She could come home at the end of the day, and calmly, unsqueamishly talk about surgery on folks who'd been in motorcycle accidents, or about removing internal organs and clamping vessels. All kinds of blood and gore, that was just another day at the office for her.
But one time, I dropped a heavy object on my toe. It was broken and bleeding. And she could barely look at it.
Why?
She couldn't really answer that question for herself.
In my job, I can happily consume songs that are of the most personal nature. John Lennon's pain of losing his mother. The dissolution of Bob Dylan's marriage. Stevie Nicks singing the poisioned words Lindsay Buckingham wrote about her.
Not that I'm unfeeling about these emotional songs. But I don't know that I ever wince.
So why is it that whenever I get to the part of "Gonna Be Some Changes Made" where Bruce Hornsby admits to accidentally spitting on the crowd during a concert, that I become a horrified teenage girl?
T-M-I, Hornsby! Gross!
Up in front for all to see I′m graceful like a bumbling fool
Then I thought I felt slip from my mouth a little drool
Maybe no one noticed it, on my mind heavily it weighed
I saw two people snickering I said there needs to be some changes made
It was 1 in the morning. I was holding the phone a good foot-and-a-half from my face. I could still hear her screaming. Even though we were a good 20 miles apart, my "flight" instinct was kicking in.
We'd gone out once, maybe twice, and she seemed nice enough. This was when I was in my early 20s. In the days when "liking the same music" seemed like a perfectly reasonable foundation to balance a new relationship on.
I remember that one of the first times we spoke, she made a point to note that her favorite songs were never the singles off a record. She didn't like Phish's "Down With Disease" as much as she liked "Wolfman's Brother," off the recently-released "Hoist." And she preferred "Jealous Guy" to "Imagine."
That encompasses the depth of the relationship, up to the point I found myself on the receiving end of a screaming telephone call.
I had just gotten home from work, wrapping up my night shift at the radio station, when the phone rang. Pretty late for a call to my quiet apartment. I hoped no one was dead.
When I realized it was her, I immediately felt this bit of hesitation. Even if you know the person is just getting off work, do you call someone you hardly know, at 1am? I knew that it was something I wouldn't do, and so I felt a little uneasy, right from the get-go.
She suggested I come join her. She'd been hanging out with a few friends, and wanted me to come over.
She was slurring her words.
"No thanks. Not tonight. I just got home from a long day and I'm---"
And that's when she launched into a tirade. First, she was just hot, but she cranked up to a scream pretty quickly. A obscenity-laden stream of consciousness about how I must be some kind of jerk to turn down an invitation to come over and that I was probably lying about being tired and I must be some kind of jerk to turn down an invitation to come over and I must lying about being tired, etc, etc.
At some point, I just kind of interrupted her and said, "I gotta go," and hung up.
I won't say that I had high standards in those years, but I wasn't going to endure someone's bat-shit-drunken-craziness either.
She called the next morning and apologized. I thanked her. She asked if I wanted to get together. I told her I'd pass on that, and that I'd just see her around.
A few days later, I got a note and a cassette tape. The note was a brief and sincere apology. And the tape was a mix of songs we'd talked about, and other favorites of hers. I listened to the tape and enjoyed it. A few days later, I bumped into her. She was contrite, and asked if I wanted to get together. I told her No Thanks.
She looked at me, part wounded, part disbelieving.
"I don't make mixed tapes for just anyone," she said quietly.
It was weird. We both liked "Jealous Guy."
But she couldn't understand how an apology and a mixed tape didn't set things right. And I didn't understand how it possibly ever could.
There are several "alternate History of The Beatles" projects out there in the film world.
One imagines that John Lennon faked his death and is still alive.
And other sends two time traveling Beatles fans back to the Sixties to prevent John from meeting Yoko, who they blame for breaking the band up.
And with altered history/reality movies being all the rage (Inception, The Adjustment Bureau, Source Code), I can see how my brain got a-spinning when I heard this new Steve Martin tune featuring Paul McCartney.
I started to wonder about that fateful day when Paul met John and they hit it off, going on to form the most creative, productive, influential songwriting partnership in music history.
What if they hadn't liked each other?
I mean, it's not impossible. John could be abrasive. Paul had an ego.
What if, on that one day, one of them rubbed the other the wrong way, and instead of playing off each other creatively, spurring each other to greater heights, they just bounced each other in opposite directions?
What would have become of them?
Well Paul, even without John, would still have had his incredible gift for melody. Though he may never have been challenged by an equal or by the pressures of mega-fame, to create a "Sgt. Peppers," he certainly would have seen success writing ballads like "Yesterday" and crowd-pleasers like the Wings track "Jet" (he didn't need John, George or Ringo for those).
Okay, so alternate-Paul has some mid-level success. He's not a Legend, but he's a moderate star through the 60s and into the 70s. The 80s and early 90s are a fallow period (they kinda were for the real Paul, too). But alternate-Paul doesn't have to carry the torch for The Beatles (who don't exist in this reality) and he doesn't have to trot out the hits on stadium tours.
So alternate Paul returns to his roots. As a young lad he loved the music of Buddy Holly and Gene Vincent and Carl Perkins and Eddie Cochran. It's a style he has a knack for. And his heritage, combined with his authenticity, leads to a small Paul revival in his mid-60s, as a Brit who can make American roots music.
Delving further, alternate-Paul rekindles a passion for Bill Monroe*, and proves to be a credible mandolin player. His surprising bluegrass release turns heads and garners new fans.
And if all this fiction were fact, the alternate-Paul's record might sound a bit like this Real-Paul guest spot on the new Steve Martin record** on the song "Best Love."
Real Paul sounds pretty in the pocket here, like he'd been doing this all along.
Maybe Paul wasn't dead. Maybe the Real Paul was in an alternate reality all along.
* Real-Paul does cover Monroe's "Blue Moon Of Kentucky" on his "Unplugged" album
** Stand-up-comedian-turned-actor-director-writer-turned-author-turned-40-years-into-his-career-credible-Bluegrass-success seems like a few alternate reality stories of its own.
In this stripped down version of “Starting Over” from the new Lennon boxed set, there is a small-voiced intro:
“This one is for Gene and Eddy and Elvis. And Buddy.”
While the influence of 50s rock was very apparent in the early Beatles, I have to say, that I hadn’t really considered that Lennon’s final works were a product of those same influences.
But with much of the production stripped out, how can you not hear Lennon doing a lite-Elvis impersonation on the line: “It’s been too long since we took the time . . . “
Or to think of Gene Vincent and Eddy Cochran when you hear the guitar lines on the “Why don’t we take off, alone” section.
I suppose that the apparent-ness of influence will wax and wane, but it never really goes away, does it?
I'm the Program and Music Director of mvyradio, a broadcast and internet station on the Island of Martha's Vineyard. You can hear it here.
I've been in radio since the early 90s, programming shows. As Music Director, I receive dozens of CDs and songs every week, from Record Labels, Promotion People and Independent Artists. I try to listen to everything anyone asks me to.
So the old iTunes list is pretty long.
The idea of this blog is to go to that list, grab one (usually at random, but not always) and write about it. Every song has a story. How it fits into the artists oeuvre. What it meant to me when I first heard it.
I'll try to post the song in full, whenever possible, and I invite you to listen and tell me what it makes you think of.
And for more great music, you can stream mvyradio from anywhere in the world, here.
