Song Saturday - Robin Gibb

A news article, a touchstone to an ethereal voice from the past, through many decades. 
 
I have an indelible memory of slow-dancing as a teenager at an American Legion dance with my latest mad crush.  The object of the crush is forgotten, but what I remember is the way I felt, slow dancing to a local band cover of "To Love Somebody."  Why do certain songs cement memories - how could I have forgotten the boy, but remembered the song?  Maybe it was always more about my perceptions, my impressions.




I'm saddened to hear that Robin Gibb is gravely ill.  The Bee Gees, a band that many either feel are overrated or underrated, even an object of scorn when the Fever fashions and tunes were categorically declared passe, have always been there in my life.  They recede and then reappear at moments in my personal narrative.

I adored their close, tight harmonies, and was intrigued when I understood that while I was moving, eyes closed, lost in some adolescent fantasy, they were only slightly older than I and already international stars.   With two strong tenor leads and high three-part harmonics, they had a sound that was immediately recognizable.





Somehow the disco period passed me by. I was a road warrior and didn't really have access to radio. Yet I have memories of driving the United States in Ray's eighteen wheeler with an eight-track of Saturday Night Fever soundtrack that I bought at a truck stop somewhere- it was great road music for those long dark stretches on I-80.  But how I loved the move and the groove.  It was almost irresistible.  I knew all the songs - didn't everyone alive at that time achieve peak saturation on that album?  To hear even a few opening bars of Night Fever - you anticipate Barry's falsetto all these years later. I loved the precursor "Nights on Broadway" with the interesting harmonic slow bridge.



But through the long decades and huge Bee Gees song catalog, my favorite moments were almost always when Robin came in on high harmony or with a solo moment.  That voice, like the jagged edge of the dark side of melancholy, with a trembling vibrato, cut through and soared.  The voice suggested pain, loss, vulnerability, insecurity - and kept the group vocals from sounding too saccharine.  His stage presence - awkward, unassuming and self-conscious until he stepped to the mike which he often clutched with both hands as if he was hanging on to life itself. 

This latest composition from the classical work he wrote in commemoration of the Titanic centennial.



After all these decades, still writing, the voice still distinctly his, I consider mortality and the immortality of  music.

Fulfill your destiny
It's there within the child
My storm will never end
My fate is on the wind
The king of hearts
The joker's wild

from "Immortality"
written by Brothers Gibb

One Man, Many Movements

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent. ~~ Martin Luther King, Jr.

We move ahead, we fall back.  We try to stand again.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s struggles in the 60's are ours today, and we should be mindful that progress is a long, hard slog that requires voices.

He spoke of the need for civil rights and equal opportunity in an era of Jim Crow.  Today, we face political movements which would seek to reinstate barriers to voting, negating our most basic democratic right.

He spoke of economic justice in his Poor People's Campaign.  Today, we are speaking of the 1% versus the 99%.

He encouraged peaceful and non-violent protests against the status quo.  Today, we see the Occupy movements and rallies in Washington D.C.

He questioned the prosecution of the Vietnam War and saw that the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement were linked through views that opposed oppression of others and waste of economic resources on endless occupation in colonizing foreign lands.  Today, we are trying to extract ourselves from wars overseas that have not advanced democracy here or abroad and have extracted an onerous economic toll at the expense of investing in our future.

He went to Memphis in April of 1968 to support striking sanitation workers.  Today, we have Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana seeking to break unions and invest corporations with more power in the political arena.

King's speech in Memphis on April 3rd, the night before he was assassinated, was prescient and moving and calls to us today.    Voices call to us from the distance of history, urging us to return to the promises of what was written so long ago.  We need to climb to the mountaintop again.

Song Saturday - October Surprise 1978

 

Normally the term "October Surprise" refers to a dramatic political event timed to sway voters that first week in November.  My favorite October Surprise was the dramatic entry of my son on the 15th of October, 1978.  We had him pencilled in the appointment book for December, but apparently he had other ideas.  Not the last time, just the first time.

1978 was a mixed bag.  There were three popes that year, Annie Hall won Best Movie at the Oscars causing women everywhere to start raiding men's wardrobes, the Camp David Accords were signed and still Jimmy Carter was underappreciated, and the damn Yankees won the World Series.  Some things remain predictable.  What is unpredictable is what makes life interesting.

Orange Crush Days in Denver

  
So, today, I take time to remember that very first, very intense unpredictable experience with my son and all the days since.  It is a relationship unique and wonderful, born in urgency, nurtured over time, maturing even now.  He was only 3 lbs 14 oz at birth, but he has always been living large in my mind.

Surrounded by Love

We made it through scrapes and skateboards and tongue piercings and tattoos and soccer and Little League and Cub Scouts and moves and divorce and he survived and emerged wiser than I in some respects.  A loving son to his dad and then stepson to Tim, a great companion, a loyal friend.  Not much more I could want.

Tim cuts his hair

Always a Hat Fancier

I don't take too much credit for who he is today.  He has always been a well-formed, well-defined person who has the enviable talent of knowing no strangers. 

The Rolling Office

We have had goofy times and tender times and they all blur together as one sensation of overwhelming Yes.  On the day of Tim's death, my toughest day, I dialed his number, said only "help" three times and hung up.  I had no doubt he would be there when I needed him most and he was.  Rock steady.

This year's birthday is especially sweet - he is engaged and so very happy.  So, even though he is on the other coast tonight, all is right in my personal universe.  My sole wish for him was always to find his happiness on his path.  The future indeed looks bright.

Sweet!

A bright future - Sweeter

A special Song Saturday birthday wish...


No. 83 from the Top 100 in 1978
Whenever I Call You Friend
Kenny Loggins with Stevie Nicks
Happy Birthday, baby.

Song Saturday - When October Goes

Reflection.  There's not a year that goes by that I don't linger and listen to this song when the calendar page turns to October.

Barry Manilow was one of Tim's guilty pleasures, although he was not the type to feel guilty about his choices.  This song embraces the poignancy of this time of the year for me - my favorite season and memories of my favorite guy, all in one brilliant Johnny Mercer lyric paired with a beautiful minor key melody from Manilow.

September in my hometown still evinces summer -- the heat of the valley, the trees still desperately clinging to their green facade, people in sleeveless shirts and shorts listening to that last summer concert in the downtown square or cruising the Farmer's Market.

October signals the cycle of change and preparation.  The initiation of autumn, rather than the end of the year, is my time of deepest reflection and planning.

I notice the avenues of trees and watch for them to put on their finest colors and then slowly undress.  I wait for that first full moon that breaks through the naked branches.  I try to anticipate November, our birthdays month, and gauge if another year down the road of grieving and loss has moved me farther along the path to release.  He'd surely tell me, "get on with it."  He did.  I think I'm almost there. The leaves will drop; the rains will come. I will still hate to see October go.

I should be over it now, I know.  
It doesn't matter much how old I grow.
I hate to see October go.





Art: Maxfield Parrish - "Dream October"