Yep, I went there.
While this song (and album in particular) comes into quite a bit of mocking from yours truly, it is chock full of jaw droppingly great riffs. Listen to Smokin' or Rock and Roll Band and see if your toes aren't a tappin'.
I remember the album cover vividly, as it was one of my brother's favorite albums. Bill moved back into live with us when I was about 6, bringing LPs an Playboys with him. LPs and Playboys in the hundreds. While this meant that my adolescence was chock full of good music and excellent wanking material, it also meant that I had to share space with a 23 year old who just had his heart broken. I remember the wedding. The blue 1970s tuxes, yours truly getting nervous, picking his nose and wiping the product in the palm of the best man, Randy. (Called "Funky" because his last name was Funk. Another in the long list of people in everyone's lives that you wish you could have got to know a little bit better). There was dancing and fighting on the part of my folks. I cut a damn good rug that night, to hear my grandma tell it. Then it all fell apart.
You see, Bill got divorced and moved back in. I am still not sure of the details, even though I do know that his former father in law helped to redesign our basement before he arrived so Bill had a place to sleep. It seems to me he would not have done that if the whole thing was Bill's fault.
This song IS Bill in 1980, right on down to the 1970s porn stache (and Bill could fucking rock one...he and I are the only two in the family who ever really could). Bill was 1970s good looking: long brown hair, tan, stache, funny, tight pants. He and I look quite a bit alike. Not to say that I am 1970s good looking (hell even 1870s good looking) but he could pull off the look.
Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.
I can't help but think what he was feeling, listening in the basement on those headphones to those lyrics, two months after his wife had dumped him after roughly four months of marriage. Or perhaps he was dwelling on this:
Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me
It is a cliché to say that one thing can ruin someone's life, but in my brother's case it is open and shut. Whatever happened between him and Shauna in the late 1970s in that house I stayed at twice (and had coffee cake in for the first time) took the soul out of the brother that I most identified with. Bill was much more of a father to me than my own father, as he was the male adult that I most wanted to impress and be accepted by. For the most part I succeeded, and I hope that he knew that and understood it when he died in 2010. I think he did. We shared looks and we shared sensibilities, much more so than anyone else who remains in the family. He never spoke about Shauna to me, perhaps because I was too young to understand what had happened. My brother lived with two other women in his time, and was very close to marrying both. He never did, and acted as if he purposefully sabotaged each relationship.
When he died, a lot of the myths surrounding my brother came crashing down. That 96 hour period was probably the hardest of my life, but is nothing compared to what Bill lived with for 30 years. I have an understanding of it through my own travails in the mental health department. He and I are the same in that we carry our pasts around in an ornate box that we open at the worst times when things are the best for us. When our backs are to the wall, we get pissed and fight.
There's a long road, I've gotta stay in time with
I've got to keep on chasin' that dream, though I may never find it
I'm always just behind it.
While this song (and album in particular) comes into quite a bit of mocking from yours truly, it is chock full of jaw droppingly great riffs. Listen to Smokin' or Rock and Roll Band and see if your toes aren't a tappin'.
I remember the album cover vividly, as it was one of my brother's favorite albums. Bill moved back into live with us when I was about 6, bringing LPs an Playboys with him. LPs and Playboys in the hundreds. While this meant that my adolescence was chock full of good music and excellent wanking material, it also meant that I had to share space with a 23 year old who just had his heart broken. I remember the wedding. The blue 1970s tuxes, yours truly getting nervous, picking his nose and wiping the product in the palm of the best man, Randy. (Called "Funky" because his last name was Funk. Another in the long list of people in everyone's lives that you wish you could have got to know a little bit better). There was dancing and fighting on the part of my folks. I cut a damn good rug that night, to hear my grandma tell it. Then it all fell apart.
You see, Bill got divorced and moved back in. I am still not sure of the details, even though I do know that his former father in law helped to redesign our basement before he arrived so Bill had a place to sleep. It seems to me he would not have done that if the whole thing was Bill's fault.
This song IS Bill in 1980, right on down to the 1970s porn stache (and Bill could fucking rock one...he and I are the only two in the family who ever really could). Bill was 1970s good looking: long brown hair, tan, stache, funny, tight pants. He and I look quite a bit alike. Not to say that I am 1970s good looking (hell even 1870s good looking) but he could pull off the look.
Well I'm takin' my time, I'm just movin' along
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.
I can't help but think what he was feeling, listening in the basement on those headphones to those lyrics, two months after his wife had dumped him after roughly four months of marriage. Or perhaps he was dwelling on this:
Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm tryin' to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're comin' back to find me
It is a cliché to say that one thing can ruin someone's life, but in my brother's case it is open and shut. Whatever happened between him and Shauna in the late 1970s in that house I stayed at twice (and had coffee cake in for the first time) took the soul out of the brother that I most identified with. Bill was much more of a father to me than my own father, as he was the male adult that I most wanted to impress and be accepted by. For the most part I succeeded, and I hope that he knew that and understood it when he died in 2010. I think he did. We shared looks and we shared sensibilities, much more so than anyone else who remains in the family. He never spoke about Shauna to me, perhaps because I was too young to understand what had happened. My brother lived with two other women in his time, and was very close to marrying both. He never did, and acted as if he purposefully sabotaged each relationship.
When he died, a lot of the myths surrounding my brother came crashing down. That 96 hour period was probably the hardest of my life, but is nothing compared to what Bill lived with for 30 years. I have an understanding of it through my own travails in the mental health department. He and I are the same in that we carry our pasts around in an ornate box that we open at the worst times when things are the best for us. When our backs are to the wall, we get pissed and fight.
There's a long road, I've gotta stay in time with
I've got to keep on chasin' that dream, though I may never find it
I'm always just behind it.
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