Ever have one of those songs stick in your head but you only remember a tiny part of it? Happens to me all the time. And then I'll ask anyone and everyone: Do you know that songs that goes doo ba da do da da do da da-aa-ah?
And whomever I've asked will look at me like they think I just farted.
It's pretty much been that way my whole life.
A prime example. Fire on High by Electric Light Orchestra, or ELO. It's this instrumental song that you'd hear on FM radio back in the day. It's sort of scary and awesome and not one you find on a lot of top 40 stations, but I always thought it was cool. It wasn't one of my favorite songs. Not one I'd put on a mix tape or anything. Just a song that lodged itself in my brain long ago, to sleep like Rip Van Winkle, waiting to come back to the forefront of my mind and drive me to distraction.
That song came out in the other world known as the 1970s. Land of Happy Days, Viet Nam, Watergate, and leisure suits. A world I navigated on my bike and/or skateboard, traversing the streets of San Jose, obsessed with comic books, KISS, and after the Ralph Bashki animated version of it came out, the Lord of the Rings. I can recall hearing that song in my friend Chris Carver's family's garage. It had this backward tracking section that made you think maybe the devil could hear your thoughts while you listened to it.
If there was such a thing as the devil. And ever since The Excorcist came out, we were all pretty sure there was.
So, the song was part of the fabric of my childhood.
Cut to many years later. I'm in NYC. I haven't thought of that song since forever. I'm a starving artist, waiting tables at Bryant Park Grill behind the main branch of the New York Library, doing theatre down town, struggling to make ends meet, having the time of my life.
And that song pops into my head. Well, not the whole song. Just this one section where the orchestra goes: DUN DUN.... DUUUUUUUNNNNNN.
I start asking people if they know it.
And I get the "did you fart?" look everytime.
Years go by. I'll be at a party. I'll meet someone who seems knowledgeable all things music. I'll ask the question. I'll get the standard response.
Now, I was still drinking back then, so maybe my question was asked a bit more off key than I'd like, and a tad more garbled. At any rate, no one had a clue.
Was I mad? Had I invented this fake memory of this song with backwards tracks and a section that goes DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNNNN?
Years go by. I'm driving a rental car back to NYC after going to a wedding up in Connecticut. It's summer, and some radio station is playing all things seventies. And the song comes on the radio. The song! Now this is before cell phones, and there wasn't a note pad in the car, and I was on a bridge over the Harlem River in very heavy traffic. And worse, the song was in a long set of songs with no interruptions. I waited and waited, praying to the radio gods that they'd say who it was.
And they did! Finally, after what felt like hours.
Fire on High! I said it out loud, over and over, making sure I'd remember. My girlfriend at the time, who was in the car with me, did not find this amusing, and told me so in no uncertain terms.
So I stopped the car, opened the trunk, pulled out my backpack which had a notepad in it, and wrote the name of the song down.
The cars behind me didn't appreciate this.
I didn't care. I had found the Great Lost Song of the 1970s. I had found a dimensional door to the Carver's garage, to bell bottom jeans and AC/DC before Bon Scott died. To a piece of me.
I collect those pieces, work them into my various projects, shows I direct, roles I perform, scripts I write.
It informs who I am.
A deranged seeker of lost moments, an Indiana Jones of my own soul.
Here's Fire on High, by ELO.
Bonus track:
Two things: First, I'm doing Rocky Horror Show with Organic Theatre up in Boulder this week end. Info Here: https://www.onthestage.tickets/show/organic-theater-dba-reel-kids-and-dba-boulder-music/64b20c8f3d38220e4092f78c
I'm taking a new show, Eigg the Musical, to the Edinburgh Fringe. I'll be writing another blog on that next, but wanted to let you all know we have an Indiegogo campaign, raising funds to feed the actors, cover expenses, and all that. More info here: https://igg.me/at/eiggmusical/x/3385268#/
And here's one of the numbers from the show:
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