I started reading Nick Hornby’s 31 Songs over my vacation. The essays are a revealing looked at Hornby’s life interpreted through 31 different songs – I should mention that I was shocked to find several songs I had never heard of on the list. I’m trying to find copies of the missing songs now. I don’t want to read one of his essays without at least hearing the song first. It would be like reading an essay about Picasso without seeing his work.
Hornby’s second essay is about Thunder Road by Bruce Springsteen. I had trouble connecting with the song, but found the essay compelling. Springsteen song is full of pessimism mixed with invigorating optimism, Hornby relates these concepts to his formulative years in the mid 70s, yet he interprets it as a wistful observation of middle age. I have no basis for comparison – Thunder Road did not speak to me in the 70s. Springsteen was not on my play list – and he never really has been. I was a high school freshmen when Thunder Road came out, it is the music teachers listened to.
I listened to Thunder Road after I read Hornby’s essay – No doubt about it, it is a good song. But It won’t make my top 20 list. There is something about ballad singing, male fronted bands that are a turn off. I don’t like Dylan either.
So what song made a connection with me at or about 1975? Cocaine of course!
If you wanna hang out
You've gotta take her out
Cocaine
If you wanna get down
Get down on the ground
Cocaine
- Eric Clapton
It was 1977 – I had bicycled over to the house of a girl I liked (but have now long forgotten)in Hawaiian Gardens. Karen’s (I think) younger brother invited me into the house. I could here Eric Clapton playing in another room. As I walked into Karen’s front room, she emerged naked, but rapped in a towel. Her bother disappeared right as Cocaine started to play, Karen and I kissed – she suggested we sit on the couch. Things were going quite well. As the song played out, Karen asked me if I would like to see her breasts. I remember this quite clearly because I shook my head like an excited puppy. I had never seen real breast before… fast forward 15 seconds as Karen is standing to loosen her towel. I can just start to see a little cleavage when the sound of Karen’s father yelling in loudly Spanish came from behind me. I don’t know what he was yelling, but it was easy to tell he was mad at me. I did what any 16 year old boy would do – I ran for the door with her father right on my heals. As I jumped from the porch, I could still hear Cocaine playing in the house. It is a moment I will never forget. Clapton’s song would forever be associated with breasts and danger.
Karen’s dad chased me down the street. He even got into his car and tried to follow me home. I escaped. I never went back to Karen’s house. Like many other girls I knew at the time, Karen became pregnant within a few months of our failed tryst. It had nothing to do with me of course, but more likely her association with the older boys at school, she subsequently dropped (or was kicked) out of school and I never saw her again. It is probably a good thing I did not get to see the whole package.
