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2004-04-24 - 11:03 p.m. He had me at acquiesce Size does matter. But bigger isn't always better. However, I do have to love a man with a big swinging vocabulary. As long as he knows how to use it, of course. I'm listening to Rick Springfield's new album, "shock/denial/anger/acceptance," and while there's not necessarily the vocabulary usage going on in this album, it reminds me of what I always loved about his songwriting. It's great. It's not only the actual individual words I like, but also the ability to toss a nice turn of phrase or even just throw in something unexpected. I think we can safely say he's got the "anger" part down in these songs. Some lines from "Idontwantanythingfromyou": "It's the same shit different day Well then. A repeated line at the end of that song is "I don't hate you." Perhaps that's the denial. Great song though. Nice hard rocker with well-integrated strings - something that isn't easy to do. When I saw him last summer, and this album wasn't out yet, he said he was going to play "the ballad" from the new album - and then launched into that song. I was afraid until I heard the first note, then I was ashamed to have doubted him. My kinda ballad! He was never one for the sweet love song very often, anyway. He does seem to be pretty happy these days though, from all reports. Must get it all out in the lyrics, I guess. I wish I could be as brave in my writing as he is in his. Back in junior high, one of my good friends was also a RS fan, and she also loved his vocabulary. I loved that he used "acquiesce" in "Souls" and she loved that he used "moot" in "Jessie's Girl." Possibly we were both a bit easily impressed at the time. But you don't hear those words much in pop songs. I always loved the stories in his lyrics too. I loved him ever since the Saturday morning cartoon show he used to do, way back in 1973-74. Not for the lyrics back then, I don't think. And couldn't have been because I thought he was cute, because he was a cartoon. Then again, cartoons can be cute. I don't remember what the original attraction was, to be honest. But it lasted. By the time he was on General Hospital and "Jessie's Girl" was a hit and everyone else was all over him, I was like, so where ya been? I remember buying "Wait For Night" on 8-track, back when it was a new release, at either Sears or JCPenney... neither of which has a music department any more. That was an awesome album which no one ever heard of. It includes one of his rare completely cynicsm-free love songs, "Inside Silvia," which is slow and soft and very warm and sensual without really ever getting more explicit than the title. Although he can also do explicit - and well. I was so thrilled when he got popular, because it meant he was touring and I could go see him! One of my fondest concert memories ever that has nothing to do with the show itself was an experience from before a Rick Springfield concert. It was a general admission show, so of course you got there way early so you could sit on the hard concrete and wait for hours for the door to open so you could then run to your spot like a lunatic once the doors opened. Much like I still do, in fact, except that now I don't sit on the concrete; my knees have not aged well and it's honestly more comfortable to stand for hours than to get up and down. Anyhow though, I remember the waiting for this show being so much fun. It can still be that way when you get a cool bunch of people. You're all there because you're crazy enough and you like whoever it is you're seeing enough to all be there waiting. At this show, a bunch of teenage girls, including teenage me, sat around and talked and sang while we waited. We were so goofy we not only sang, but rehearsed, "867-5309" until we could sing the "I got it" part perfectly, with different people assigned to come in at different times so every part was covered. I made friends with this one girl, whose name I could not tell you now for the life of me, and at one point she said to me, want to go walk around the building? Sure. We were bored. We actually did run into the tour buses and the equipment trucks, and I remember being surprised. How I thought the stuff got there, I don't know. I just never thought about it. These days, the walk around the building would be for the express purpose of finding the buses. I don't know if that was her purpose or not. But we didn't see Rick, and I don't know about her, but I wouldn't have recognized anyone else. So we just kept walking and came back around and got back in our places. Back in those days, people would let you back up to the front where they knew you came from. These days, maybe, maybe not. Just one of my favorite concert memories. At some point before we got split up from each other, we traded addresses. Real, honest to god physical mailing addresses. So we could keep in touch. Through mail. Like, as pen pals. Imagine. I'm not in touch with her any more, but not long after that, she did end up getting me tickets to a show near her that I never would have heard about. She got me tickets because she needed a ride, and my sister drove. So get this... my sister, barely in her 20's, went with her teenage sister, off into the night almost a hundred miles away to see a rock concert. On the way, we picked up a couple of other teenage girls, one of whom we'd met long enough to sing a Tommy Tutone song with, and the other we'd never seen before. Try and see that from my parents' point of view. See it from THEIR parents' point of view. What all parents involved had to say about this - and speaking for my own, they were properly concerned and responsible and cared greatly whether we lived or died - was, "fine honey, be careful, don't stay out too late." We had no cell phones or pagers they could call or beep in case they needed us. Wow, the 80's, huh? And that's one of my favorite memories. Is it any wonder I ended up making this my life's avocation? my mood - |
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