Concrete Elbow by Steve Tignor - I'm in Love. What's That Song?

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I'm in Love. What's That Song?	03/20/2010 - 3:33 PM

When we were 16 or 17 years old and armed with new driver’s licenses, my friends and I would drive around our hometown in the evenings listening to music. We used our parents’ cars mostly, a beige Honda, a green 70s-era pseudo-deluxe van, a Chevy Nova. None of them were fast. The cassettes we played were $3.99 bargain-bin jobs, white and easily eaten by an overaggressive tape player. The roads we drove were dark and twisting two-laners that meandered out of the city and cut lazy circles through the woods and tiny sinking villages that grew out of the country nearby.

In those years, before the Internet and cable TV began to tie everyone closer together—or, depending on your viewpoint, before they began to wrap themselves around our necks—there were fewer messages from the world beyond our town and the dull brown hills that encircled it. With no college culture to speak of in the area, we ate what the networks and record companies fed us. Musical independence at my high school meant choosing Megadeth over Metallica.

The stuff my friends and I listened to was a loud, mind-expanding message from the outside—on a starless night, it could sound like it was coming from the universe. It was jarring, in a glorious way, to roll the window down on a humid Pennsylvania summer evening, hear the crickets and see the stars and fireflies in the distance and the deer way back in the trees, and fill the air with the ice-cold Manhattan majesty of Television’s “Marquee Moon.”

We started with the Stones and the Beatles, moved to Motown and soul, and progressed, with difficulty, to the punk and indie rock we’d read about but couldn’t find at the Wee Three records at the county mall. The last two genres, made by kids not much older than us, felt like a secret language, a code we could speak that the headbangers couldn’t understand—punk vs. metal seemed like life vs. death in those days; maybe it still does. One step at a time, the sounds and words deepened what we believed was possible intellectually, emotionally, artistically. Along with the musty fiction section at the public library, these cassettes were our culture. Fragments of phrases that poked through that din remain riveted in my brain:

Broadway, looked so medieval
It seemed to flap, like little pages

***

Standing on the corner, suitcase in my hand
Jack is in his corset, Jane is in her vest
Me, I’m in a rock and roll band

***

I hear you talking when I’m on the street
Your mouth don’t move, but I can hear you speak.

***

Hanging out, down the street
Same old thing we did last week
Not a thing to do
But talk to you

Steal your car, and bring it down
Pick me up, we’ll drive around
Wish we had
A joint so bad

The first three of those songs above were urban fantasies, exotic and gritty. The last, about having nothing better to do than drive around and talk to the same couple of people, is small town poetry. You may know it, unfortunately, as the theme to a sitcom, but it was originally a song by Big Star, written and sung by Alex Chilton.

Chilton, a Memphis native and most famously the singer of the oldie-radio staple “The Letter,” died of a heart attack this week at 59. It’s not surprising that he didn’t reach a grand old age; Chilton relished living out the irresponsible life, the mythic life of the traveling musician that he’d learned growing up in Memphis and living for years in New Orleans. I saw him play an outdoor summer show at the World Trade Center—it really was right up against one of the towers—a dozen years ago. His on-stage manner was loving towards the old soul cover songs he played, but skeptical about the artificial spectacle of performing. A cigarette dangled from his lip throughout.

After Big Star folded in the mid-1970s, Chilton had a shambling, erratic underground career. There was a 50 percent chance he’d blow off any show or sabotage it midway, but this was part of his fascination, and made him a cult hero. His last 20 years were also marked by moments of shining, sarcastic brilliance. His 1980 album Like Flies on Sherbert, with its William Eggleston cover, is a masterpiece of broken-down rockabilly. Like Chilton, it’s ornery but full of love for obscure rock and soul, and it contains one of my favorite lines in any song, from “My Rival”:

My rival
I’m gonna stab him on arrival

But Big Star will be his legacy. It’s what we listened as teenagers and in college, and what I listen to today. Talk about a secret language—Big Star was Top 40 radio from another, much more perfect planet. Paul Westerbeg summed up its magical, mysterious appeal in a song called, naturally, “Alex Chilton”:

Children by the million, wait for Alex Chilton when he comes round
They say, “I’m in love, what’s that song? I’m in love, with that song.”

To my friends and I, Chilton felt like one of us—tongue-tied, obsessed with rock and roll—as we drove in circles.

Sitting in the back of a car
Music so loud, can’t tell a thing
Thinking bout what to say
Can’t find the lines
                    —"Back of a Car"

Won’t you tell your dad, ‘get off my back’?
Tell him what we said about ‘Paint It Black’
Rock and roll is here to stay
Come inside, it’s OK
            —"Thirteen"

***

Now I live in the middle of that once-exotic urban zone that I heard about on my tape player. And I don’t own a car. This makes the days or weeks when I do get to drive a time to savor, and a time to listen to as much as music as I can when I’m behind the wheel. Cars and rock and roll—it's called being an American.

Just like in the Pennsylvania backwoods two decades ago, the words and music I’ve listened to this week in Indian Wells have lodged themselves in my head and formed a soundtrack, an emotional background to the tournament. These are a few fragments that have popped out of the din and are rolling around in my subconscious. They surface randomly, as I’m walking or eating or writing or watching tennis, then submerge themselves again. What they do for, or to, me, I don’t know. But life would be much much dryer without them.

DC Comics and chocolate milkshake
Some things will always be great
DC Comics and chocolate milkshake
Even though I’m 28
            —“DC Comics,” Art Brut

***

Tonight the sky is empty
But that is nothing new
            —“That’s When I Reach for My Revolver,” Mission of Burma

***

Gives you something you can do with your hands
Makes you look cool and feel like a man
            —“Me and Your Cigarettes,” Miranda Lambert

***

Getting older makes it harder to remember
We are our only saviors
            —“Constructive Summer,” Hold Steady

***

I like it when
My hair is poofy
I like it when
You slip me roofie
            —“Who’s Got the Crack,” Moldy Peaches

***

You’ve got to give a little
Take a little
And let your poor heart break a little
That’s the story of
That’s the glory of love
            —“The Glory of Love,” Five Keys

***

We’re feeling good . . .
From the pills we took
            —“Talent Show,” Paul Westerberg

***

You get under my skin
I don’t find it irritating
            —“Another Girl, Another Planet,” The Only Ones

***

I hope when I die
That they bury me someplace nice
Away from the noise
Away from the ice
Away from the things that have haunted me for all of my life

—"Hobo," Patterson Hood

***

I’ll be sad in heaven
If you won’t follow me there

—"Can’t Hardly Wait," The Replacements

***

Go steady with me.
I know it turns you off
When I get talking like a teen

—"On Directing," Tegan and Sara

***

Last night I was standing in the driveway, calling your name
Last night it was late, I could hear your father.
Sometimes I just want to change the world all around

—"Change the World," Vulgar Boatmen

***

Don’t the sun look angry through the trees
Don’t the trees look like crucified thieves

—"Desperadoes Under the Eaves," Warren Zevon

***

“Which one’s the birthday boy?” she said,
“I ain’t got all night.
What’d your mama name you?
You can call me what you like.”

—"Birthday Boy," Drive by Truckers

I’ve heard these snippets and songs as I’ve driven, by myself, between my hotel and the tournament site. I imagined finishing this post by comparing my youthful listening, which I did in darkened circles, with a crew of friends, and my adult listening, which I've done alone, straight through the palm trees and luminous little road lights of California. He who travels fastest travels alone.

But last night, I had a good mix CD going and it wasn’t all that late when I pulled into the hotel driveway. A song I loved, “Things Go Wrong” by Dumptruck, an old indie anthem, was on. I drove through the lot, turned around, and didn’t stop until I was back on the highway. I was driving in circles again.

***

Ten years after high school, I met a friend at a rock club in Manhattan. Coming around the corner toward the club, I caught a glimpse of myself in a big restaurant window. My hair was too long, too bushy. It was unkempt in a way that can never be cool in New York, where people know how to do unkempt right. I looked down and shook my head—“Jesus, will you ever get my hair right? Will you ever know what you're doing, be responsible, competent, with anything?” My friend, waiting ahead, was watching.

“What’s wrong?” he said, laughing.

“My hair, I need to get it cut,” I stammered. “Looks terrible.”

“No, it’s cool," he said, giving my hair a second glance. "It looks like Chilton.”

It was the right word to say. I looked down and smiled, “Yeah,” I thought, “Chilton.”

RIP Alex. Irresponsibility will never be the same without you.

34
Comments

Posted by Suzanne	03/20/2010 at 03:37 PM
What a great write-up of the extraordinary Alex Chilton and music in general! The music world will miss Alex Chilton!

Posted by Dr.D.

03/20/2010 at 04:49 PM

ever heard the Rainmakers' "Long gone long" ? check it out

Got into a car that night
Drove out past the signal light
Past the city limits, guess it wasn't that far
Stopped out on a rural route
Gooch got out his .22
Shooting at a freight train that was hauling new cars

Posted by MEL711	03/20/2010 at 06:13 PM
Thanks for writing this. He and Westerberg have always been favorites of mine

Posted by Skip1515	03/20/2010 at 07:57 PM
So perfect I fell backwards, right into the Arms of Venus de Milo.

Posted by tina	03/20/2010 at 08:26 PM
I had a feeling you might write about Chilton, Steve. And hey, I always knew he was young when the Box Tops had a hit with "A Letter" - but I hadn't realized until the obits that he was only 16.

Posted by daniel	03/21/2010 at 12:02 AM
what the hell does this have to do with anything?

Posted by TennisFan2 (unabashed fan of Rafa and Serena)	03/21/2010 at 12:21 AM
daniel, it's one of the beauties of Steve's blog - there is always something interesting just a click away...

Posted by e normous	03/21/2010 at 05:34 AM
Ha, I was just listening to Mission of Burma (and have the Left of the Dial comp playing as I write this). Really enjoy reading your stuff. And perhaps I will get around to listening to Big Star after this.

Posted by Mr. and Mrs. D.

03/21/2010 at 09:10 AM

"It was unkempt in a way that can never be cool in New York, where people know how to do unkempt right."

There's always a sentence or two in these posts that grab me.....many times having nothing to do with the gist of the post. Go figure.

Posted by tina

03/21/2010 at 12:44 PM

Nice piece from the Times -

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/21/opinion/21westerberg.html?th&emc=th

Posted by A. Meek	03/21/2010 at 12:49 PM
The correct answer to the Megadeth/Metallica question is Slayer. I'm sure your high school experience was more "meaningful" but we (the headbangers) had more fun! I love this blog because I can relate to where you're coming from, born in 70, junior tennis in the 80s blah blah. I consider myself lucky to have seen a Big Star show in the 90s and Chilton solo at a club, great songwriter.

Posted by MC	03/21/2010 at 12:58 PM
Thanks for sharing. Really enjoyed the post. Liked the whole adolescent/feeling our way awkwardness as backdrop. Most of us have all been there. Good writing. You did Alex proud. Even if he wouldn't have wanted you to.

Posted by MC	03/21/2010 at 01:06 PM
Ah, speaking of Westerberg. Nice catch, Tina.

Posted by THE FINAL WORD

03/21/2010 at 09:09 PM

Wow, Steve I'm impressed. Only the truly hip know Chilton. A master of unhinged guitaring and recording he'll be missed. "My Rival" is beyond the beyond. Couldn't have been easy knowing you are the worst selling GREAT artist ever so I hope he finds peace. All-time greatest dead band now becomes....Syd Barrett:Guitar, Vocals
Skip Spence:Guitar, Vocals
Alex Chilton:Guitar, Vocals
Liberace:Keyboards
Sid Vicious:Bass
Karen Carpenter:Drums, Vocals

Posted by norahollywood

03/22/2010 at 09:24 AM

Thinking about Big Star led me to play the Replacements. They have so many great songs, and I hope Westerberg has more to come. Recently I came across a wonderfully crazy band called 'Deer Tick'. On record they are are clever and catchy, so I looked to see if I could find anything live on the internet. What I found was that live, they are like the second coming of the Replacements (they know this themselves). Drunken, shambling covers of Tom Petty (Breakdown), Fleetwood Mac (The Chain) the Stones, the Beatles, Paul Simon (Still Crazy after All These Years), etc. Highly recommended -- and their very best live cover that I have heard is a beautiful, rough-voiced version of Warren Zevon's 'Carmelita.' RIP Alex Chilton.

Posted by tina	03/22/2010 at 09:15 PM
wow, norahollywood - fancy burning me a cd? Deer Tick sound excellent!

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Posted by norahollywood

03/23/2010 at 06:48 PM

Tina -- no problem. Be glad to. In a nice synergy with Steve's lyric snippets, I just noticed that Deer Tick cover 'Can't Hardly Wait' by the Replacements, too!

I'll send something tomorrow.

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