Sometimes you just know.
C’mon, you get it. I’m talking about that soul-deep sensation that takes hold of you when you look across the room and find yourself locking eyes with the person you instantly recognize as The Love Of Your Life. Or when you're just browsing at the umpteenth dealership, and you slide behind the wheel of the perfect car. Or when you step over the threshold during an impromptu open house visit, and you get the strong impression that you've lived there forever. You don't have to think about it. You just know.
I bring up those examples because I've been lucky enough to experience all three. Each one of those occurrences threw me for a loop that, in some cases, I've never recovered from. And why would I want to? Those unexpected events brought untold happiness and awesomeness and love to my little life. I will never be able to forget them.
And that same punch-to-the-gut surprise has happened to me with music, too. I remember being stopped in my tracks at the sorely-missed record store Mod Lang in Berkeley, when I heard the kick-ass power chords of Silver Sun erupting from the speakers. I was hypnotized by the haunting timbre of Andrea Vaughn's voice when I discovered New York indie poppers My Favorite on a CMJ sampler. As I detailed in an earlier essay, a chance excursion to a Bay Area music festival brought the genius of The Orange Peels (and my friend Paul) into my world. So many tunes have stolen up behind me and kissed my ear seductively at various times in my life.
But none of those songs, or any of the countless others that I’ve stumbled across, burrowed their way into my brain and my heart and my soul as deeply as the melancholy ode to love lost that was pulled from the Universal Consciousness by the unheralded British band...
LIBERTY HORSES.
As 1993 got going, I was in a pretty decent place. Settled into my two-bedroom apartment, I was living alone for the first time ever. The cell phone company where I worked as a software developer announced plans to spin off our group into a separate company, in order to market the billing system we'd been working on. The Ex did me the favor of filing all our divorce papers, so as of the October prior, by the grace of one signature and a twenty-nine cent stamp, I was once again a single man. I was twenty-six years old. I was making good money. I had the world at my feet. I had freedom!
And yet, that very same freedom presented me with an interesting problem. When you have all the time in the world... what do you do with yourself?
I'll admit: I had no idea. I was sort of lost. I found myself struggling with the scary proposition that being "free" might not be all it's cracked up to be.
I certainly wasn’t lonely. I had friends, but they obviously weren't at my beck and call. During the week, a small group of us would play Par 3 golf or shoot some pool. My pals had girlfriends and fianceés, however, and there was only so much time we could spend away from them. Those fleeting moments were always a blast, but they were relegated to happening every few weeks.
When I knew no one from work could carve out some time to goof around, I'd drive down to Raleigh and hang out with my college friends. Yet again, it wasn't like the old days, when we could easily coerce each other into blowing off a class or two just to do something stupid. They now all had their own lives and careers, too, and a visit from me was a quick hit-n-run weekend jaunt, before Monday morning arrived, and the real world intruded on our nostalgic fun.
And what to do with my weeknights? Back then, I wasn't much of a cook, so sometimes I'd visit my favorite Chinese restaurant, or grab a sandwich near the university. But that wasn't really a "night out". When I actually dared to make food at home, my dinners were usually a can of soup or something microwaved. I'd sit on my ratty hand-me-down couch with my cats Hoshi and Ami, and watch what TV I could pick up on my rabbit ears. (For some reason, I never pulled the trigger on getting cable. It always seemed like a really expensive perk, even back then.)
Ami and Hoshi, looking on in horror as I make my seven-hundredth bowl of Bean And Bacon soup for dinner.
At some point, it came to me in a hazy realization that I was feeling adrift because I'd been ignoring my creative impulses. Ever since I was a little kid, I'd been drawing, dreaming up my own comic books and cartoons. When I was in college, my first made-at-university friend Fritz got me interested in making music, so for a brief period I was noodling around on the keyboard and pointlessly trying to learn the bass. But once I got out of school and started working, I kind of put all that Muse-given energy into my job. It surprised the hell out of me when I realized it had been almost a year since I'd embarked on any sort of serious creative endeavor.
So one rainy weekend, I dusted off my art kit. I adjusted the rickety drawing table I'd "found" one night outside the Design School. I taped up a fresh sheet of Bristol board. I cracked open a chilled Cherry Coke. With everything locked and loaded, I got back to work on "Over The Wall".
We interrupt this pointless story for a little personal history: My second year in college, I discovered that you got paid a whopping four dollars for each cartoon accepted for publication in the school paper. Four whole bucks! With dreams of untold riches dancing in my eyes, I gleefully dove into developing a strip based on a superhero I created in high school. My efforts caught the attention of my friend Simon's roommate Steve, a dynamic NCAA-level fencer who was hyper-literate and had a wicked sense of humor. When he saw what I was doing, he wanted in. Over the course of a few days, we banged out the core concept of a new cartoon: Simon, a put-upon freshman computer science student, interacts with oddball programming savant C.B. (short for "Circuit Breaker") and an eclectic group of students as he tries to navigate his college life. (Not "life imitating art" at all...) Steve came up with the title. I drew some character sketches. Steve wrote the first few strips. And the following week... we were published!
I can't say "Over The Wall" was a "Doonesbury"-level success, but it did get noticed. And the year after I graduated, we submitted a revamped post-college "Over The Wall" to a nationwide King Features Syndicate contest. We didn't make any impression at all, but hey, at least we tried. Over the next couple of years, I'd doodle updated working-world versions of Simon, C.B., and the other characters, with the intent of rebooting the strip and getting it published. Alas, it never happened. But for what it's worth, I had fun in the process.
An example of the gut-busting humor that Steve and I were creating on an almost-weekly basis. I’m a fan of mid-60s Marvel Comics sound effects, obviously.
So now we’re back in early 1993. It's a gray, wet winter afternoon. I'm sketching away, feeling the pain of the rust corroding my creative engine. Back in college, I'd found that I drew better when I had music playing, so I figured I'd keep that tradition going. No longer in possession of a portable tape player like I had during those late nights in the computer lab, I tuned the radio to the local university's station. I'd discovered their eclectic programming thanks to a young woman I'd sort of dated the previous summer. She was a disc jockey there, and enlisted me to draw a small ad for her show. It was called "Bite The Wax Tadpole", after the apocryphal story of Coca-Cola failing in China. She was pretty cool. (I wish I knew why we broke up. One day she was upset... and that was it. I still have no idea why she stopped talking to me.)
There I was, bent over my table, putting every erg of my focus into trying to get my clumsy hand to match up with the perfect images I saw in my brain. As I struggled, the music floated out of the radio in the background, a sonic wallpaper that provided just enough happy distraction to keep me from getting frustrated with my efforts. Every couple of minutes I'd soothe my agita with a sip of soda, relishing the bubbles and the sugary sweetness. I was aggravated with my perceived lack of success, but not so much that I was going to stop.
And that's when it happened.
I really don't remember the actual moment. Maybe I was sitting up, taking a break to stretch. Maybe I was in mid-soda-sip. Maybe I was about to throw the art table through the window. All I know is, there was a point where my attention was diverted away from my cartooning efforts. And in that brief sliver of time, my brain did what it loved to do, what it seems like it was born to do, which was latch onto whatever music might be wafting through the ether.
What my music-mind grabbed hold of was... unbelievable. Chiming guitars. Pained vocals, but with an odd hint of hope embedded deep down in the delivery. Lyrical imagery that matched what was right outside my window and coloring my mood. And, of all things, a slide whistle, played with the skill a classical maestro brings to the violin. I sat transfixed for a good three minutes, soaking up every note, letting every chord wash over me. When the song ended, I was almost in tears. I'd never heard anything so perfect in my life.
As the deejay returned to the airwaves, I hung on her every word, waiting for her to announce the song's title, or at least who sang it. Foul temptress that she was, she gave me neither! But I was so invested, so in love, I actually flipped through the phone book (remember those?) and found the radio station's number. Luckily I caught the deejay between songs, because she took my call after the first ring. I told her I had to know who performed that song, the one about smiling, the one with the whistle. She read the info off the CD case for me. The label: Rough Trade Records. The song: "Shine". The band: Liberty Horses. The album: Joyland. I scribbled everything down like a court stenographer, not wanting to miss a letter.
I'm not exaggerating when I tell you that I spent the following year desperately trying to find that CD. These were the pre-Internet days, so you were at the mercy of whatever stock your local music store had. Joyland existed nowhere in my little corner of the universe. Nowhere! Even the venerated BB's didn't have it. Through the spring, the summer, the fall, and the winter, I hunted for that album. It never left my mind. I had only heard the song that one time... and it haunted me.
Luckily, there's a happy ending to this story. The following spring, while killing time in a record store before a movie screening, I almost passed out when I stumbled across Joyland just chilling in the "L" section. I turned the jewel case over and over in my hands, unsure if it was real or if I was hallucinating. But plunking down $12 at the counter made it very real. Holy frigging crap, I finally had it! I had Joyland! I had "Shine"! My life was at long last complete!
And let me add that, luckily, the rest of Joyland is worth listening to. Comprised of former members of 80s indie legends The Bible, Liberty Horses put together a solid collection of guitar-based tunes that blend the best elements of indie pop and modern folk with the immediacy of bands like The Alarm and Trash Can Sinatras. With guest vocals by Eddi Reader, every song has something to offer the listener.
Over the years, "Shine" has risen above all my other beloved songs, to become my favorite of all time. That's no mean feat, because I like a whole lot of stuff. So how and why did "Shine" strike such a chord in me? I have no frigging idea, I really don't. It must have been some weird confluence of the vibratory energy of the song, the neurochemical stew in my brain brought on by my mood at the time, and... the secret formula that the wizards in Atlanta use to brew Cherry Coke? I dunno. Maybe. If pressed, you might opine that I'm a sad little man who had nothing better to do than think about one song for almost twelve months. I would not be able to put forth a cogent defense against that theory. As the saying goes, "Your guess is as good as mine."
A primitive selfie, taken, if my memory serves me, not two weeks before I heard “Shine”. I had no idea my world was about to be rocked!
There's a guy on The Howard Stern Show named Richard Christy, a lovable goofball from Kansas who's a world-class heavy metal drummer and an even better phony phone call master. The gang on the show is constantly busting his chops because he seems to have no idea what the word "favorite" means. For instance, he's a huge fan of horror movies. He'll proclaim, "Halloween is my faaave-rit horror movie." (I'm approximating his Kansan drawl.) Howard will ask, "But what about Nightmare On Elm St.?" Richard will blurt out, "Oh, that's my faaave-rit!" Then they'll list more movies - Friday The 13th, Hellraiser, Evil Dead - and each one will be his "faaave-rit". He just doesn't get it.
Me, I don't let myself get cornered in conversations like that. If someone asks me what my favorite movie is, I tell them I've got a Top 20 list. And the films that make that list can change on a day-to-day basis. There are a few that are givens - Robocop, Buckaroo Banzai, and Speed Racer come to mind - but at some point, I start waffling. Maybe An American Werewolf In London makes the list. Or maybe it's bumped off by 2001: A Space Odyssey or The Avengers or The Lord Of The Rings Trilogy. I can't claim to enjoy one movie more than all the others... they're all my "faaave-rits".
Ask me about music, however, and I live up to my home state's nickname. The "Tar Heels" of my opinions are planted firmly and immovably. Yes sir, when it comes to the "Musical Trifecta", I'm rock solid.
My favorite band? Queen.
My favorite album? Loveless, by My Bloody Valentine.
And my favorite song? (Have you not been paying attention?!?) It's "Shine", by Liberty Horses.
Things may come and go in my life, but when I'm 100 years old, abandoned by friends and family in a state-run nursing facility, and drooling into my pudding cup, I can guarantee you I'll give the same answers to those three questions. I won't know what day it is, or who's the President, or what my wife's name is... but I will damn sure nail the question "What's your favorite song?"
You might think that's impossible. But believe you me... I'll just know.
(Unfortunately there was no video filmed for "Shine". So enjoy this audio clip. Trust me, it's worth it!)
BIO
Don Stroud is not the famous actor and world-class surfer of the same name. He is the non-famous California transplant who became an award-winning film editor and struggling amateur screenwriter. He loves cats, sushi, comic books, movies, music, and Cherry Coke. What's that, dear? Oh yes: and his wife. You can follow him on Twitter, where he pops up sporadically, at @DonStroud2.