(Columbia 1980)
By Null
All of this happened before I turned 10 years old.
I grew up on a dairy farm in the Michigan outback.
We were all farm kids who got by with little money and survived harsh winters.
Other than 70’s rock radio and country music stations, I can explicitly
remember all the recorded music we had in the house:
(8-track tapes)
Barbara Mandrell – Moods (including “Sleeping Single in a Double Bed”)
Kenny Rogers – Greatest Hits
Blondie – Greatest Hits
Willie Nelson – Honeysuckle Rose
Cheech & Chong – Greatest Hits
Bob Seger & the Silver Bullet Band –
Against the Wind
(vinyl LPs)
Kiss – Alive
Kiss - Dynasty
All the Kiss “solo” Albums
Pat Benatar – Crimes of Passion
Journey – Infinity
Journey – Who’s Crying Now
Southern Fried Rock (various artists)
A few K-Tel records with various hits of
the day.
I didn’t buy any of these records. They just
appeared in the farm house via my mother, or more likely, my older
step-brother.
I remember these albums because I would listen to
them all repeatedly. Other than the radio, this is all we had. Whether or not I
liked them remains a moot point, however, it is easy for me to see now that
this collection of albums laid the foundation for the music that I would love
in my adult life. For instance, I still hear echoes of Pat Benatar in Judas
Priest and Bob Seger in Uncle Tupelo. Trust me, those connections are there.
Now, this was all in the late 1970s and early 1980s. I realized that I never
really liked Kiss after I discovered they weren’t actually superheroes. Yet, my
love for Pat Benatar, Kenny Rogers, and Bob Seger’s Against the Wind continues to this day.
One day my older step-brother, who only lived with
us for a few years, produced a briefcase when we were sitting in the attic. He
said he had “found it,” which I understood to mean he had stolen it from
someone. It was an old briefcase that housed cassette tapes. Apparently, he and
his friends had already scoured its contents and he was no longer interested in
it, so he said I could have it. I didn’t have any cassette tapes to put in it as
I was spending most of my meager allowance on the 75 cent Conan the Barbarian
comic books that came out every month. My step-brother then said there were a
few cassettes in the case that none of his friends wanted, and he walked out of
the room.
Inside the case were three cassette tapes: Billy
Joel’s The Stranger (1977), 52nd Street (1978), and Glass Houses (1980). I devoured these
cassettes with gusto. Now remember, these albums were pretty big hits, but
these were also records by a very different Billy Joel than we became familiar
with in the mid-to-late 1980s. These preceded “Uptown Girl,” which, by the way,
was the very first 7” vinyl I ever bought with my own money.
I was getting to the age where I was beginning to
question the male role models in my life, and I was beginning to feel, well,
kind of pissed off at the bullshit social clicks that were beginning to form in
my elementary school, an elementary school filled with farm kids, and consisted
of one hallway. I think the whole school was about as big as our barn, and we
had more dairy cows than the school had students. By the time I reached the 5th
grade, I had been in love with Chris McKenzie since Kindergarten. All she ever did was kick me in the ribs,
despite my unwavering devotion. There was also the constant fear of my
step-fathers fists. I was getting pissed at “the system” but I really didn’t
know what the system was. I did know I was at odds with my future. I wanted to go
to Hollywood and make important movies like “E.T.” This is what I thought at
the time anyway. My life long struggle with the world had only just begun.
Somehow, Billy Joel, with his big Italian afro and
hound dog face, articulated these feelings. I mean, he wasn’t much to look at,
and I perceived him as an underdog like myself. And he seemed to come from an
entirely different world: New York City. His songs seemed filled with sexual
frustration and the gritty streets of New York, a part of a much greater world
to which I had no access. He also sang about smoky Italian restaurants and
being in love with beautiful girls over spaghetti dinners. He was critical of
Catholics, “Only the Good Die Young,” and I think he also laid the foundation
for the future punk rocker I would become. His songs were also filled with
nostalgia for people that were, “Movin’ Out,” as he was “The Stranger.”
These records fueled my imagination. I probably
listened to Glass Houses more than
the others, as it had the killer track, “You May Be Right,” which I felt a
certain kinship with: “You may be right / I may be crazy / But it just may be a
lunatic you're looking for / Turn out the light / Don't try to save me / You
may be wrong / for all I know But you may be right.” I though, “you know what,
fuck Chris McKenzie, fuck the farm, fuck these masculine role models.” Maybe
they are right. Maybe I am crazy. Fuck it, I am going to be who I am. I am
going to have this life and nobody is going to save me. When the cops come to
get me, at least Billy Joel will have my back. Later, that week, during lunch
at our little school, I grabbed the mustard and ketchup bottles and squirted
the condiments all over the winter coats that hung in a line against one wall
of the classroom. Fuck ‘em. I was never able to articulate a reason for this
action to the teacher. She may be right. I just may be the lunatic she’s
looking for.
The other track that was pivotal to my awareness of
my isolation was “Sometimes a Fantasy.” We would get up in the morning and milk
the cows. Then we would go inside and mother would put empty Wonder Bread bags
on our socked feet before we slipped them into our moon boots to fend off the
bitter cold Michigan winters. The school bus would come pick us up and we would
drive all over the country side picking up farm kids. It would still be pitch
black outside as the bus shook and rattled down gravel country roads.
Then something revolutionary happened. We got a
radio in the school bus. With my furrowed brow I would sit in the bus and hear
“Centerfold” by the J. Gelis Band. However, there was another track that I
would hear repeated on the bus. I didn’t know who it was but it evoked a
sensual fantasy in that freezing and rattling yellow contraption. The song was
“For Your Eyes Only” by Sheena Easton. (It was the theme song to a James Bond
movie of the same name. But I never cared for James Bond movies). I didn’t know
who Sheena Easton was at the time, but this song always make me curl up and
close my eyes and I would fantasize about vague shadows and silhouettes of the
opposite sex. Years later, I realized the opening credits to this Bond film
were startlingly similar to my school bus fantasies. It wasn’t necessarily
sexual, but more an elixir for pre-teen loneliness. When the song ended, I would
wake back up to my freezing and pissed off reality. I could hear Billy Joel
saying, “Sometimes a fantasy…is all you need.”
To this day, I love the warm analog sound of these
three Billy Joel albums. I still think his band at the time was pretty great.
The sound still reminds me of turning my back on bitter cold and despondent
world. In these albums I hear a longing for unrequited love, romance, sexual
frustration, and a big fuck you to the world. I don’t know what other people
hear in these albums. I have a friend that can’t stand Billy Joel, and I
understand – Billy Joel is a weird turtle / hound dog looking man with a
particular delivery. However, I still think the albums are fucking great and
despite what Billy Joel became, I still have his back, as he was the only one
who had mine in those early years.
