Month: August 2016

The Doors

I/am/scared/of/doing/this/but/I/am/not/a/writer/who/quits.

The first thing I have to write about is Light My Fire. This was a passport to heaven and to hell, a journey into my own self with no assurances that I would come back, whole and intact. Here was this boy/spirit/ancient Greek god who was urging me on, saying that “…the time to hesitate is through; no time to wallow in the mire/waiting we can only lose/and our love become a funeral pyre.”
I wish a lot of things when I think about the Doors and Jim Morrison and Light My Fire. One is a wish that it had some kind of warning label which said that highly sexed, sensitive young girls should not buy it, not listen to it, and retreat into the Carnegie Library until 1971. People, many times over, say that Jim Morrison came to occupy a space in many cultures and at many times. A shaman, he was called, a holy man who conducts others through their spiritual and sexual journeys. Just watch him singing, and listen. He gets lost sometimes and his eyes slightly cross and HE IS GONE.

“You know that it would be untrue/you know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you/girl we couldn’t get much higher
Come on baby, light my fire/come on baby, light my fire/
Try to set the night on fire….”

This shaman didn’t have to tell me what I needed to do to “get much higher.” So OK yes I refused to wallow in the mire of what I was taught not to do–get down on my knees and accept that communion wafer–and did I emerge, after the trip, “whole and intact?” The jury’s out on this one. Yes/and/no.

Other songs that were important to me? Riders On The Storm, a song composed in a minor key, haunting, with the sound of the rain in the background; Love Me Two Times, yet again in a minor key, a warning to a young girl that yes, he is going away from her but please baby please just let me have a little more to keep me going; and especially, in my case, Strange Days…
“People are strange/when you’re a stranger/faces look ugly/when you’re alone
Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted/Streets are uneven when you’re down..”
I know this song and these words because I lived it; after the trip everything looks backwards and out of place, the street signs are pointing the wrong way–my body that was clean was now dirty. It took months to wash off the dirt and the sweat and the tears but then there’s Break On Through To The Other Side. There’s really another side? Where? When? Do I have to do it alone or will there be somebody? It could be anybody, just some/body…but I was prepared to break on through to the other side ALONE. Not really alone/alone but with books and ideas as my guides. I drew together all my DH Lawrence books, read what he had to say about solitude and being alone and how fertile and productive it could be. Lots of long walks, too much sleeping because after a day of this–because it was a hellish journey–I couldn’t stand myself or what my head was thinking, obsessively, like mantras.
That winter, on our educational television station, the films of Ingmar Bergman were broadcast on Friday nights. I was Breaking on Through; Bergman’s awful, deadly images,death, falling apart, playing a chess game with Death; it all made sense, just as Jim Morrison told me; my parents, all dressed up, going out to some stupid dinner party, looking at me watching this stuff then shrugging and walking away. The last part of the end of school, people having senioritis, planning their prom dresses, and my mother hated me–oh yes she did–for being who I was and Breaking On Through.

…and then there was even more death but…

…suddenly you’re in a parachute slowly descending over Pittsburgh and I had broken through. All women know that life is circular. It’s the men who insist on drawing “time lines.” So around the circle I went, Jim Morrison’s face looming in the background, all four of them playing their music on the inner sound stage of the soul; heaven/hell, merging/falling, shining clean/dark and dirty, dead/alive.

The Doors Introduction

Since I can’t find anything else to say about music I love–and I’ve left out a LOT of really good singers and songs–I’m running on empty (thank you, Jackson Browne) and I have to stop doing this. There must be other subjects to write about. But right now I can’t think of anything.

Just knowing that I’m going to write about what The Doors meant to me, in my life, produces the beginnings of certain physical signs of excitement AND dread. Why do I dread this? Morrison is dead, has been for decades. But just thinking that and writing that makes me know I’m lying to myself. He isn’t really and totally gone.

Jim Morrison and the three others found a place for themselves, right in the middle of the stage in my theater of the subconscious. If this sounds far-fetched I can’t help it. I had a friend in those days who felt the same way as I did about them, about Morrison, and she called him her “father/brother/lover.” He took us to a place where we had never been…

So I’m scared and maybe I shouldn’t do this. Go back to writing about mountains and owls and DH Lawrence.

But what I will do and I knew all the time I would do–is listen to some of their music, gather some facts, and write down what happens.

Hey Jude

Call it what you want, a landmark, a shift in focus, something that dragged you into a drug-like dream; nobody who was listening to music in 1968 could have avoided Hey Jude.

For one thing it is complex. Lots of the great songs from the sixties weren’t complicated; they were mostly about love or losing love or getting love back. That doesn’t detract from their beauty. But this song is different.

Somebody, a friend, a dad is talking to a younger person, persuading him to “let it out and let it in,” “don’t carry the world upon your shoulder,” “take a sad song and make it better.” This is only part of the song.

It’s good advice but it’s sung with a kind of growing intensity, which is the great musical part of the song. The voices get slowly louder, louder, louder until they are all screaming…better/better/better/better/ whoa!!!

I listened to Hey Jude on the CD from Paul McCartney’s concert with his new band, and I’m serious…they do just as good as the Beatles. Suddenly I’m thinking I wrote this before. Oh well. When they end that line with the screaming you know these four unknown musicians are so happy, so bursting with joy, that they are singing Hey Jude with Paul McCartney, and who could blame them?

Sometimes music is good for the soul. I know; when I’d be driving to work in the group home I’d have this particular CD turned on, full blast.

God Only Knows

Paul McCartney has been quoted, many times over, saying that this was the best song of our own era. Many, many others have agreed.

I think I wrote this earlier, that I always liked Brian Wilson. He and his new band came to Wilkes-Barre to perform and I almost went. My husband wasn’t interested but I knew I could go alone. It’s an hour’s drive to get there, mostly along forest roads with no lighting. During the day it was OK but at night, alone? Nope.

I think it was his genius combined with his vulnerability that appealed to me. What a struggle he had, just to survive. All those bouncy beach songs about girls and surfing were coming from his own mind, not real experiences. Also there was something in his high-pitched voice that reverberated within me.

It’s a true love song, as true as any love song could be.

I may not always love you
But as long as there are stars above you
You never need to doubt it
I’ll make you so sure about it
God only knows what I’d be without you.

If you should ever leave me
Well, life would still go on, believe me
The world could show nothing to me
Cause what good would living do me
God only know what I’d be without you.

All their voices, wrapped so tightly together, made my brain explode.

The Association

The songs from this group come very close to my heart and soul. On their greatest hits CD all of them are there. Sometimes I look at the CD and think I want to listen to it but I carefully lay it aside. I have to be in a certain mood.

I just adore Along Comes Mary. I think it’s one of the wildest, best, drug-inspired song ever. The words drive me crazy with joy. The fact that I never “understood” all the words only made it more mysterious and exotic. I used to listen to it with my friend Iris. She loved it too.

Also, Windy. My husband hates this song and thinks it’s a song about a maniac girl who runs up and down streets giving out rainbows. However, I remember a sunny, late afternoon day in June when school was over. Me, a friend, and my boyfriend were speeding along the highway to the Pittsburgh airport to say goodbye to another friend who was going away from the summer. Windy was blaring out from the radio. I felt smug. I had a whole summer to be with my boyfriend.

Also, Never My Love. Such a tender ballad, a boy reassuring his girlfriend that he will never get tired of her, never leave her.

The Mamas and the Papas

For some odd reason I decided to combine The Association and The Mamas and the Papas. Even my father liked their close, tight, perfect harmonies. They had sweet voices and didn’t just record Papa John’s music. They re-recorded some songs from several years before which I thought was nice. Do You Wanna Dance is one of my favorites, also There Is A Rose In Spanish Harlem. Mama Cass made me nervous sometimes. She was so huge but seemed not to be ashamed of it. And when she opened her mouth and sang, it was beautiful. I was so influenced by the Mamas and Papas that I incorporated them into one of my own stories. As for truly excellent song-writing, listen to Creeque Alley.

John and Michy were getting kind of itchy
Just to leave the folk music behind
Zol and Denny, lookin’ for a penny
Trying to get a fish on the line…

I went through a short period where I just played this music over and over, everywhere I went. Michael once told me that he understood why the sixties and seventies music is considered classic. Ain’t nothing like it.

I wrote about early times with The Beatles but that’s just a small piece of their musical history. There are volumes of books about their musical history. So I can just try.

In the mid-sixties they started to have a new sound. It certainly was something I’d never heard before. There were still songs about love but some of the music on Rubber Soul had, sometimes, a melancholy sadness. Also, the imagery was new. We were on the brink of a major historical shift. Rubber Soul was different.

All of the soul-sounding groups from Motown sang about love and loss and finding love again. None had the slightest whisper of drug-related lyrics. I researched this and I think I’m right. Motown was glamorous clothes, tight and exciting body movements done perfectly in sync, the right hair styles, and “Standing in The Shadow of Love,” “I Second That Emotion,” and “Stop in the Name of Love.”

When Sergeant Pepper came out in 1967 we all went a little crazy. Harold remembers something about driving to my house to play the album, then on to somebody else’s; who could remember historical dates of wars and names of kings when all of this was going on in the real world? Even the album cover was a kind of shock to the system, with all those costumes and stuff. And the lyrics…what did they mean? What were they singing about? Nobody knew for sure. With Motown you knew exactly what they were saying when they sang.

“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.” John Lennon kept to his word when he said that this was not a song about LSD but a drawing his four year old son Julian made.

“For the Benefit of Mr. Kite.” People thought for sure this was about drugs. High as a kite, right?? No, it was based on a poster one of them saw, advertising a fair.

Weird, unheard-of sounds and songs composed in a minor key–I can only speak for myself when I say that this music was getting into my head and changing me.

I was thinking about The Band. I had never heard of them until I met Mark. He showed me their album called “Music from Big Pink” and told me that they had been Bob Dylan’s back up band.

That first album and subsequent ones could make up a musical background for our years together. Listening to music with my first husband could be a lot of fun, then go too far and become both boring and confusing. Come to think of it, listening to Cream was the same way. Again, I had never heard of any of the three of them. Their lyrics made no sense and Ginger Baker was almost as scary as Janis Joplin.

“Up On Cripple Creek” was a nice Band song; so was “Stage Fright.”

I pulled into Nazareth, I was feeling about half past dead
I looked around to find a place where I could lay my head
Hey mister, could you tell me where a man might find a bed.
He looked at me, shook his head, no was all he said.

Take a load off Fanny
Take a load for free
Take a load off Fanny
And you put the load/put the load right on me.

Could make no sense out of these lyrics but I don’t think I was in the mood for things to make sense. Cut loose from family pressure I spent a lot of time, as I said, laying on Mark’s couch and listening to him interpret this stuff.

Life could have been a lot worse. It had been worse and it was time for me to have some fun. What the music makes me remember most is how responsible we “rebels” were. No drinking, no drugs. Earning good grades and having jobs. Plus, when I got myself some birth control pills, and the doctor said I had to take them through a whole menstrual cycle and abstain, we did as we were told. I wasn’t taking any chances where that was concerned. So much for “living in sin.”

I had a double CD of Stevie Wonder’s greatest hits but I think I lost it someplace. Maybe I’ll replace it because it was mind-blowing. The title of this CD was Stevie Wonder’s Musiquarium and it had pictures of fish on the cover.

When Michael was a teenager we listened to music together, especially while I was driving him from place to place. His mind was like a sponge, it took in everything. Michael liked the merging of the words “music” and “aquarium.” He thought it was clever and appealing. This CD had “I Was Made To Love Her”, “For Once In My Life”, “Front Lines”, “Signed, Sealed, and Delivered”, and Michael’s and my favorite–“Higher Ground” from the album “Innervisions.”

This song gave us something to think about. Michael pointed out that the song wasn’t about love and relationships between men and women. It was Stevie Wonder’s instruction to all people, not just his own race–dreamers, don’t stop dreaming.

Speaking of music and cars and driving, when Michael was a baby, we would drive along the Pennsylvania Turnpike to Pittsburgh. We would leave at 6 PM when Michael would usually fall asleep in his car seat, making the trip a kind of nicely surreal travel experience. On these trips we listened to Gordon Lightfoot’s “Gord’s Gold.” Peter liked folk-type music so we eventually learned all the words to all the songs and sang as we crossed the state. Michael was always a great traveler. He never got restless, just sat there if he wasn’t asleep, and watched Pennsylvania flying by.

Natural Women

It should be no surprise to anybody that the rock and roll era was dominated by men. I don’t relate to the traditional meaning of “feminist” so I’m not angry about this; however, I was paging through the thousands of websites devoted to the music from my growing-up times and decided to write about some women rock and roll singers I like/love.

Who can not love Aretha? You can’t just “like” her. She cuts across every social stratus–black/white, male/female, young/old, professional musician/just a fan. And there’s been so many words written about Aretha where writers try to put into words what this woman possesses. I decided, while putting together this blog entry, to say that the brain doesn’t have any importance in this. When Aretha sings it goes straight from your ears to your heart and soul. When I was young, listening to her singing “Respect;” I didn’t know for years what she was talking about when she sang “…give me my propers when I get home.” What were propers? I finally figured it out. Also, a song I already wrote about–Son of a Preacher Man–was originally meant for Aretha. Dusty Springfield recorded it instead because Aretha was linked to church music and it did not fit her image. I actually remember–and this was years and years ago–reading that Dusty Springfield, after a recording session, stepped into an elevator and ran straight into Aretha. All the First Lady of Soul said was: “You go, girrrl.” Now that’s class. Her songs are pure heartache and longing–“I Never Loved A Man The Way That I Love You.” There is also anger–“Think”–where she gets mad at a long time love for having not treated her nicely. She’s the very best. And I still haven’t said what I really love about her. Oh well…

Janis Joplin used to scare me. In a way she still does. Everything about her is open; eyes/mouth/legs. She’s hungry and lonely and will do anything to find fulfillment. So I don’t know if I like her, love her, or I’m too scared to listen to her raspy voice, begging a man to “…take another little piece of (her) heart.” Go around and ask women you know if they ever felt that way…that they want to give yet another piece of themselves to a man. And are willing to scream it, like Janis. If these women you know are honest, they will agree; love makes you do ridiculous, shameful things. Janis died at 27 from a heroin overdose. Let’s hope she rests in peace.

Carole King is worlds away from Janis and Aretha; through years of hard work, long hours, a young husband, and childcare worries while composing first rate music for other people to sing, she built an authentic life. I think you can see this in her face. Something clean and classy along with hard won dignity. Someone, I can’t remember who, persuaded her to record her own music so she recorded Natural Woman after Aretha did. That took guts, don’t you think? I can recall, again, a while ago, reading an article about Carole and she said that during the very late fifties and early sixties–the “Brill Building” years–she got to hang out with Black singers and musicians for the first time. She was from a different world. Listening to these girls and women talking about their love lives and experiences got her a major injection of soul. You can hear it in a lot of her songs. “I Feel The Earth Move” is one of my favorites, but there are so many.

Finally, I want to mention Gladys Knight. She didn’t sing alone but there’s no doubt that her voice is the important one. I will never, ever get tired of her singing “Midnight Train To Georgia.” It made me feel as if I was on that soul train, having gotten rid of all my possessions, hoping for a new start.

Many couples have a “song” that was popular when they were falling in love. I have three of them and I want to write fully about them without feeling silly. Love is never silly.

When I was first in love at age 16-17 the year was 1967. The mid sixties had some of the best music ever; there were tons of talented composers, artists, and singers on the radio every single day. There is nothing like first love. I’ve never been able to capture in words what it was like. Parents don’t want you to fall in love at that time in your life–but I was so happy then, so contented, that nothing went wrong; my grades went up and I was singing in the school choir. The song that was “ours” was Happy Together by The Turtles.

Imagine me and you, I do
I think about you day and night, it’s only right
To think about the girl you love
And hold her tight
So happy together.

If I should call you up, invest a dime
And you say you belong to me, and ease my mind
Imagine how the world could be, so very fine
So happy together.

Having reviewed this time in my life, I think this all came upon me too early and I couldn’t handle it and it exploded in my face.

When I met Mark Hoffman I was 19 and he was 20. There was never a time when I needed a friend/comrade/lover more and he was all those things. My father had died; I was fighting with my family; I hadn’t gotten over the traumatic ending of my first love; I felt ugly and worthless. Then here’s this boy who came from a different place, read poetry and liked to talk and take long walks, listen to music while holding me in his arms as we lay on the couch in his student apartment. It really was quite beautiful and I’ll never forget what we had. The song that was popular just then was Bob Dylan’s Lay Lady Lay.

Lay lady lay, lay across my big brass bed
Stay lady stay, while the night is still ahead…
Why wait any longer for the world to begin
You can have your cake and eat it too.
Why wait any longer for the one you love
When he’s standing, in front of you…

The words were perfect and fit my situation exactly. I felt I had been waiting for years to find somebody who really loved me, somebody who would liberate me, somebody
who would never leave me and build a world with me. Mark made me feel beautiful and
and sexy and most important–worthy of esteem. Mark liked strong women and always cared about what I thought. Our talks were endless. Also, my strong libido got in the way of rational thought; my sexual experience before Mark had awakened me and I
wanted a lover. I found that in Mark along with all his other attributes. We were meant, it turned out, to stay in that place; marriage unfortunately did not suit us. After we split up we tried a reconciliation but it only lasted three months.

Peter and I have many songs. After 40 years it makes sense. In the early years we liked listening to Danny’s Song by Kenny Loggins. There are, in the lyrics, lines like “People smile and tell me I’m the lucky one…we’ve just begun…think I’m gonna have a son. He will be like she and me, free as a dove, conceived in love,
sun is gonna shine above.” Peter had a lot on his plate to handle. Burned–kicked aside hard–my heart pulverized by age 18, my father dying, then Mark and the divorce…talk about baggage. However, Peter was carrying baggage himself. So we threw together what we had and made a life; it’s not a life based on taking the easy way. It’s a hand-built, authentic existence; a lot of healing happened on both sides. Our absolute favorite song:

Oh we ain’t got a barrel of money
Maybe we’re ragged and funny
But we travel along, singing our song
Side by side.

Oh we don’t know what’s coming tomorrow
Maybe it’s trouble and sorrow
But we travel the road, sharing the load
Side by side.

When they’ve all had their troubles and parted
We’ll be the same as we started
Just traveling along, singing our song.
Side by side.

The line: When they’ve all had their troubles and parted, we’ll be the same as we started. Because over the years we’ve been friends with so many couples who have
split up and gone apart–used to make me sad.