A thought, that has arrived as suddenly as there seem to be buds and sprouts on the ends of the limbs outside, lodged as I typed the wrong decade in a date: will I still be doing this in that wrong decade?
Just as I thought a decade ago?
Funny thing is, I returned to a self-designed workout I used to do alone in the group fitness room at the old gym, when it was Ballys, in a steady and clean-ish place that preceded the steep decline when LA Fitness took over, with all decisions about things like cleanliness, staffing, and classes "going through Corporate." Yes, I returned to this workout that I do on top of a BOSU, bouncing and struggling to stay steady and manipulate some weights.
But, my god, was there relief in putting my body through moves it remembers from 13-14 years ago! We can do this, it said, we can do it, captain!
I can helm my little BOSU boat, doing rows (sorry) and squats, released from what's become a ponderous and trying prison of screechy YouTube videos. Those appealed at first, and felt like being part of a class. But I was half with them, half inside myself.
On my BOSU, I'm all there, in the moment.
This all has nothing to do with Michael Franks, except that maybe he will be all I can tolerate when I am working at the computer in the ...thirties.
God, I used to love to dance to this song when it came on at the Mad Planet on Friday nights. In fact, I just typed "dance with this song," which is, indeed, what was going on. I'd fling whatever I was drinking (Leinie, and for a time Cape Codders, gah) down and, shoving aside whoever I needed to, make my way to the black square with the one-step-up stage to get busy.
Was it the 12-inch they played? I somehow think not, because I remember having to, you know, really get out there to absorb as much of the three-minutes-something I could, and I think the "sci-ii-ii-ence!" mixing would have become a drag.
No, this is better as a tight three, not with its angles and "tubes and wires" exposed and broken down and out and hiccuping (along with the vocal hiccuping) over you on that floor.
Plus, it's how Dolby imagined it: he conceived the video before he wrote the song. "Dolby saw music videos with story lines as 'short silent films with a soundtrack'." Oh, come to mama! Exactly!
Back at the Mad Planet, though: I asked then, and still do now, how could something so...mechanical be so funky?
I didn't know the bright plastic soul-y sound out of mid-80s to early 90s was a genre until the almighty algorithm served it to me. (Do I classify that delivery/discovery as random also? Stay tuned to find out. I gotta think about that one.)
Sophistipop was just a moment, but god, it was a delicious champagne punch that rose from the we-can't-play-and-we-don't-care, cynically jangly, darkly synthy, New Romantic-ruffled, and, reaching further back, blue-eyed soul ethos of 70s and 80s British pop. Maybe it emerged because the rich got richer and yuppies ran the joint in Thatcher's England, and they needed a soundtrack at their drinks parties.
Or, and this is what I think, they needed some purposely well-made and goddammit, happier music. Like we (I mean, me) do now.
This is frankly a low-ranking sophistipop entry, but I'll take it all these days. All of it. I want to feel better, and this is the power suited, spandexed elixir to get me there.
***
God, I just realized that I posted their other Big Hit a week ago. I completely forgot.
That's how it goes when most of your week is spent in here.
Even at 10, could I tell this was something from the underground? There was nothing else like it before, or after, really.
Mostly, I was enraptured (how could I not?) by the sillier lyrics, the interlude about ending up in the Man from Mars, and eating all manner of domestic and imported autos.
The future, past, and present musical tenses all linked, now I see, in this part:
Don't strain your brain, paint a train
You'll be singin' in the rain
Said don't stop to punk rock
This explains it all better than I can right now. It's hard to hear something new you heard with young ears with old(er) ears to make it new again, when you know it by heart, and now, know what it all meant.
How lucky we were then to even have an underground to surface in oh-so-delicious ways above-ground, here and here and here (again).
A new series: Songs I Associate with Landsdowne Drive.
The bow-shaped sound of Meisner's bass fit just right with looping over the hills of Landsdowne Drive. We often drove that way to get to Fayette Mall from my grandmother's house.
And it was right here where these twin apartment buildings on either side of Landsdowne, at the top of (what seemed to be) a huge hill, each with swimming pools. To my five year-old mind, these were the height of luxury. A pool! At your home! I lived in a duplex at the time so I understood rental living. (Little did I know renting and I would have what feels like a lifelong relationship.)
But with a POOL! You could run out of your door and jump into it in time with the little diddle-dit-doo-doo guitar thing in the verse after Felder's guitar solo!
These were the goals: living in the sun-soaked "new" part of town, playing in the pool with the big, bright sky arching overhead, letting One of These Nights just happen to you.
... one day that's plagued by neck/head/nose aches, has blood drawn during it, and features internet searches for things like theracanes (look it up) and three-figure side-sleeper pillows. While shedding these dollar bills, I feel my shoulderblades pinched up and together, and if I could just loosen these guys after what could be a full life lived in front of a computer.
Not something I pictured in 85, starting a new school year while pledging to follow HoJo's plain and placid advice.
Oh, now we're getting into some good stuff. March, April 86? I was asking Why Can't This Be Love (and can we hold up a minute and acknowledge it only took two or less years for VH to assemble a new lead singer and a power ballad? Diamond Dave was sorely missed--and pissed. Could the "woo" at the end of the verses be any more bland, especially when you compare it? You [don't] got charazma!)
But that's not what I came here for today, or what I mooned around the radio for then.
It was this sweet, longing one, an early-ish outing written by Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis and among a hip-hop firmament on the soundtrack of a movie I never saw (but really want to, now that I'm still reeling from Hip-Hop Evolution).
It's kind of brilliant--no percussion, minimal rhythm, essentially a cappella. They are really singing it to you, for you.
Saying it for me in how it felt, as usual, somehow evoking early spring, the tendrils showing up, the opportunity in the air.
No memory associated with this one, though in February of 85, it would have been a cool older brother of this song, less dissonant, though, and not as troubling since Arcadia signaled trouble in DD paradise.
Also, you didn't hear me say this, but Peter Cox might just have a naturally "better" voice than Simon. Though GW certainly didn't nab a Grace Jones vocal bridge.
Maybe this is something I should scrutinize. Might as well, since I am all about rabbit, mouse, mole, and info-infinity holes these days at the expense of all else.
God, these days it's like having to drag myself to ... anything I have had to drag myself to to get here and get posting. Instead of fretting over the shift from shimmering efficiency and inspiration to slug, I'll instead list things I used to drag myself to:
the shower
the dentist
work meetings
work
bed if I fell asleep on the couch ca. 2006-09 (I blame the 11:00 pm Oprah show, going out, and Second City)
memories of what this song used to mean
the litterbox (to change it)
I guess the last one is the only one I still drag to. And work, even though "dragging oneself" is plugging in some shit and cracking open a computer. Duh.
I'm not going to the second-to-last one. When the you that once was you isn't you any more, why?
Unless it is still you. Not going to fret about that one, either.
I only have it in me to recycle today. But I did stumble across this randomly, which may be/can be/okay, I'm just remembering is a principle of this blog. This week, having my act together means barely feeding/clothing/cleaning self and staying focused. Is it the persistent sameness of each week/day/month(!!!) inside my head, inside these walls, inside the boundaries of Bryn Mawr, Ainslie, Western and the river? Lack of stimuli? Lack of scenery? Lack of--oh my god, I've lived in the landscape inside my mind for how long?
But it's changing. Outdoors is waking up, shaking off two feet of dingy snow, squinting up to the ever-higher-each-day sun to say, oh, YES, babe, we're here, we're ready, it's on, donkey kong, and kick February's glum backside. Hell, it's kicking more backsides than you'd see in an Underalls commercial.
Raw, dangerous to the shoes, and full of surprises for uncovered extremities, shouting in birdsong, and unfailingly unpredictable. But Jobim can describe it better:
Waters of March
A stick, a stone, It's the end of the road, It's the rest of a stump, It's a little alone
It's a sliver of glass, It is life, it's the sun, It is night, it is death, It's a trap, it's a gun
The oak when it blooms, A fox in the brush, A knot in the wood, The song of a thrush
The wood of the wind, A cliff, a fall, A scratch, a lump, It is nothing at all
It's the wind blowing free, It's the end of the slope, It's a beam, it's a void, It's a hunch, it's a hope
And the river bank talks of the waters of March, It's the end of the strain, The joy in your heart
The foot, the ground, The flesh and the bone, The beat of the road, A slingshot's stone
A fish, a flash, A silvery glow, A fight, a bet, The range of a bow
The bed of the well, The end of the line, The dismay in the face, It's a loss, it's a find
A spear, a spike, A point, a nail, A drip, a drop, The end of the tale
A truckload of bricks in the soft morning light, The shot of a gun in the dead of the night
A mile, a must, A thrust, a bump, It's a girl, it's a rhyme, It's a cold, it's the mumps
The plan of the house, The body in bed, And the car that got stuck, It's the mud, it's the mud
Afloat, adrift, A flight, a wing, A hawk, a quail, The promise of spring
And the riverbank talks of the waters of March, It's the promise of life It's the joy in your heart
A stick, a stone, It's the end of the road It's the rest of a stump, It's a little alone
A snake, a stick, It is John, it is Joe, It's a thorn in your hand and a cut in your toe
A point, a grain, A bee, a bite, A blink, a buzzard, A sudden stroke of night
A pin, a needle, A sting, a pain, A snail, a riddle, A wasp, a stain
A pass in the mountains, A horse and a mule, In the distance the shelves rode three shadows of blue
And the riverbank talks of the waters of March, It's the promise of life in your heart, in your heart
A stick, a stone, The end of the road, The rest of a stump, A lonesome road
A sliver of glass, A life, the sun, A knife, a death, The end of the run
And the riverbank talks of the waters of March, It's the end of all strain, It's the joy in your heart.
