This songs matters to me, because: (your explanation here)

I'm so excited to see this thread back up at the top.

That is all.

 

Lately, I have been listening to and badly singing along with Kid Rock's Only God Knows Why. I'm just in a tough spot--admittedly, of my own making--and I'm trying to get through it.

 

I'm going to write about a heavier experience later tonight, but for now, I'd like to contribute a bit of levity that will make me sound like a moron, but hey, the truth hurts. I was reminded of it by a post just above.

So, in college, I managed the radio station. Freaks and geeks. And we were always at war (sometimes physically, mostly verbally) with the football team and "the Marshalls," who were members of the football team who were employed as bouncers at school events. Of course, they acted more like assholes. It was some classic John Hughes shit.

Anyway, during frosh week -- this was my third year I think -- they had a giant tent pitched in a parking lot, and bands would come play and the new kids would dance and drink and get to know each other. And the Marshalls would be there to fuck with them. God, I hated the Marshalls.

Anyway, one night, we get a call. We had a mobile studio, and we DJ'd parties and stuff with it. The band that was going to show didn't show, and the organizers were stuck. They called us, last minute, and asked if we could DJ. We said we could, and my buddy Dave and I set our shit up in the tent.

As we're doing it, one of the Marshalls comes up and says, Don't try pulling any of your shit, we'll shut you down."

"Fuck you," I say, and I plug in a few more cables.

That was a very cool time in music -- early 1990s, lots of good music, people cared, a lot of "us against the world" kind of feeling. It really colored who I was then and who I am today.

So, the kids start coming into the tent, and they look at Dave and I, with our long hair and our flannel shirts, and I'm sure they're thinking, Who are these ancients? It was kind of tumbleweeds for a second. If nothing else, they were obviously pissed about the lack of band.

So, Dave and I talked. We agreed to go with the anger. We just started playing some really aggro shit. And it was a slow build, but eventually just about everybody in the tent was moshing away, drunk, making out, and the Marshalls were freaking, and we're standing on this stage looking out at this crowd, smiling. It felt really, really cool.

Then this girl comes out of the crowd, and she calls up to me. I lean down and she says, "If you play Sabotage by the Beastie Boys, this place will go apeshit."

Perfect.

So, the last song ends, and I grab this microphone, and this will sound geeky as hell, but it worked. I just started whispering.

Listen...

Listen, all y'all...

And the kids start cheering and jumping up and down.

Listen, all y'all, it's a...

Listen, all y'all, it's a... it's a... it's a... SABOTAAAAAAGE!

And then Dave kicks the song in, that guitar and the drums punching, and the kids just about pull the fucking tent down. I mean, the place really does go apeshit. I jump off the stage and ride the crowd, and a bunch of other people start jumping, and now the Marshalls grab me and start yelling, "You gotta calm this shit down, you gotta calm this shit down!" So I say, yeah, yeah, take it easy, and I get back on the stage.

The song ends. It goes quiet. I take the mike again and start talking.

"Sorry guys, but the Marshalls -- these guys in the striped shirts, the football heroes -- they want us to calm this shit down. That's what they said."

The crowd starts turning.

"So this is what I said. I said... I said... I said, Fuck you. I said, Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. I SAID, FUCK YOU, I WON'T DO WHAT YOU TELL ME..."

And Dave blasts Killing in the Name up to ten, and I swear to God, I knew at that moment how it felt to be a rock star. I hear either of those two songs now, and I get goosebumps. I think of standing on that stage, and all those kids, and watching them tear shit up. It was one of the great moments of my life.

I woke up the next morning, in a hedge, shirtless, covered in dew.

 

Awesome.

 

Good stuff. Although, I gotta say, waking up covered in "doo" would be a much more interesting second chapter.

 

That's absolutely great, Jones. I felt like I was right there, jumping to Rage.

 

I felt like I was there also, screaming out "fuck you! I won't do what you told me!"

And I don't even like Rage OR "Killing In The Name."

 

I got nothing.

Maybe "Itsy-bitsy Spider."

 

This will be less about me and what a song means to me personally. It's a little bit more about that metamorphosis that songs sometimes take.

As I sit here, partly the victim of my own carelessness and thinking about the events of today, I'm flashing back to a song that once played a bit part in my karaoke life.

That song? Planets Of The Universe by Stevie Nicks. In its earliest guises, it was a demo, later an out take that missed the cut when Fleetwood Mac was deciding which songs to put on Rumours. Subsequent albums came up and it would get shunted to the side. Even when Stevie went solo, she didn't bring the song out of its darkness.

In those earliest guises, the song was bereft of what is now its first verse. It started with what later became the chorus, plus it had a series of lyrics that sounded like Stevie was trying desperately to sound brave and strong when her world was shattered. "You will remember/But I will die a slow death." "I wish you gone and I don't care." It wasn't a strong woman scored. It was a weak little girl who was trying to sound grown up.

Years later, the song (which had been known under a different name to the fanatics who obtained copies of it) finally surfaced. On CD. On Trouble in Shangri-la nearly 25 years after Nicks first wrote the track. There were BIG differences, however. Before the song made the cut on Nicks's first solo album in eight years, she wrote a new first verse to "soften" what she described later as one of her "meanest" songs. She also wrote a different second verse.

I enjoyed the changes that turned a weepy little number into a defiant, mid-tempo rocker. When I got my hands on the CD single, I would find in the extended album version something that made me even more excited. Nicks still sang many of the same lyrics that made her sound so sullen and depressed. Only this time, she sang it with an assurance that marked an older, stronger, wiser Nicks. "You will remember but I will die a slow death" was no longer that sad little girl trying to sound brave. It was Nicks saying "I'll outlive you and you'll regret every second of it."

She all but snarled "and don't condescend to me," before she ordered "take your leave, take your leave, take your leave of me now." But my favorite part of all? She sang "disappear into the air/I wish you gone and I don't care" with the confidence of a woman who really didn't give a fuck if she ever saw him again.

That assurance helped turn a song that I would have run away from if I'd gotten hold of the demo into a song that occasionally pops into my head now whenever I'm in a defiant mood. Hopefully, I've grown at least a fraction of the extent that Stevie has. Hopefully, we all do the same.

 

Jonesy - nice work. Now you know why being a musician kicks the ass of every other profession out there.

 

This won't make sense.

So, several years ago now, I got assigned my first cover story: Naomi Watts. I flew to Los Angeles and was put up in a hotel in Hollywood. The room was entirely white -- white walls, white carpet, white bedsheets, white mints on the white pillows. It was probably meant to make you feel as though you were sleeping in a cloud. It just made me feel like the one unclean thing in the room.

Naomi picked me up at the hotel. I was nervous -- she was my first movie star celebrity, which is a level removed from usual, everyday celebrity. She had called me when she was downstairs. I answer the phone and hear, "Do you want to have some fun?"

Um, yes please.

I had been married six weeks earlier. When I got in Naomi's car, the first thing she noticed was my wedding ring. That started our conversation. We talked easily. We were supposed to go look at art -- these things are always arranged -- but we both said that was stupid and decided to go for lunch in Santa Monica instead.

We talked for a couple of hours, which was more than our alotted time. It was weird, because I felt like we were hitting it off, but I couldn't tell if she was acting or not. She would want me to feel that way, so that I would write a nice story about her. But still, we had a lot in common, and we just talked and talked about our shared experiences. Born in England, raised in Wales, lived in Australia... Her dad was a roadie for Pink Floyd, I listened to Pink Floyd!

Her publicist started calling, telling her it was time to come back. We went to the Pier instead. It was cold, so we were mostly alone. We rode on the bumper cars and the roller coaster; I won her a stuffed animal at one of the games. We laughed a lot. It was fun.

It got dark out. Her publicist was now insistent. But we just hung out and talked.

Finally, we started to head back into the city. The lights of Los Angeles were laid out below us in the big bowl. We talked about some heavy stuff, like having children, and what we wanted out of life -- not stuff for the story, just two people talking. I can't remember what music was playing, but it was good music. The drive felt like it took a long time. There were a lot of turns in the road.

We got back to the hotel. I actually thought about saying to her, You know, I love my wife, I'm glad I'm married to her, I will always be married to her, but if I wasn't, I would ask you out.

Of course, I didn't say that -- I couldn't say that. I just got out of her car, and we said goodbye, and I closed the door, and she drove away.

There was a bodega just down the street. I went and got some beer.

I went up to my room. In a plastic bag was an album I'd bought that day -- Sigur Ros's untitled album, the white one. The first song, Untitled I, is incredible, beautiful -- I'd heard it on the plane flying in.

The room had a stereo in it. I put on the album, the first song on repeat. I turned out the lights but left the curtains open, the glow of the city coming into my room. I drank some beer. And I lay down on the white carpet in my white room, and I just listened to the music and thought about my life. I was happy. I felt like I was in a movie. I was probably deluding myself, but I was young then, and I thought that if things had played themselves out differently, I might have gone out with Naomi Watts. Listening to that song, in that room, anything seemed possible.

It still feels that way. Whenever I want to feel like the universe is opening up for me, I play that song. It's like everything is right there in front of me.

 

Goddamn you, that's a good fucking story.