You'll be okay, follow your heart

So he had a soul that couldn't tolerate the braggadocio and the bleakness of the biz. That's what happened. 

"It's the deal with the devil: if you want your work to be seen, it's unfortunately not just about the work. And when it becomes less about the art, then the art suffers."

I savored this interview with musician/songwriter Gregg Alexander yesterday, reading it twice, listening to the songs*. And THE song:



I loved this song. I found it because I listened to the radio--the actual FM radio--15 years ago, daily. So many blocks between 1 W and 2200 W and 10 S and 1600 N spent tromping around to this, wondering what the hell I was doing in this city after only five months. I only feel like I heard it all the time, because I mustn'tve. Some time was spent hearing this or this and straining to reach the dial when this came on.

But this was constant, at least in my head, and when, a few years later, I could obtain (not legally) and play (legally) digital music files, I found this first, or something close to it (not like I remember my first CD purchase, which was, of course, this).

The song--and its creator--were widely admired and naturally dismissed until he slipped into obscurity. Some of the admirers who stepped up were surprising; Joni Mitchell, herself once an idealistic newcomer, gave the highest praise, including the track among others by Debussy, Duke Ellington and Dylan on an album of "music that matters to her."

Gregg resurfaced later, but no on really knew it. Of course, of course he also wrote this other guilty-pleasure treasure of mine, aerial and poppy and classic rock-y, all at once.

My own well-loved digital file of "You Get What You Give" faded, disappearing sometime in the last few years between device changes and computer upgrades and virus-laden downloaded file flushes from my music storage. That's okay; it's a relic of a time past, sonically, socially, personally. But there are some things about this song that are ageless. I mean, replace some of these names, and then trawl Twitter, the New York Times, or some episodes of The Daily Show (which, incidentally, premiered in its current incarnation at the exact time that "You Get What You Give" and Gregg were pushed out over radio waves in January 1999):

Health insurance rip off lying FDA big bankers buying
Fake computer crashes dining
Cloning while they're multiplying
Fashion mag shoots
with the aid of 8 dust brothers Beck, Hanson
Courtney Love and Marilyn Manson
You're all fakes
Run to your mansions
Come around
We'll kick your ass in! 

But, for me, the bloom is still on this rose because the song's sound matches the point. The sound and the thought soar together. This song was not at shy about aspirational, and that's how I needed to be in early 1999. It says, "Remember how you did that/this with them/those? And who you are? You still are."

You still are.

A love like ours is love that's hard to find

A ballad that resonates today because, well, because.

There's a time in life when you form a relationship with a dining establishment, and the sudden demise of that relationship can be unexpectedly devastating.

I know it's food--but it's more.  Friends, family, loves--memories. The biggest part of me.

I'm not ****ed, not quite

Today it's been a decade since Elliott Smith died. As I said at the time (or Stephanie did), you really have to want to go to go that way.

His fans are legion, and loyal. I came to the party (probably poor word choice there) late, absorbing every syllable and note of XO during my first year in Chicago. And later. And even later.

Is it the best break-up album ever? I say it's the best post- and post-post, and starting-to-feel-stronger-every-day-post- and wow-what-a-distant-memory-but-this-reminds-me-I-did-it post-breakup album.

I know the album is the death knell of...something, the dreaded major-label debut, but if anything, Elliott's Big Sellout gives him more tools to be even better. The production is not too much, and I think I have a pretty decent over-production bullsheet sensor.

Every track takes a mask off of betrayal and renewal. I'll ponder that more, after a visit to the online store.

It was hard to decide, but this one has always meant the most:

I wish I could sing it to you

It's a long way from "Hard To Say I'm Sorry," and I'm okay with that. The 80s did things to people, me included.

So let's stretch back over that entire decade (and the one after) and go to the beginning, because beginnings are good.

The bass is super bad on this track, and, oh  man, check out the one-minute percussion breakdown at the end.

But I say it's only mountains and the sea

So I went back to the United Center last night to see Janelle Monae open for Prince, thanks to the clearance-priced tickets...

...And ended up with a priceless show with eleventy-thousand encores, including one that was just Prince, soloing on the piano with "How Come U Don't Call Me Any More?" "Do Me Baby" and "I Wanna Be Your Lover." Although we saw the show on different nights, I agree with this assessment.

But my favorite moment was hearing the song I'd forgotten about, the one that I dug, yeah, but never really dug into (and who bought Parade, anyway?), the one that was a middling hit in the summer of 1986, a summer about which I actually remember most details--movies I saw and with whom, who got a drivers license, who worked at which mall job, how I couldn't wait to get back to doing plays and speech at school.

Damn, this came at me hard, the culmination of a night that was in every way better than Monday's already "okay, I saw Prince; therefore it is good' show: sound, energy, set, pace. It had joy--and ass. My friend reported that an audience member nearby declared loudly during the "Do Me/Lover" encore that, to paraphrase, something was happening to her underwear.

He really is a sexy m.f. And ageless, too.

Anyway, at this juncture, there was such a great groove going, it was clear we were reaching the ecstatic apex of the show proper, which we slid deliciously back down with "Purple Rain" and an actual, gawddamn weep-inducing guitar solo played under a glitter-rain of confetti. We were all testifying, child. TESTIFY. Oh, this was a show.

So, yeah, back to that groove apex: until I heard the chorus I had the barest sense of recognition of this song.

Here it is, "Mountains," paired here as it was last night with "Everyday People," but featuring Sheila E., at the LA Forum shows in 2011.

But really, you should watch this clip from a Parade-era show, to feel me on this one.*

Prince Parade Tour Mountains

Anouk | Myspace Video

If you watch the "Purple Rain" clip in the set list link embedded above all the way through, Prince implores us to remember "we're s'posed to take care of each other."** Hollowly pontificating from the lip of your multi-million-dollar stage, was he? Do I believe him? I do. It's the same idea he laid down over Wendy and Lisa's track in "Mountains:" There's nothing greater than you and me.

Plus, there's a genuine simplicity about Prince now. It's apparent in an interview with Greg Kot that appeared in the Trib. He's out of the game. He's free to just make music, and give us what he called in his all-caps email interview with Time Out "A NIGHT 2 REMEMBER."

Oh, it was. To remember after, and remember during.

*edited to add: I have a feeling that for some, a Myspace login (!!) is required to view the Parade concert video. You can also try this: 



**edited to add: I withheld some information. The clip proves that I did hear right and Prince did tell us to "read your Bible" during the peak of "Purple Rain." But this, like the way I noticed he won't sing "in and out around your legs," "you got an ass like I never seeeeeeeeen" and other naughty bits in his older, racy material, I am going to ignore in deference to the greater good, i.e. my  having had a blast at these shows.

Baby, have you got enough gas?

Pregame, avec boot.

Ow-WAH!

I think the set list was printed in oversize format on the top of the piano, which also hid his synths and beats and shit. That was my favorite portion of the concert proper, the blazing medley (still, medley, dammit) that ranged from "When Doves Cry" and "Nasty Girl" to "Sign 'O The Times" with the total tease of the opening strains of "Darling Nikki" wedged up there in the middle. It was within this segment that he called out "Too many hits -- we got too many hits!"

Was that a hint? 

The post-encore encore (and post-stage sweeping--and that took so long that I began to hope that the stagehand would off his workclothes and lights would bump up to reveal Prince in purple sequins within) was the best part of the night. More than thirty minutes after Prince left the stage, around midnight, the band came back and jammed, seen here. I ran back inside the arena from the concourse when I heard a cry rise up from within. Then Prince rode out on a white bicycle to take his place and proceeded to melt my whole self with "1999" and "Little Red Corvette."

Quite a night. Five-hour energy, child.