Throughout the day I kept thinking of writing about music. The whole thing kind of came at me at once and I thought: What have I taken on? There was so much fabulous and fantastic music we listened to. How am I going to do this? Oh well. I’m in it now and there’s no turning back.
I haven’t even mentioned Motown and the great, GREAT music from African-American performers. The mind reels. But I thought about Sam Cooke. How could you not like Sam Cooke? His many, many songs meant a lot to me. But Chain Gang is special.
My parents had friends in Ohio and one weekend we all went to see them. Their last name was Sachs. They had a son, Kenny, who was just my age. Kenny’s mother asked him if he would taken me down to what she called the “Rec Room.” The adults were old friends who probably wanted to talk among themselves and so they told the kids to find something to do.
This never happened to me before and it didn’t happen again until I was in my mid-twenties and divorced. Kenny brought me downstairs and we looked at each other. We squeezed ourselves into this big arm chair and made out for a long time.
I still can’t believe I did this. I was 13 years old. Here’s a funny detail: on the ride home from Ohio I was sick to my stomach. This thing that happened–I felt so guilty!
What does this have to do with Sam Cooke? Kenny’s father had a really neat car that was a convertible. He took us out in a ride that night and Chain Gang was playing on the radio. It was great. That sneaky making out, then a ride in a convertible–what a weekend.
Also, I liked the Everly Brothers. They had lots of nice songs and my favorite was Dream. It’s sad, a song about somebody who can only dream about being with a another person. I think, on listening to this, that I was afraid I’d end up like that person in the song who “dreams (her) life away.”
lgmwriting 