Vol. 6: Reading Gord's Mind

Dolf begins with a lyric from a well-known ditty:

"If you could read my mind love what a tale my thoughts would tell..."

And then continues:

Young Kevin:

Perhaps no song written since Gordon Lightfoot's "If You Could Read My Mind" captures the true romantic essence of what soft rock was about in its heyday. A perfect encapsulation of the virtues held near to the heart of male romantics everywhere. A sensitive man, guitar in hand, orchestration swelling in the background, pouring out his innermost vulnerable thoughts to the lady he admires from afar. This is surely a gushing, Byronic tale of longing and pain for the object of Gord's desire.  The romantic images of a hero failing at the one true quest he so desires to achieve, the Love with a capital L of which we so often speak.  The Love a young G.L. gleans from "old time movies, castles high” and ghosts of lovers past.  Has the recipe for love been found?  Not it Gord's mind, but he's trying...

Holiday responds:

Funny D... for I was just speaking of Gordo to a group of young men, among them a Canadian national pursuing a doctorate in English Literature from a university in our far superior higher education system.  The little anecdote that follows should solidify a point we've made time and time again, mainly that soft rock is much maligned, if not loathed, and for reasons I cannot begin fathom:

As is the custom on many Friday afternoons, some colleagues and I sought refuge in the Pub of the Dirty Frank to discuss matters great and small—the great being the terrorist situation (many a public tear has been shed in my presence), as well as my many creative endeavors, in whose greatness you have shared no small part, mind you; and the small matters usually concerning one Michael Tiberius Martella who, despite a preposterous amount of calf muscle, would not exceed a height of 5 feet even in zero gravity or stretched upon a rack (which reminds me that the others often speak of “racks,” both great and small, and the effects of gravity upon them, during these meetings, as well.  I abstain, of course, as even alcohol cannot bring out a baseness that is not there, cannot divert me from the higher calling that both you and I share).  During one of these discussion—spirits, both literally and figuratively, flowing—as is often the case, the subject of soft rock was brought to the table, or booth to be more precise.  A young editor named Miguel employed at a local tabloid devoted to arts and literature and I began to spout joyously a litany of those names that should be included in any essential discussion of soft rock.  One Gordon Lightfoot, Canada's greatest contribution to folk music, yes, but also to baroque pop in the vein of Nick Drake's Bryter Later or Love's Forever Changes, was listed, at which my aforementioned Canadian colleague barked foul (for his breath did reek of relish and green hot dog procured for a mere pittance which, sadly, is all his salary as an intellectual will allow).

No! he cried (Actually, I have spared you the details of his sour diatribe).  As a Canadian, this young man would claim no ownership of Gordon Lightfoot should the artist's name be cast in the soft rock lottery. Shameful, I thought, for national pride in an artist and an appreciation for his oeuvre could only help shed positive light on the underappreciated genre in which he worked--and continues to work, I should add, as I have seen a svelte, middle aged Gordo delight crowds with new material as recently as two months ago in the famed Theater Keswick.

I shed a tear each time I recall this horrible tale.  If we were corresponding on paper you would surely see traces of what leaks from my sensitive eyes at this very moment. Should Canadian music be defined by Rush and Celine Dion, the world as we know it would end.  Perhaps the world as we know it never existed, friend.  Perhaps artists who longed to capture the music of the heart never did exist. Perhaps it was all a dream.  Or prophesy?  Alas, on with the story:

When I finished my exchange with said Canuck, leaving him to discuss political conspiracies with one my friends and I call Scooter (This chap is often the instigator of the aforementioned talk of the softer sex in the rudest of terms, in terms he likes to call single entendres), I felt such an urge to create that I had to stop my automobile on the journey home and shat al fresco before the full moon as it kissed the muddy Schuylkill and thoughts of past loves, past lives, and fears for the future of lovers and lives the world over, flowed from my eyes.  Even now I feel the undeniable urge to find my piano, my guitar, my plastic, and hereto unpainted, didgeridoo and create something that will recapture the magic lost. Should an entire nation, a nation, albeit, of hockey-haired rubes who run bait shops, choose to disown a great artist's contribution to a dying art form, an art form, I fear, that slips further from our collective consciousness every day, then I needn't tell you how important it is to insure that such a turning away be avoided in our sweet land of liberty.  What the world needs now (How true Mr. Bacharach!  You prophet! You hairsprayed and feathered messiah!) is love, sweet love.  I can go on no further...

Adolf replies:

Kevin, if you we're nearer to me I would hold you and shield you from the tragedies bespoken of our dear soft rock.  The thorns of such rabble cut swarthy wounds into the likes of gentle men such as us.  As for your Canadian associate, to disrespect one of the finest artist to hail from the Great White North (and a fellow countryman, no less!!) makes me lament.  Surely in a world condemned to hatred and violence (Oh, these troubling times!), Gord’s message of love rings true and bright.  We should cherish these musical treasures and respect them for what they are, extensions of our very matter, the embodiment of all we speak, and, more importantly, that men like your Canadian are afraid to utter.  A friend is what we all need...find this friend in soft rock and allow the warm arms to embrace you, and embrace you they will...   
                           
Holiday replies:

D,

I have never felt so close to a fellow man in all my life. As I am incapable of the words to express my feelings at this moment, I will allow the lyrics of Gord's "Beautiful" to end our current exchange:

         And when you hold me tight,
         How could life be anything but beautiful;
         Think that I was made for you,
         And you were made for me
         And I know that I won't ever change 'cause
         We've been friends, through rain or shine
         For such a long, long time

Vol. 5 - The Right Amount of Letters: Word, Association

This document dates the soft rock conversations to coincide with one of the darkest times in recent American history.  Dolf and Holiday did not stay silent during these dark days; in fact, they found ways to make their favorite music historically relevant, nay, even prophetic.  –ed.

On: 10/8 11:45
Holiday writes

D:

As you know I have always had a fondness for words.   If I happen upon of word that I find fascinating, I may base entire conversations, entire poems, and songs on a few choice syllables.  At times, as in the case of the musical sounding "buttcheeks," we often share this minor obsession with words.  It should come as no surprise, then, that my next entry into our ongoing conversation about soft rock should begin by focusing on a single word, as well as words in general, their inadequacy, their ephemeral nature.  Cherish is the word...

Something about the arrival of autumn elicits a cocooning response in me.  After a day of activity in the brisk autumn air, communing with nature and sharing a manly bond with my dear father (who is quickly approaching the September of his years) only to hear that America had begun its retaliatory campaign against terrorism, I felt the need to cocoon before the warm "fire" (for who hasn't likened the warm glow of a vintage tube amplifier with that of the soft embers of a smoldering fire!) of my HiFi and open a good book.  Call it a need for a "heightened security" of my own.  There is a decadence in reading, slowing time while the warring world races around us, and I was quite content to remove myself from his world, if only for a moment. It was not long, however, before my attention was drawn from the words on the page to the words of my musical selection, The Association's Greatest Hits (one record to contain them all, hah!).  Cherish is the word I use to describe...

A signature piece for the group, this follow-up release to "Along Comes Mary" rose to #1 nationally, and remained there for over three weeks, thanks in no small part to a grand arrangement by the group and the production of a man we both hold in the highest regard, Mr. Curt Boettcher.  According to the All Music Guide, a trusted resource for both of us, this song was a result of Terry Kirkman's fascination with the word "Cherish".   The group's music publisher fought the title, believing it was too archaic, but the band rallied behind the pen of Kirkman, persuading the businessmen and, later, the public that a word so rich could not lose its meaning with time.  With your background in belle letters, I needn't draw the analogy to the perception of our beloved soft rock as dated, as archaic, as dead.  The record seemed doomed to obscurity, but a disc jockey in Ohio (a story I shall save for another time) took it upon himself to cause a regional breakout.  Let me take you to the bridge:

"Oh I'm beginning to think that man has never found
The words that could make you want me,
That have the right amount of letters, just the right sound
That could make you hear, make you see
That you are driving' me out of my mind

"Oh I could say I need you but then you'd realize
That I want you  just like a thousand other guys
Who'd say they loved you with all the rest of their lies, 
When all they wanted was to touch your face, your hands
And gaze into your eyes"

Cherish is the archaic word, still inadequate in Kirkman's mind, but so rich and enduring in ours.   Soft Rock is the outdated modus operandi, still as powerful as ever—if only as a way to forget the world for a fleeting moment.   

Adolf replies:

K:

And a powerful ambassador of Elysium it is, for I had a similar experience with said album (played on glorious vinyl) just this week.  As I sat and enjoyed the prose of one Pete Hamill (Dear friend, acquaint yourself with this fine writer) and my snifter of cognac, the luxurious arrangements of The Association poured out of my speakers.  Woofers and tweeters spilling forth with the gorgeous rhythms and airy harmonies from  a time not so long ago, a time when arrangements were more complex but the world much simpler.  Strange I thought, why have such devices fallen upon wooden ears these days?  Have bands such as The Association fallen victim to the graveyard of oldies radio and the occasional 60's revival movie?  I took a deep breath and lamented over these thoughts for a moment.  Then, as suddenly moved (perhaps by the quantity of cognac imbibed) I spied the album cover and the all too telling photograph on it.  Egads, I thought...thats it!  Picture, if you will, 6 young, idealistic men (dressed in various colored silken robes and be-coifed with shag hairstyles) poised upon a rock formation, surrounded by evergreens, longingly gazing into a reflective pool.  If a picture tells a thousand stories, I had uncovered 1001.  This was music of a higher aesthetic...something these sensitive souls were tuned into.  The music was a reflection of them, a reflection of all that was right with their time.  And suddenly, I felt good again and remembered why soft rock matters...

Holiday provides this coda:

Rose Petals, Incense and a Kitten

D:
You touched on a point that I had no intention of making at this time, but I am indebted to you for bringing it into focus.  Yes, the objects of soft rock are as important as the music itself.  The words, costumes, the album covers, the hair, the zithers and autoharps and flugelhorns and 12 string acoustics, the—to borrow a phrase from Sir James Croce—photographs and memories that surround the genre, the accompanying objets d’ art , are not secondary to the genre.  Like your cognac and good book, they share in the moment, they help define the moment, and they complete it.  Sadly, it is often these objects that scare would-be fans from the music.  But so be it.  Even the fan of punk rock has moments when he would prefer that his music stay, well, punk rock.   In this way it remains all the more special.  While I have moments where I want the world to embrace our beloved soft rock, today I am content to see it misunderstood.  In this way it is ours alone to cherish.  And I do...

Vol. 4 - Ambrosia: A Gift from the Gods??

Continuing in the defensive vein, Dolf and Holiday address another lost classic and perhaps reveal some romantic tension of their own.

Holiday writes:

Young Adolf, I ask you to take a moment to consider Los Angeles quartet Ambrosia  [guitarist/vocalist David Pack, bassist/vocalist Joe Puerta, keyboardist Christopher North, and drummer Burleigh Drummond—along with a young Michael McDonald contributing on bass on some recording].  As you know, the group began its career melding symphonic art rock with a well-produced pop sound.  Early recordings are available, of course, but are certainly not representative of the band's true mission.  The niche for such music, a soft rock/prog rock sunflower that grew roots in the pioneering garden of Curt Boetcher and Gary Usher projects, was later filled (perhaps ful-filled) in the early 1990s by Canadian soft-prog stalwarts Rush [see later chapter for a defense of this position - ed.] so the loss of a relatively un-mined sub-genre should be considered minor when held against Ambrosia's tragically short but utterly breathtaking foray into rock of the softest and most romantic order.

It was with the number three hit "How Much I Feel," released in 1978, that America and the world got a true taste of Ambrosia, a feel for the soaring romance and blue-eyed soul which would define the band on its 1980 follow-up.  Another number three hit, "Biggest Part of Me," and the number 13 follow-up "You're the Only Woman" owed something to the aforementioned McDonald during his reign over the Doobie Brothers, but it was the crotch-wrung falsetto choruses that separated Ambrosia from like-minded artists, that incubated the fey eggs of Air Supply and even post-mullet, rocker-turned-lover Michael Bolton.  The ancient gods had replaced the powerful mythic brew from which the band derived its name with an equally potent gift to mankind: the gift of music unafraid to celebrate love in pathetic excess and lyrics that would never shy from a well-placed "woman" or "girl" or "baby."    The new Ambrosia was the music of excessive, consuming Love, and life without this Love's destructive power was not worth living:

That how much I feel (I feel for you, baby)/

That's how much I feel (I need your love)/

I live for your touch/

That’s how much/

That’s how much...

Ambrosia's next album failed, ending their run of chart success, and the group, prepared to eye the prize in the soft-focus brought on by the tears of a broken heart but not through the tears of poverty, of a hunger more real, broke up.  We as a society would still feel the loss if not for the compilation called Anthology, a singular statement by a band with two histories, four perms, and one aching heart.

Dolf provides this coda:

My Dearest Friend, your eloquent elegy to the greatness of Ambrosia moves me to words of my own.   Imagine the world without these smooth and elegant tunes?  How many suburban white-folk would be without love or child in their lives?  An entire generation may have been lain to waste if not for songs like "Biggest Part of Me" or "You're the Only Woman"!   I can imagine it now—come back with me to 1980:

 A young, just-married couple we'll call Bruce and Annette have just left a party during the summer months.  Warm night, gentle breeze, stars above.  Annette had a touch too much Lancers Rose; Bruce probably didn't need that last Michelob.  Once safely home, the magic happens—sweet,  sweet love made all the more magical by to the local top 40 station pumping out "You're the Only Woman".  Mood setter?  I think so.  If you were with me, I'd hold you close like only a friend could.  But I digress. 

Think of the scene above played out a million times over in places like Oshkosh WI, Eugene OR or Des Moines, IA.  Peoria, baby.  Instant baby boom, baby.  Ambrosia—A gift from the gods?  I think so, my friend, I think so...

Vol. 3 Himself: Gilbert O'Sullivan

The duo of Adolf and Holiday by this point (my guess, Volume 3) have begun to reveal their purpose a bit more.  The following entry is fun, albeit a bit more scholarly, but does have a serious purpose: a clear desire to canonize soft rock artists who have been relegated to obscurity or, worse, dismissed as unimportant.

Holiday writes:
 
My friend, let's take a moment to consider one Gilbert O'Sullivan, born Raymond O'Sullivan in Waterford, Ireland on December 1, 1946.  O'Sullivan's first single, "Nothing Rhymed," became a Top Ten hit in the United Kingdom in 1970.  While certainly recognized for the wit and craft of his music, much of his early success was a result of his unusual image.  You may recall that he resembled a Dickensian street urchin, with boyish, bowl haircut; shabby, Eton suit; and flat, jeff cap (The impression the get-up made on a certain AC/DC guitarist cannot go without mention).  Please examine the attached image and notice the pre-punk "Oi!" written, with what likely was intended to resemble indelible ink, across the cover of 1972's Himself.

O'Sullivan finally broke through to the American market with the ballad "Alone Again (Naturally)," which topped the U.S. pop charts.  Around this time, the singer abandoned his urchin image in favor of collegiate sweaters embossed with the letter "G," and a coif that anticipated the soft rock perm of, say,  Leo Sayer or Gordon Lightfoot.  But this pre-post-modern image-making, this invention and re-invention of the self aside, Gilbert O'Sullivan confronted other issues of the "self" with irony and grace, a skill that revealed a deep wisdom and a timely taste for "formalism," the song as song, the artist as artist mind set that had surely reach the masses at the height of O'Sullivan's rise and subsequent fall from stardom. The lyrics of his instantly recognizable hit speak for themselves, confronting the disastrous mix of questionable sexual identity (again, the unmined AC/DC connection alluded to above) and marriage, along with a reluctant existentialism that would predate punk and hip hop by nearly a half-decade, post punk and new wave by much longer:

In a little while from now
If I'm not feeling any less sour
I promise myself to treat myself
And visit a nearby tower
And climbing to the top
To throw myself off
In an effort to make it clear to who-
ever what it's like when you're shattered
Left standing in the lurch
At a church with people saying "My God, that's 

tough, she stood him up 
"No point in us remaining"
"We may as well go home!"
As I did on my own
Alone again, naturally

To think that only yesterday

I was cheerful bright and gay 

Looking forward to - who wouldn't do?

The role I was about to play
And as if to knock me down
Reality came around
And without so much as a mere touch
Threw me into little pieces
Leaving me to doubt

Talk about God in his mercy
Who if He really does exist
Why did He desert me
In my hour of need
I truly am indeed
Alone again, naturally
 
bridge:

It seems to me that there are more hearts

broken in the world

Than can be mended
Left unattended
What do we do?
What do we do?
  

Looking back over the years
And whatever else appears
I remember I cried when my father died
Never wishing to hide my tears
And at sixty-five years old
My mother, God rest her soul
Couldn't understand why the only man
She had ever loved had been taken
Leaving her to start
With a heart so badly broken
Despite encouragement from me
No words were ever spoken
When she passed away
I cried and cried all day 

Alone again naturally
Alone again...   naturally

Adolf coyly adds:
 
"I was happy in the haze of a drunken hour, but heaven  knows I'm miserable now..." sang Morrissey on his 1984 Smiths single.  Growing up in Manchester, England, the young Stephen Patrick Morrissey surely was affected by the wry lyricism of O'Sullivan. One can picture the Moz now coddling his LP's and admiring the slim, boylike frame of the docile Irishman two decades his senior. Gilbert O'Sullivan, the man and his music, played an obvious role in developing the mid 80's androgyny-fueled melancholy music of Morrissey and The Smiths, not to mention the effect on near contemporaries like Marc Bolan and the Thin White Duke.  The image of the Moz writhing in his romantic, sexual ambiguity projects a direct artistic lineage to Gil O'Sul's pensive stare on the 1970 U.S. debut album cover.  The boylike coif and sheepish grin hid a man capable of producing brilliant hits such as "Alone Again...Naturally"  Obviously, a young Stephen learned much from this seldom recognized hero of pop music.  I want our readers to know that the next time then listen to The Smiths or hear one of Moz's solo records they should think about this kid from Ireland in a university sweater, for it was his forbearance that made it possible for so many a fey rocker to make his mark in the world, in the key of G, in the key of G...

(Indeed, indeed. - ed.)



Vol. 2 Dick Carpenter and the Velvet Tunic

This next entry appears to be the second correspondence that Dolf and Holiday had concerning the Soft Rock question.  I believe it is the copy-and-pasted transcript of an exchange shared via electronic mail.  There are for the first time here hints that Adolf and Holiday are themselves aspiring musicians. –ed.

Adolf writes:

Richard Carpenter [The Carpenters]...so much said of Karen [Carpenter], one forgets the lush arrangements and fine writing of Dick.   Not to mention the toothy, white smile and occasional vinyl belt and matching boot combination, neatly matched with a sporty crocheted turtleneck and double knit trouser.   Pure class.




Call me Dick

  Kevin Holiday:

Dig, Dolf, dig.  He fits the Van Dyke Parks mold of pop fashion.  Let's face it, intelligence has little place in so-called rock, which poses as the art form of the proletariat.  We have punk to blame for this in many respects.    However, Dick Carpenter, Parks, even Curt Boettcher [The Millennium] to some extent, embraced their bourgeoisie background, ascots, dinner jackets, as if to say, "This music is pop, yes, but it is also intelligent, classy.   I did not waste Daddy's money at Julliard.  No, aspiring to a life in the orchestra as second tuba, that would be wasting Daddy's money." 

Now, producers are the intellectuals who get praised if a record is a success, cast as scapegoats, especially by the artists themselves, when an album's high-minded production robs the recording of its “rawness.”   I find our positions as working class intellectuals, transitional figures, bookish men who drink Pabst's Blue Ribbon, rich with productive irony, a Petri dish of creative possibilities in all likelihood.  I may have cut lawns with greeseballs, eaten crabs and gravy in the Pine Barrens, even used my somewhat unique position as blue collar scholar to get me into graduate school, but please, sir, don't make me ride into history with the punk rockers and those other so-called raw musicians.

Adolf replies:

Not that we don't embrace the rawness of a "Louie, Louie" or "We Gotta Get Out of This Place"; in fact we do.  Pop has many faces.  Nevertheless, it's a higher plane to which we aspire.  A place full of string arrangements, baroque anthems, falsetto vocals, and words like "Sugar", "Honey", and "Cherish" (usually phrased within the same sentence).  Delight in pop's diversity ,yet never fear the sensitive side.  Pop is our abstraction, our breakthrough.  Why is it that the “dark” side always plays the object of man’s desire.  Why can’t we be satisfied with the simple smell of a lady's freshly brushed hair?  The touch of a green velvet tunic?  The sight of young lovers wrestling in lush fields of soft grass?  Isn't it ironic?  So many simple pleasures before us to be celebrated in both action and word, and yet…. 

This is where we fit in.  Our places are among the chosen few. Not to be understood by the masses and their commercial culture.  We obey the commands of a higher ethos, understood by those who have evolved though experience and learning.  I laugh to think of Dick Carpenter as a simple man, that others consider him so, for beneath that bubblegum facade lay a genius misunderstood by the very crowds that exalted him.  For shame, for shame...