Music, as I say, was never a big part of my life. Except, of course, when it was; at those intersections where I began to interact with people, become part of the group, socialize. They were awkward and often embarrassing, so I thought I should share them with you.
My first year of college–my first week of college–I not only got the title role in a play (The Nerd, surprise!), but I also got an assistant editorship on the school newspaper, due to my proficiency with Macs (Thanks, High School! That totally makes up for the 1,000,000 humiliations I suffered at your hands!). I wasn’t getting laid, of course, but my extensive research into the subject* assured me that this would certainly happen during Spring Break**.
My musical diet up to that point had all been Top 40 pop singles, along with rap, once that broke with Midwestern white kids. I was certainly aware of alternative music, but as far as I got with it was a Cure greatest hits tape.
It was in the basement offices of the newspaper offices that I got my first real taste of the sonic spectrum, and if I gave you a list of what we heard, you’d probably think “Well, yeah, everybody’s heard that,” except of course I hadn’t. It was like that scene in The Jerk where Navin hears Easy Listening music for the first time***. It was there that I first encountered The Smiths, on a mix tape. This song, in fact:
I was never a big Smiths fan, though the lyrics for “How Soon Is Now?” could hardly be more biographical. I was still at the point where I had no real sense of my self-identity, who I was or what I was trying to say artistically.
This began to change when my Army unit was activated for Desert Storm, and I was confronted with the very real possibility that I could die at 19. Your own mortality is a hard concept for a teenager to swallow.
We never shipped over to Iraq, after the bombings started it suddenly became more useful to have a transportation unit in Kentucky to take stuff off of trains rather than put them on. So we stuck around Fort Campbell, KY, with a lot of time on our hands. And it was there that I met someone whom I will refer to as H.
H. was everything I was not–my polar opposite: Blonde, unafraid, artistically productive****, female, and beautiful. The fact that I was gob-smacked with her was obvious to everyone but me, who thought that I was only interested in her friendship. What an asshole I was.
We had fun. And we listened to a lot of music, mostly hers, but a few pieces of mine that I didn’t find too embarrassing; I really can’t recall how many times we listened to Pretty Hate Machine or Violent Femmes. But we listened to a lot of her music, stuff by bands that, for her, had broken through years ago, but was still undiscovered country for me: Sonic Youth, Front 2 4 2, Bauhaus, Joy Division, and, of course, The Smiths.
I get bits of songs stuck in my head, and so one day, towards the beginning of our friendship*****, as we were walking to the PX I started singing, under my breath, “I’ve come to wish you an Unhappy Birthday.” And when she looked at me, her eyes lit up when she said, “I didn’t know you listen to the Smiths!”
There is a rule in theatre auditions. Don’t mention any skill you’re not prepared to demonstrate. If you say you can tap dance, you better goddam well have a practiced routine ready. A corollary to this rule is that if you’re going to sing a song to impress a girl you don’t realize you have a major crush on, you better goddam know the words to that song.
I trailed off halfway through the first verse. I could see the light going out.
“That’s not how that goes.”
“Er, yeah, I’ve only listened to it a couple of times, actually.”
It would be a wonderful ending if she had said, “I’ll play it for you later,” or gave me a mix tape with it, wouldn’t it? But she didn’t have that song, and in fact I’m utterly positive that I haven’t listened to it until just now, when I sought it out for this entry. Which is a shame, because in the darker days ahead of me in college, I’m sure I would have found some solace in The Smiths and Morrissey, who, looking back, had a good handle on my inability to connect in a real way.
That was the spring where I realized that I had gone through my entire life letting fear make my choices. That the self-image I had of myself a guy who Saw Things Others Did Not See was shattered by the realization that I had a huge blind spot when it came to myself. It was when, months later, I had the sickening realization that H. would never be in love with me, followed by the revelation that I had been in love with her this whole time. I had a plank in my eye while I was busy pointing out the sawdust in others.
I’m not sure what I listened to when those two punches hit me, where I found comfort or escape, but it should have been The Smiths.
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* HBO & Showtime, weekend programming after 12:30 p.m.
** It didn’t.
*** Again, my mental landmarks are comedic, not melodic.
**** A singer, she wrote her own songs and performed with bands at college.
***** Since I was the only guy, married or unmarried, who was not aggressively trying to make her, I suppose part of my function was as a shield******.
****** I.e, “beard”