I've been in the barn all day painting wainscoting for the upstairs bedrooms, a task that cannot be completed without constant music. After suffering through the SAUGERTIES DODGE DEALERSHIP commercial for the fifteen time, I slammed the radio off and set up my li'l iPod to play tunes for seven hours straight. One of the albums it happened upon was Squeeze's Cosi Fan Tutti Frutti, a now lamentably out-of-print work by some of the last century's greatest songsmiths.
When this album came out, it was the soundtrack of my existence through my freshman year of college. The chords and loopy vocal lines are dazzling, and despite the occasional misstep, it's the kind of album that still thrills even years later. Nothing has ever sounded like this album since; it's like pop music on Neptune. Good luck finding it - it's not even on Amazon.
I bring this up because I read an interview with Squeeze about a year after the album came out, where they bemoaned the "diarrhea-like chord changes" and "meandering bullshit" and set out to make a pop record free from such pretention. Of course, I felt utterly betrayed, having given so much of my unconscious over to this record, and sure enough, the next album was Babylon and On, featuring the hit Hourglass, which most of you would remember if you heard it. "Babylon and On" was a fine record, but it never entered the pantheon of my psyche, and the band soured for me from then on.
The biggest musical betrayal I ever suffered was at the hands of Billy Joel. Now, I realize there are millions of you who have a genetic predisposition to despise every thing this man has ever sung, but there was a time when he was playing with the edges of what pop music could handle. Forget the loungy hits like "Honesty" or "Just the Way You Are" - he was also capable of incredible pathos like "Vienna," piano screamers like "Sleeping With the Television On" and "All for Leyna," and he could out-McCartney the original with "Rosalinda's Eyes" and "Through the Long Night."
After his brilliant homage to Magical Mystery Tour with "The Nylon Curtain" (forget "Pressure" and "Allentown" and listen to the rest of it), I was pretty psyched to see what he'd do next. When I heard the opening strains of "An Innocent Man," I thought I'd bought the wrong album. By the time I suffered through the whole thing, I was going to put a hole in the LP and take it back to the store, demanding my money returned (my brother Steve wouldn't let me do it).
Something happened to Billy Joel, and it wasn't just Christie Brinkley. He stopped giving a shit, and that's when the Muse said "see ya." I think it's next to impossible to get the Muse back once she's left, which is why I always plan on caring. And one more thing I never plan on doing: talk shit about a past era, your past work, that might mean something to somebody. Like Morrissey said,
But don't forget the songs
That made you cry
And the songs that saved your life
Yes, you're older now
And you're a clever swine
But they were the only ones who ever stood by you.