ambition, and cocaine.
I'm stunned that the younger generation hasn't discovered "Crime Of The Century". Then again, they love Zeppelin for the riffs. And although "Crime Of The Century" SOUNDS great, it's the lyrics that put it over the top. "Crime Of The Century" had EVERYTHING, music, lyrics and PRISTINE sound. I used to say it was one of the best records ever made.
To follow up such a masterpiece would be impossible. Hell, after the concept album "Sgt. Pepper", the Beatles released an amalgamation of tunes, the White Album. "Crisis? What Crisis?" was not as dark, it didn't hang together as well. And even though more lighthearted, it didn't connect with the mainstream either. Listening today, you'd think "Sister Moonshine" would have broken the band through, but the public wasn't ready yet. Radio was coagulating, it didn't have ROOM for an art rock, yet straight ahead band that depended on an overall sound rather than riffs. But, we fans, we were still enamored, for us, "Crisis? What Crisis?" delivered.
But "Even In The Quietest Moments" did not. Trying to be heavy, trying to make a grand statement, the band failed. It just wasn't catchy enough, it was a little whiny. Finally, failing to break through once again, Supertramp played it safe, went straight up the middle, they excised all the philosophy, all the darkness, all the HEAVINESS! They basically gave up everything they WERE, and they BROKE THROUGH! But after "Breakfast In America" was the biggest album in the land, the band was finished, for their core was now disillusioned, the band had casual fans, and casual fans only follow hits, and Supertramp delivered no more.
Still, every once in a while, I hear one of the band's tracks, and I'm brought back to a day when I still believed, yet felt like I didn't fit in. Oh, their music doesn't get much airplay, but every now and again, you'll hear their masterpiece, "Bloody Well Right", and you'll nod your head and say THAT'S IT! THAT'S THE EXUBERANCE, THE ATTITUDE OF ROCK AND ROLL!
"Monday has come around again
I'm in the same old place
Same old faces always watching me"
So I'm driving up Barrington a little after two, and I hear this piano figure. And what was great about Supertramp was what came AFTER the expected, it was the TRULY UNEXPECTED! Oh, if you've ever heard the intro to "From Now On" you know what I mean. There's this slow, rowboat piano riff, and then, the boat GOES OVER THE FALLS! And as it descends in slow motion, it's the prettiest thing you've ever seen/heard. Everything was copacetic, normal, and now you're confronted with something SPECTACULAR! Oh, it's not a show, it's not for everybody, just you. As if your dream from the magazine knocks on your door, and once inside, suddenly doffs her clothes.
"From Now On" goes on too long. But the first few minutes, they're purely magical. And that I knew. But I don't think I ever heard "From Now On" ON a Monday, when the lyrics resonated. As soon as I got home, I had to download it. And then find out what album it was from.
I thought it was "Breakfast In America". But it turned out to be "In The Quietest Moments". Oh, I hadn't heard the record in so long, but even the secondary tracks by an album act from the seventies eclipses the mainstream stuff today. And looking at the album's track-listing, and squaring what songs I had ripped to my computer, I saw that I had the title cut.
I like riff records. But my favorite songs, the ones I treasure, the ones that speak to me, the ones I truly want with me on a desert isle, are much quieter. Quiet enough to be a conversation, between me and the artist. It's hard to make this music and be successful. The hit parade demands something more obvious, more IN YOUR FACE! And, if you do subtle, you've got to be HISTRIONIC! Just ask Mariah Carey or Celine Dion. You've got to belt in the middle of the quiet song, to make sure everybody's paying attention, taking notice.
But that's not real life. We don't walk down the street suddenly SCREAMING! Which is why the records of these women don't stick with us. Why their recording careers are done. It takes BALLS to not overdo it, to speak from the heart. And a quintessential example is "In The Quietest Moments".
Compared to what came before, the album was a let-down. But compared to what's out there today, it seems the last gasp of an era when we still believed. And what makes me believe most is the title track.
"And then I create the silent movie
You become the star, is that what you are, dear?
Your whisper tells a secret
Your laughter brings me joy
And a wonder of feeling I'm nature's own little boy"
Oh, it's confusing when you're confronted with who you used to be and who you are becoming. Back in Utah I slid right back into my old life. After a week of banging the bumps, I was ready to stay. This is where I belonged. Not that I could see a future consisting of anything other than more of the same. Or, I could return to my new life. Leave all those days on the hill behind, and concentrate on love.
Oh, I was ostensibly in law school. But I cared about that as much as I care about Ashlee Simpson.
I wanted both, but you can't have everything. Then again, had I messed up this relationship irretrievably? Could I really only count on my friends at the Bird?
I thought of this for an entire week. While listening to "In The Quietest Moments". At this exact same time of year. I chose love. And my choice was rewarded.
But that wasn't the end of the story. Life seems fraught with PERPETUAL choices. It's like an endless game of "Let's Make A Deal". You might be able to have THIS, but you're going to have to give up THAT! You'd think someone would help you out, but the only people giving advice are those who are stuck, who want to bring you down to THEIR level. And then you hear an old record and you wonder if you've changed at all. Years have passed, but I still feel like nature's own little boy. Still raw, still not completely formed, still wide-eyed. And this used to make me feel incompetent. Everybody else had dressed up, rid themselves of their boyish ways. But now I know the joke's on them. They sold out, they settled for what was in the box early in the game. Knowing what it is, they don't want to trade it in, for fear they'll lose EVERYTHING! End up worse off. Me, I'm playing all the way to the end, I want a chance for what's behind the curtain. It's been a rough ride, but what's gotten me through are these records. All I want is more records that speak to me, that will help carry me through till I reach a destination where I can live in my own personal album for the rest of time.
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