#68: Björk – Post

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Throughout the next however many months I’ll be counting down my 100 favorite albums, because why not. I’m up to number sixty-eight.

“This is me,” I said as we arrived at my car on the third floor of the parking garage.

“Ah. I’m one level up.”

“This was fun. It was great meeting and hanging out with you.” He smiled. “Let’s do this again.” I pulled my phone from my back pocket. “Can I have your number?”

His smile vanished, his face now looking like he got a whiff of a pungent malodorous cheese. “Wh-what? My phone number? Wh-why? No!” And with that, he turned. He didn’t walk away. He didn’t scurry. He Jesse-Owens-at-the-1936-Olympics ran.

I’d been in Los Angeles for two years and still couldn’t figure out the rules of engagement.

It’s not that I was thrilled  about living here, but when Warner Music offered me a six-figure salary and said they’d pay all expenses for me to move from my 200 square foot Manhattan apartment, I couldn’t say no. And while for me, meeting new people is like simultaneously squeezing into my mouth a tennis ball, a running lawnmower and President McKinley (trust me I’ve tried), I already got a jump start as I had a friend in LA.

I met Victor on a trip to Mexico a few years earlier. I called him the day I arrived here, and we made plans to hang out the coming Sunday. I was psyched to see him and be shown hot spots. A friend of a friend of an acquaintance of someone Victor met somewhere doing something invited him to a house party, so he suggested we stop over there on our way to nowhere in particular. Cool. I could meet more people. At the party house we were greeted at the front door by a chirpy twenty-something blonde-haired woman wearing a colorful top and blue denim miniskirt. “Welcome! The cocaine is over there.” She motioned toward a room to our right, presumably the drug den. She then walked away. I shot Victor a look that said “I’m 100% drug free. What kind of party have you taken me to?” His face shot back a grin that said “Welcome to Hollywood.” It was jarring, as nobody in New York does drugs.

###

In NY, I’d walk from my shoebox to Madison Square Garden to see Lauryn Hill or Britney Spears or Prince or whomever, then walk home, or I’d subway to Radio City Music Hall to see Aretha Franklin or Pet Shop Boys or k.d. lang or to the Beacon Theater to see Sinéad O’Connor (and concert attendee Daniel Day Lewis in the lobby) or Fine Young Cannibals or Seal. I don’t tell you that to show off the artists I’ve seen in concert—it’s not like I mentioned the times I saw Stevie Wonder or George Michael or Annie Lennox IN CENTRAL PARK!!!—but rather to express to you that in New York the audiences were one, united in our love of the act we were seeing, except at Fine Young Cannibals, where we were two – those of us who danced during the show and the guy behind me, who told me that if I didn’t sit down he’d beat the crap out of me. Oh, and one of the times I saw Beastie Boys, two guys threw metal chairs at each other. Other than that, each show was a lovefest by New York City standards. After the shows, everyone was still abuzz as we got on the subway, smiling and singing and knowing that we were way cooler than anyone else on that train or any train. Los Angeles provides a different experience. You can’t take a train to the theater, unless you can; I’ve never investigated this and don’t intend to. You have to drive to the venue, give up the pretense that you’ll find street parking, and then park at the theater. Some of the larger venues, such as The Hollywood Bowl or The Greek Theater, have “stacked parking,” in which cars are arranged back-to-front, first in first out, in rows where vehicles block each other in. If the folks who arrived at the venue before you did lollygag after the show is over, you must lollygag as well. (“Lollygag me with a spoon” I thought of writing, but then thought better of it.) Waiting and waiting and waiting to move your car while everyone else has to wait and wait and wait is an excruciating experience, and I say that as someone who when getting a filling doesn’t take Novocain. Must I be held captive in a dark parking lot breathing in exhaust fumes just so I can see Cher sing “Believe” live? No. I don’t like Cher that much. 

###

If the city’s infrastructure seems designed to thwart you, its relationship with nature is even more baffling. In New York, rain is a nuisance. But you turn your collar up, you buy a $5 umbrella from a street vendor that will go inside out at the slightest breeze, and you get on with your life. In Los Angeles, rain is an EVENT. It’s the top story on our newscasts, where reporters, cosplaying as Anderson Cooper in war torn wherever, ask the poor downtrodden Angelenos what they did when the precipitation started. “I ran for shelter under this awning!” is the breathless response. Displaced, weary, resilient. Stay strong, Los Angeles!

I was at the office the first time I experienced rain in L.A. It was 1:30 in the afternoon. I noticed scattered raindrops hitting the window and turned back to my computer monitor. “Attention, everybody.” The president of our division got on a loudspeaker that echoed throughout the halls. “It’s starting to rain. You have the option to evacuate. Anyone who wishes to head out now may do so.” It was 1:32. The sprinkle had blossomed into a full-blown drizzle. My colleagues quickly packed items into their go bags—post-it notes, bottles of water, chocolates from that bowl in Kim’s office—and hit the road before the drizzle turned into a light rain and all bets were off. I sat at my desk, listening to the gentle pitter-patter on the window, and came to a stunning conclusion: L.A. is full of pussies.

###

In NY, the answer to your boredom is right outside your door, any day, any time. You step outside and look—a street fair! Look—David Byrne of Talking Heads! Look—one of the taxicab drivers involved in a verbal altercation opened his trunk and removed a baseball bat. I’m not bored. “Cut!” the great director in the sky must have shouted before said bat met skull, and that was alright. The city and I—and both cab drivers—were ALIVE. In LA, you have to get in your car, sit in forty minutes of traffic, arrive at the Arts District neighborhood that the Time Out website assured you was worth the drive, pay ten dollars to park, walk around, past all of the smoothie shops and thrift stores and breweries and bakeries and bail bondsmen to arrive at a shop that the donut review blog Eat My Hole noted as having the best donuts in LA, so you buy one Chocness Monster and one Glaze Anatomy and you eat them and they’re fine, just fine, and you think perhaps you should have ordered a The Filling Is Mutual donut but oh well and as you ponder the credibility of Eat My Hole, you’re downtown and want to get value for your parking expense and you continue strolling but you’re still bored. Where are the steel drum players, the tables of hand-crafted jewelry, the sausages on grills? Where are the road-raged cabbies? Ironic that in New York City one feels like they’re in a movie, while in the land of movies one feels like they’re in a play that as of yet only has a set design.

###

“How’s that sandwich?” The waitress with the strawberry blonde bouffant and Maraschino cherry red lipstick was back at my table. I stared at the sandwich. Then back at her. I had ordered a very basic tuna sandwich. Just rye bread, tuna, and a little mayo. It was meeting every expectation one could reasonably have for chopped fish and mayonnaise on rye. How would it be? One time in New York when I grabbed a dinner with my sister, she had a question for our waitress. “The sautéed oysters – how are they prepared?”, to which the waitress replied “They’re sautéed.” End of discussion.

###

Several years after I moved here I went to a park with a gay picnic group I found on Meetup called LGBTs With BLTs. We’d gather for lunch every couple of weeks at a different park. One didn’t have to have a BLT. I, for example, packed a tuna sandwich. A few bites into it, someone asked “How’s that sandwich?” LA, WTF? Another guy there asked me my age. “47,” I answered. “Really? Wow. I would have guessed 44.” THAT’S NOT A COMPLIMENT! The year before I moved to L.A. a cute guy on the street handed me a flier inviting me to the 20-something picnic. I was 39. That’s a compliment!

###

Two years after arriving in L.A., someone in “the biz” gifted me a ticket to a screening of a new Johnny Depp movie called The Libertine. All of my friends (i.e. Victor) were working, so I went solo. The man next to me on line was also by himself. I forced myself to start a conversation. “Do you know anything about this movie besides it starring Johnny Depp?” He said blah blah blah and I said yadda yadda yadda and our banter never dipped while we waited to be let in. When I took my seat, he followed me and asked if he could sit with me. “Of course!” I responded. We continued chatting. It was so easy. We stopped our discussion during the movie (which in retrospect was a mistake, as the movie, a poorly lit slog about a syphilitic playwright, was terrible). After the movie there was a Q&A session with Depp. I asked him what his dream role would be, and he answered he’d love to portray Carol Channing. (Still waiting for that.) We left the theater together (not me and Johnny, but me and the man I met on line). It turns out we parked in the same garage a block over, so we walked there together and continued our chit-chat. “I can picture Johnny Depp with a blonde shoulder-length bob.” “I hope Tim Burton directs that movie!” We arrived at my car first. I told him how great it was to meet him and suggested we hang out again. I asked him for his phone number. That’s when he Jesse Owens’d to his car one level up.

But still, I kept trying.

###

In New York I’d fed my love of writing at The New School, five blocks from my apartment. Every class I took there was nourishing, and whoever named the university “The New School” would have done well to audit any of them and learn how to be creative. (If the school was named after its founders, say Sherman and Mildred New, I apologize for my flip comment.) In Los Angeles, I found a writers group less than two miles from my home, and usually I made it there in under an hour. Not only was the workshop a place to exercise my creative muscles; it was where I might meet others for whom working out was a cerebral activity. The group was run by a native Angeleno named Nicole—cheery, around my age, dark hair down to her neck. Each session started with an exercise: Nicole would give us a prompt and for 20 to 30 minutes we’d write something based on that prompt. Then we’d share our prose with the group, who’d give feedback, the greatest praise being “that’s a typer-upper!” Often I’d hang out after workshop finished and Nicole and I would chat. Beyond the helpful feedback she gave me during the sessions, I enjoyed her company. She was smart, creative and unpretentious, plus we were both Prince fans, which in my book counts for a lot. During one of these discussions it came up that she loves to cook; my kitchen was primarily an adjunct record album storage shed. She offered to teach me, and a couple of times we got together at her place for cooking lessons. Then she and I made plans to get together to make dinner at my place one Saturday evening. I moved my records from the kitchen. I mopped. I scrubbed the countertops. I degreased the oven racks. Yes, I would have done that anyway. (No, I wouldn’t.) She didn’t show up. She called me a few hours later. “I’m so sorry! I fell asleep and just woke up. Shall we reschedule for tomorrow night?” As luck and my lack of a social life would have it, I was free that night as well. “It’s a date!” Sunday evening came, but Nicole didn’t. I called her to ask where she was, and she told me she thought the plans were off as I didn’t call to confirm. WE MADE THE PLANS LESS THAN 24 HOURS AGO! Why would I then need to confirm them? Here, does the phrase “See you tomorrow” come with an asterisk to a footnote that reads “Or maybe I won’t. Whatever.” Oh, no, no, Godot. Compare this to New York City, where nobody taught me how to cook—my kitchen was barely big enough to hold a dozen LPs—but you can make plans with someone nine months out and they’ll be at the appointed place at the appointed time, no confirmation needed.

###

Several times, a friend and I would make plans to hang out, but they’d soft cancel the plans. A soft cancel is when one party pulls out of plans without telling the other, as opposed to a hard cancel, which is what the world outside Los Angeles simply calls a cancel. With a soft cancel, you’re left waiting—at a restaurant, on your sofa, in your wedding dress—until the clock strikes half past they’re-not-coming. Later (the next day or in a couple of weeks or on Yom Kippur), the canceller explains that “something better came along.” I’ll admit there may exist things that are better than hanging out with me—cruising along the Pacific Coast Highway eating home-baked chocolate chip cookies and singing show tunes with Dolly Parton, or, um, hmmm. That’s the whole list, really. I was on the receiving end of a soft cancel from my “friend” Scott, who I met in Nicole’s writers group (not to be confused with my other friend Scott who has an outsized fascination with Kim Carnes). I had dinner plans with not-“Bette Davis Eyes”-loving Scott. When he didn’t show up at the designated time, I texted him to see if he was on his way. No reply. I waited another ten minutes, then called him. He answered the phone and quickly hung up without saying anything. The next day he called and explained to me that he got a new phone and couldn’t figure out how to work it. Look, I get it. Answering a phone is challenging. Don’t think you’re all that because when your phone rings you hit the green phone icon on your mobile device’s screen and speak. Not everybody is a member of MENSA like you are, smartypants. Oooh, look at Miss Thing! Able to answer a call like it’s nothing! What a genius! Give her a FIFA Phone Prize! For some, answering a phone is like trying to squeeze into your mouth simultaneously a tennis ball, a running lawnmower, and President McKinley. Scott (from the writers group, not the Scott one who knows that Kim Carnes had ten US top 40 singles besides “Bette Davis Eyes”) said he’d make it up to me by taking me out to dinner the coming Wednesday. And give him a tiara and a bouquet, for he showed up at The Flaming Skillet at the agreed upon time. When the bill came he suggested we split it. Give me back that tiara and bouquet. Asshole.

###

I met Stella when she attended an improv workshop I was part of. She was funny and gave off a no-nonsense energy that drew me in, so I introduced myself at the end of her first session. “I know you from somewhere” she said. “Did you live in New York?” “Yes,” I answered. “You were a standup comic, right?” “Yes again.” “I saw you perform! You had that hilarious routine about the song ‘Gloria’!” ‘Tis true. One of my routines was about how loud Laura Branigan sang her signature hit, how it’s not that there isn’t anybody calling; it’s that Gloria can’t hear the phone ringing over Laura Branigan’s singing. How ‘bout her remembering my routine from years prior and praising it!?! She also did standup, which I stopped performing a couple of years before I left NYC, just after the 9/11 attacks, when getting on stage to talk about Laura Branigan seemed inappropriate. Naturally, I took to her right away. And she’s a fellow New Yorker – hurrah! She won’t flake. She was based in L.A. now, in a house up a hill off Laurel Canyon. I visited a few times. The narrow winding streets gave me panic attacks, but that’s a sacrifice I’d gladly make to hang with a pal. I went to the theater and enjoyed her one-person show based on her life. The last time I saw her was at West Hollywood’s now-closed Big Gay Starbucks, when she said “I’ll call you this week and we’ll make plans.” The phone still hasn’t rung, or maybe I haven’t heard it over Laura Branigan’s singing.

###

I hate going to the doctor. It’s not that I’m afraid they’re going to look at my elbow and tell me I have inoperable brain cancer. It’s that 20+ years on in this town, I still have no idea who to enter as my emergency contact when filling out new patient forms, which is like being in one’s 40s and not knowing how to cook. My nominees for Best Emergency Contact (my sister, my stepmom, my friend Laura) all are 3000+ miles away. What good’ll they do me when the doctor calls with the brain cancer news? For now, I postpone important medical procedures, as the patient is required to have a ride to and from the hospital (not a rideshare or taxi or one’s self) and I’m not close enough with anyone to ask them to sacrifice like that for me. Whatever I have, maybe it’ll go away.

(I feel it’s important to note that Scott—the one who follows Kim Carnes and her son on Facebook—has been my chauffer to a couple of MRI’s, but I don’t want to take advantage of his kindness, plus relying solely on him makes it sound like I don’t have any other friends, which I do. Not.)

###

Early in my residence here I had a visitor from the east coast stay with me for a few days. He arrived by mail. Flat Stanley is a paper cutout who goes on adventures. My niece in the third grade wanted him to have a Hollywood experience. My role was to take Flat Stanley out for a day in the city, photographing all the fun things we did, and then send Flat Stanley and our photos back to my niece for a show-and-tell at class.

It was a beautiful day for a sightseeing adventure. The convertible top of my car was down. I took pictures of Stanley in the passenger seat with the seatbelt strapping him in. I finally made my first trip to Griffith Park and I held up my homeboy Stan with the HOLLYWOOD sign behind him. We went to the Chinese Theater where F-Stan put his hand in famous handprints and posed outside the theater with any number of Captain Jack Sparrows and Spongebob Squarepantses. Then I had to mail Stan My Man back to my seven-year-old niece. Is it weird to miss him? Can I just make another Flat Stanley and if anybody asks, I’ll say it’s for another niece? Am I a Stan stan? Am I pathetic?

###

Ten years after relocating to la la land, Warner laid me off. A subsequent consulting client cheated me out of tens of thousands of dollars; the CFO had decided we were friends—I’d spent considerable time with him, even driving him to urgent care once after a business dinner served him complications—and in his view, friends don’t stop working for other friends just because they haven’t been paid their contractually-due consulting fees for several months. Wrong ‘em, boyo. Book some time with Dionne Warwick, ’cause that’s not what friends are for. I found myself in therapy again—Therapist #13—telling him I wanted to live alone somewhere I wouldn’t have to see any others. People who cheat you, take advantage of you, are unkind, disrespectful, self-absorbed and inconsiderate. You know—people. “How would that help your feelings of isolation?” he asked. “It won’t,” I said, “but I already feel isolated, so I may as well be isolated.” It’s not that I’m misanthropic. Misanthropes hate humanity. I hate humans as individuals (except you, the one reading this. You’re the cat’s pajamas, the bee’s knees and the ferret’s suspenders. May I put you down as my emergency contact? Please?).

Why set myself up for more disappointment and rejection? Better to stay in with my dogs and my records and my books and my subscription to HBO Max (or whatever they’re calling themselves at the time this essay is published).

I knew the healthy thing to do was to keep trying. To put myself out there. Making friends is a numbers game. Studies show that even a couple of quality friendships measurably extend your life. Many more years of this.

I decided to be unhealthy. I don’t know if I need permission to quote from a movie and I’m too lazy to find out, so let me rephrase the words of Danny Glover as Sgt. Roger Murtaugh in Lethal Weapon: for this shit too old I’m getting.

Even if someone appears to make overtures for a friendship with me these days, I keep my distance, lest I be left standing all alone yet again.

###

In 1993, just before the release of her album Debut, Icelandic singer-songwriter Björk moved from lifelong hometown Reykjavik to London for work. The work was to put aside her deep shyness and introversion and see how life in a big city may affect her music. The result was the album Post, mostly written post her move to London and as a post to the folks back home, saying “This is how I’m doing.” Her work paid off. The record is so great I sense she found the city’s best donut emporium and treated herself to a Greenwich Cream Time.

The album opens with “Army of Me,” Björk telling someone (me) to stop their (my) bellyaching and set about fixing their (my) situation. You’re on your own. No one is going to save you. Self-sufficience, please. Björk is serving tough love. She’s the Coach Taylor to my Matt Saracen. (At the suggestion of my friend Laura I recently started watching the high school football-centered drama Friday Night Lights.) (I probably shouldn’t include 20-year-old TV references I have to explain.) Björk is my Therapist #14.

Following “Army of Me” is my favorite song on the album, “Hyper-ballad,” about a woman who wakes up early each day, walks to the cliff near her home, and throws off of it things she finds lying around—car parts, bottles, cutlery, sometimes imagining throwing herself off. It’s a perfect party starter, as evidenced by the song going to number one on the Dance chart. This woman’s life and relationship with her partner had lost their zing boom. She has to do something to exorcise her frustrations. In an interview, Björk, assuming the role I assigned her as Therapist #14 (or Coach Taylor, if you prefer out-of-date TV references), offers advice as to how to counter one’s malaise: “You wake up early in the morning and you sneak outside and you do something horrible and destructive, break whatever you can find, watch a horrible film, read a bit of William Burroughs, something really gross and come home and be like, ‘Hi honey, how are you?’” I don’t live near a cliff, so one afternoon while in a deep funk (not the good Chaka Khan kind) I did the most horrible and destructive and gross thing I could think of—I sat down for lunch at the California Pizza Kitchen in Westwood, where I was served something that in NY could only be found in a crafts store.

I sat there alone, rending the grease-saturated, limp slab of cardboard blanketed in laboratory-devised, coagulated pseudo-cheese fat, smothered under a sauce that leaned more toward solid than liquid, and topped with reddish-orange rubber discs that were neither pork-based nor beef-based but rather nuclear waste-based, and I wondered how I ended up here, here being my lonesome life, not CPK, but that, too. What am I doing wrong? I don’t want to have the CPK equivalent of a life. I thought about what Therapist #14 said: Don’t complain. Don’t feel sorry for yourself. What you need to do is set about fixing your situation. Get that negativity out of your system. But how?

###

Put a pin in that for the moment, for I don’t want to leave Post without mentioning three more of my favorite songs on it. There’s “Isobel,” whose titular character grew up alone in a forest and sends moths to the city’s inhabitants as a way to tell them to favor instinct over logic. Isobel/Björk doesn’t tell us how the insects convey this message, but I will—they use Moth Code. Get it? (I’m starting to see why I don’t have any friends.) Favor instinct over logic — four star advice from Therapist #14, unconventionally delivered via moth, as is her wont. Meetup groups, forced conversations with whoever is next to me on line, putting myself out there. Maybe I’ve been overthinking it, as is my wont. Maybe I should follow the moth.

In “I Miss You,” the narrator dreamed up exactly who their perfect companion will be and is sure they will meet them. “I’m so impatient / I can’t stand the wait,” she sings. Nor can I, Björk, but screw my perfect companion (I probably could have phrased that better); I’ll gladly settle for someone to hang out with, who shares some of my interests. The bar is not high. The bar is low. Very low. The bar is so low to the ground the world’s most supple limbo dancer can’t get under it. I continue to wait.

And there’s the album’s only cover song, “It’s Oh So Quiet,” which Smash Hits called “oh so brilliant,” “Bjönkers,“ and “a loonier-than-the-looniest-thing-ever-loonied choon.” A top five single in the UK, it is Björk’s biggest hit. The song opens as a calm, mellow, relaxed acceptance of being alone as a nice, peaceful state, until…until a full orchestra kicks in, Björk belts “You fall in love, zing boom,” soon to be followed by screams of delight. In the song’s video, we have a dancing metallic muffler man, dancing marble columns, and a dancing mailbox, ending with Björk levitating. It’s bjöyous. That’s where I want to live, if not geographically, at least emotionally.

###

One recent day, I turned down invites not received to stay in and delete files from my Google Drive, as Google informs me on the daily I’m reaching my storage limit and if I didn’t make some room I’d be alone forever and not get into heaven. (I’m paraphrasing.) I spent an inordinate amount of time asking Google’s chatbot, Gemini, how to delete from my Google Drive files shared with me by people with whom I am no longer in contact. Gemini kept giving me instructions, none of which worked, until eventually it threw up its virtual arms and sent me the message “You are out of points for today.” End of discussion. How am I supposed to learn how to make friends when even a non-human chatbot has Jesse Owens’d me?

###

Within the last year, both of my dogs passed away. I felt lonesome before; now I am truly alone. I didn’t realize just how much my dogs were my social life. Besides my weekly grocery shopping, I’ve barely left my home since the second one passed. I seldom talk to anybody, outside of a weekly Zoom call for work and a twice-monthly Zoom with my writers group. (This is not Nicole’s writers group, but rather one I‘ve been running since its previous host abandoned it.) Should I stay in L.A.?

I had been thinking I’ll move back east when my dogs pass, but when that came to be so, I was on the fence. I used to go back to Manhattan two or three times per year, but I haven’t been since 2018. On each trip I had one fewer friend left, until it was just Martin, who ignored my calls to get together.  (Martin is to friends what CPK is to pizza.) My favorite hangout spots–Bendix Diner, Tower Records, Mxyplyzyk–closed. (Mxyplyzyk is not something I typed while having a stroke connected to my hypothetical brain cancer, but was a home furnishings/gift shop filled with lots of cute, useful, overpriced this and that.) The Strand is still open, with its cellar filled with reviewer copies of books at half-price, though it filled me with anxiety on my most recent trip there, thanks to my fairly new fear of basements, an offshoot of my fairly new claustrophobia. You think my latest therapist (Therapist #15? 16? I’ve lost count.) wants to solely hear about my loneliness week in week out? I have plenty more sources of distress, agitation and ick with which to keep him entertained. Which brings me to…

New York City has cockroaches that are roughly the size of your average third grader and rats so huge that as they scurry along the subway tracks they’re often mistaken for the E train. And before you get all smug, City of Angels, I have seen, on my street, coyotes and bobcats. They’re not gross like cockroaches and rats, but they are topics of conversation with Therapist #17. That’s the trade-off. Cockroaches and rats vs. coyotes and bobcats. Terrorist attacks and blizzards vs. fires and earthquakes. Friends having moved vs. flakes and soft cancellers. You say “So, you’ll go back to your beloved New York and make new friends.” Have you been paying attention? I am to making friends what Diane Warren is to the Academy Award for Best Original Song. (See, she’s been nominated for that award 17 times yet she’s never won.) (It loses something when I have to explain an analogy.) (Still, though, 17 nominations and no wins! Ouch!) (Anyway….)

I already had a friend in L.A. when I moved here. Victor. Remember Victor? We made plans to get together one New Year’s Eve. He had suggested an outdoor dance party, but when December 31 rolled around it was cold and raining. I left Victor a voicemail suggesting we find another place to celebrate. I didn’t hear back from him until 11:30 PM. He called from the field where the party was to tell me he’s there. I crossed him off my friends list and went to bed.

I look at my attempts to make friends in L.A. They blow me off. They run from me. They soft cancel our plans. They want to ring in the new year with a case of pneumonia.

But there are two constants in my failed friendships: L.A., and me. Am I using L.A. as an excuse when the problem is me? That possibility is why I‘m skeptical about making new friends in New York. That’s why I brought up the Diane Warren analogy, though I’m loathe to mention her again as my intuition tells me you’re still unsettled that I referenced her in the first place. I don’t want you to Jesse Owens me when I’m so close to wrapping up this essay, plus I’m still in need of an emergency contact.

###

After sharing an essay in her workshop, Nicole told me it was great until the end. I didn’t resolve the conflict I set up in the story. That’s because there was no resolution. Not every story has one. And here I sit.

###

I read about an exhibition of the work of artist Shepard Fairey at a gallery not too far from where I live. I hadn’t gone to a museum or gallery since before the pandemic, specifically some 14 years before the pandemic, when I was visiting Australia. Initially I thought of attending alone, but then I figure I’d invite someone to join me. I’m going anyway, so if they blow me off, it’ll hurt but not so much as I expect it to happen because L.A. Mainly I’m going to dig the art. I reached out to Ronnie in my writers group. She said yes.

The temperature on that January day was 68 degrees. I elected to walk the two miles to get there. The sidewalks, as usual, were not crowded. Traffic on the street was pretty light. I heard no honking, but then again, I was wearing my noise-canceling headphones with my iPod Shuffle, blasting my ears with  Gladys Knight & The Pips, Joan Jett, Young MC, and “Texas Has a Whorehouse In It” from the Broadway cast album of Annie The Best Little Whorehouse In Texas. The sky was blue, there was no wind, and, thankfully, I didn’t cross paths with coyotes or bobcats. There was the fear Ronnie wouldn’t show up, not because of Ronnie being Ronnie. She’s great. I trusted her. But then again, I trusted Nicole. And Stella, And Scott (the Scott who finds answering the telephone to be a challenge on a par with scaling Mount Everest without the use of boots, ropes or arms, as opposed to the always reliable other Scott, the one who knows that Kim Carnes’ nine-week run at #1 with “Bette Davis Eyes” was interrupted for one week by Stars On 45). Ronnie showed up. A little late, but not half past she’s-not-coming. The art was powerful and inspiring. Afterwards we walked a few blocks and found a café where we hung out and chatted as I nibbled on a very tasty chocolate chip cookie, which I washed down with a hot cocoa. (It was winter.) It was an enjoyable afternoon. Not zing boom, but the limbo stick has been raised.

I’d worn one of my many impressive pairs of sneakers, which were designed more for attention and admiration than for walking two miles, so Ronnie and I shared an Uber to our respective homes. Our driver attempted conversation, awkwardly. I know that feeling. When with someone more socially inept than I, I feel the need to put them at ease, and so I engaged our driver in a one-way conversation on the subject of Jermaine Jackson. This was not the first time I discussed Jermaine Jackson with an Uber driver; it also happened on the way home from a drag show with Scott (you know which Scott). For the record, both drivers were fascinated.

I renewed my lease for another year.

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Tunes Du Jour Presents 1977

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If you had to pick a single year that captured popular music at its most creatively overstuffed, 1977 would be a strong candidate. Rock was arena-sized and expensive. Disco was inescapable and, for a certain crowd, irresistible. Punk was arriving like a kicked-in door. And somewhere in between, artists were quietly making records that didn’t fit neatly into any of those categories. The year produced an almost absurd concentration of songs that people still know by heart, not because nostalgia has been kind to them, but because many of them are genuinely excellent pieces of music.

The rock side of ’77 was dominated by songs that have since become impossible to avoid. Eagles’ “Hotel California,” Fleetwood Mac’s “Dreams,” and Bob Seger’s “Night Moves” all came from the same general tradition of polished, emotionally direct rock songwriting, the kind that prioritized feel and production in equal measure. Aerosmith’s “Walk This Way” sat a little rougher and looser, and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s “Blinded by the Light” was genuinely strange radio fare — a Springsteen cover that became more famous than the original largely on the strength of its own eccentric energy. Meanwhile, David Bowie’s “Sound and Vision” and Peter Gabriel’s “Solsbury Hill” pointed toward something more interior and experimental, both artists having recently untethered themselves from previous identities and clearly enjoying the freedom.

Disco in 1977 wasn’t a single sound so much as a spectrum. At one end, you had Donna Summer’s extraordinary “I Feel Love,” which Giorgio Moroder produced using almost entirely synthesized instrumentation — Brian Eno reportedly told David Bowie it had just changed the future of music, and he wasn’t wrong. Further down the dial were Thelma Houston’s “Don’t Leave Me This Way,” Marvin Gaye’s loose, joyful “Got to Give It Up,” Heatwave’s “Boogie Nights,” and KC and the Sunshine Band’s “I’m Your Boogie Man,” songs that prioritized the floor over the headphones and delivered accordingly. And then there was the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack, which arrived in late 1977 and would go on to become, for a time, the best-selling album ever released. It’s remembered as a disco landmark, but its lead single was the Bee Gees’ “How Deep Is Your Love” — a warm, unhurried ballad which doesn’t really fit the disco label. That the song was swept up into the disco phenomenon anyway says something about how powerful that cultural moment was: it absorbed everything in its vicinity, regardless of what the artists themselves thought they were making.

Punk was having none of it. The Sex Pistols’ “God Save the Queen” was banned by the BBC and still reached the top of the charts, which tells you something about both the song’s impact and the limits of official gatekeeping. Ramones’ “Sheena Is a Punk Rocker” was faster and more fun, but no less pointed. Television’s “Marquee Moon” and Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives” had a punk rock spirit that suggested the genre’s real legacy might not be volume or outrage but a renewed interest in wit and directness — a correction to the perceived excesses of the rock mainstream those same artists were reacting against. These records don’t sound like novelties now. They sound like a genuine argument about what music should be doing.

What’s striking, looking at a year’s worth of this material together, is how little any of these artists seemed to be aware of, or interested in, what the others were doing. “Somebody to Love” by Queen and “Sir Duke” by Stevie Wonder share roughly the same calendar year but almost nothing else. “Solsbury Hill” and “Float On” exist in completely separate universes. That independence — each act pursuing its own idea of what a good record sounded like — might be exactly why so much of this music has held up. Nobody was chasing a trend that would have dated them. They were mostly just making the best version of the thing they already knew how to do, and 1977 happened to catch a lot of them doing it very well.

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Tunes Du Jour Presents 1995

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If you were paying attention to music in 1995, you probably noticed something a little odd: the word “alternative” had started to mean almost nothing, because it had come to mean almost everything. A year earlier, the death of Kurt Cobain had cast a long shadow over rock music, but rather than stalling out, the genre fractured and expanded in every direction. Weezer were writing nerdy, hook-driven power pop. Foo Fighters were delivering straightforward hard rock. Hole were confrontational and raw. Radiohead were drifting somewhere cerebral and unsettling. Garbage were threading industrial textures through pop songwriting. Veruca Salt and Elastica were sharp and guitar-driven in entirely different ways. What united all of them under one label was more a matter of attitude and distribution than any shared sound. “Alternative” had become a marketing category, and in becoming one, it quietly swallowed whole.

Across the Atlantic, British music was having one of its more confident years. In their home country the year prior, Oasis released “Live Forever” and soon carried themselves like they were already the biggest band in the world — and for a stretch, they weren’t wrong. Blur’s “Country House” was cheeky and sardonic, all music-hall bounce and art-school wink. Pulp’s “Disco 2000” was Jarvis Cocker doing what he did best: writing working-class character studies with a disco pulse underneath. Supergrass and Elastica added urgency and speed. But the British presence in 1995 wasn’t limited to guitar bands — Take That had “Back for Good,” one of the cleaner pop songs of the decade, and it charted everywhere. The UK wasn’t just making noise in rock circles; it was competitive across the board.

The year also belonged, in large part, to women making unambiguous statements. Alanis Morissette’s “You Oughta Know” arrived like something had finally been let out of a locked room — angry, specific, and entirely unconcerned with being likable. PJ Harvey’s “Down by the Water” was quieter but no less unsettling. Björk’s “Army of Me” was a kind of mechanical ultimatum. Des’ree brought warmth and self-possession to “You Gotta Be.” TLC’s “Waterfalls” managed to be simultaneously a pop smash and a genuine cautionary narrative, delivered with enough grace that the message landed without feeling like a lecture. These weren’t novelty moments. They were artists working at full capacity.

Hip-hop and R&B in 1995 were doing something interesting: they were crossing lanes in ways that felt natural rather than forced. Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” borrowed from Stevie Wonder and landed on a movie soundtrack, but it had weight that outlasted its context. Method Man and Mary J. Blige turned “I’ll Be There for You/You’re All I Need to Get By” into something genuinely tender. Skee-Lo’s “I Wish” was lighter — a little self-deprecating, a little funny — and it stuck anyway.

Meanwhile, Massive Attack’s “Protection” and Portishead’s “Sour Times” were doing something that didn’t fit neatly into any existing box: slow, cinematic, built more from mood than momentum. Trip-hop was the year’s most quietly influential genre, even if most listeners didn’t have a name for it yet.

Some of the year’s most lasting moments came from artists who resisted easy categorization entirely. Nick Cave and Kylie Minogue recorded “Where the Wild Roses Grow” — a murder ballad duet that shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but did. Jeff Buckley’s “Last Goodbye” was enormous in its emotion without ever tipping into melodrama. McAlmont & Butler made “Yes” feel like a genuine declaration. Pearl Jam’s “Better Man” was a quiet story song buried in an album, yet it became one of their most-loved tracks. In 1995, the mainstream was wide enough to hold all of this at once — the bratty and the mournful, the danceable and the difficult. That’s not always true of a given year in pop music, and it’s worth noticing when it is.

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#69: Dusty Springfield – Dusty In Memphis

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Throughout the next however many months I’ll be counting down my 100 favorite albums, because why not. I’m up to number sixty-nine.

The song “(You’re) Having My Baby” ruined my life.

I know. Yours, too.

It happened in 1974. Ol’ Betsy, my family’s blue station wagon with the imitation-wood paneling stickers, was still in the driveway when I asked my father to turn on “Musicradio 77 – WABC.” A song came on that I particularly liked. Maybe it was “Billy Don’t Be A Hero” or “Band on the Run” or “Rock the Boat” or the song that resonated deeply with every boy my age—“(You’re) Having My Baby.” What a lovely way for my spirits to be lifted. It’s as if that song’s writer/singer, Paul Anka, had been reading my diary. Whichever song it was, I did what any joyful ten-year-old would do: I started to sing along.

My brother, one year my senior, cut me off instantly, saying something along the lines of, “Shut up and stop torturing us.” My father chimed in with something equally dismissive, and my mom echoed the sentiment. They all had a good chuckle.

Some context: music was everything to me. My grandpa had gifted me a transistor radio a few months earlier, and I’d become obsessed. I lived for the Top 40. I listened to Casey Kasem run the countdown every Sunday, loving each and every song he played without judgment, until that dark day in November when “Cats in the Cradle” made its debut. As a kid, I couldn’t relate to this song about parental absence and regret. Five-plus decades later, I completely understand the song’s sentiments, and have a host of other reasons to still hate it.

In 1974 I bought every issue of Song Hits magazine so I could get the lyrics right. (Wait, it’s not “Waterloo / I had my feet there upon the wall?” The opening lines of Three Dog Night’s “The Show Must Go On” aren’t “Beat it! Oh, Lou, I chose this blue life a seena strang mahna mahna?”) It was super important that I knew all the words. I was, in my own head, a burgeoning musical sensation. And why not? Michael Jackson and Donny Osmond were around the same age I was then when they started their recording careers. Between them they had all bases covered. MJ, with his emotive singing, electrifying dancing, boundless charisma, and otherworldly talent. Donny, with his nice teeth. Don’t think that I’m underselling Donny. He had SPECTACULAR teeth.

Maybe I didn’t sing as well as Michael Jackson or Paul Anka, but I thought I sang as well as any other kid in Mrs. Mazze’s music class, and it was an activity that made me happy. Or used to.

I shut up.

For good.

At least in the car. At least around them.

The lessons I learned that day in 1974:

  • Don’t poke the bear.
  • Don’t make waves.
  • Don’t stick your neck out.
  • Better safe than sorry.
  • Don’t put yourself out there, and no one can tell you you’re not good enough.
  • By not trying, you avoid the sting of failure.
  • Be quiet. Be small.
  • Invisible is safe.

Dinner time at the O’Brien home in 1940s London could be dangerous. It wasn’t unknown for Mrs. O’Brien—an alcoholic former dancer—to throw food, often while still in its serving dish. Mr. O’Brien, a frustrated would-be pianist with a violent temper, was said to call his daughter Mary names and sometimes hit her. She stayed quiet, lest she poked the bear.

In that house, music was an escape for Mary and her brother, Dionysius. Both enjoyed singing. Mary was, in her own head, a burgeoning musical sensation.

At her Catholic all-girls’ school, the nuns looked at the shy, awkward girl and predicted she’d likely make a living as a librarian. Mary had convinced herself they were right; she was boring, unattractive, and meant for a plain, quiet life. She was a girl waiting for permission to exist.

I didn’t stop singing entirely. I performed in my arts & music summer camp’s talent shows, guitar in hand. I auditioned for school and camp musicals, peaking in twelfth grade when I played Motel in Fiddler on the Roof to the genuine applause of my classmates, many of whom had never heard me open my mouth. After I got my driver’s license I sang in the car— alone, windows up, and never at stoplights where someone might glance over and catch me belting out the theme from The Greatest American Hero, thus opening me up to ridicule. Believe it or not, I still harbored a fear of being judged. I had elaborate fantasies of road trips with dates—not that I went on dates in high school—where we’d duet on “You’re the One That I Want” or “Stumblin’ In” or “Mockingbird,” singing loud enough for the back row at Carnegie Hall to hear us. Once, with an actual human present—my friend Ed, senior year of high school—I held the crazy long note at the two-thirds of the way in mark of Barbra Streisand’s “Woman in Love”—girl, you know the one:

I stumble and fall

but I give you it aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllllll

—just to prove I could.

Through my childhood and teen years, music remained my passion. Performing in school shows and summer camp was fun, but making a career out of performing? That felt too exposed, too risky. What if my family was right? What if the applause was just people being nice? What if nobody actually wanted to hear me? Better to choose safety over the chance of hearing “shut up and stop torturing us” on a larger scale. I decided to pursue the business side of music instead. After college, I landed a job at CBS Records in the Accounts Receivable department. I was over the moon. I relayed the exciting news to my mom. Her response? “I guess you could do that while you keep looking.” Eighteen years later, when I was named Vice President at Warner Music, I told her that news, proud of how far I’d come. Her response: “I guess this really is your career.”

The nuns wouldn’t have recognized the woman who eventually stepped onto the stage. She wore a blonde beehive and ample mascara inspired by the drag queens she loved. No spectacles sat on her nose. And she no longer called herself Mary. Her new first name came from the nickname kids gave her because she liked playing football in the dirt. Her brother, who performed with Mary in a folk-pop trio, came up with a new last name for the two of them. He wanted a name that would resonate with American audiences, and noticed a lot of towns and cities in the U.S. had the same name. And thus, shy Mary Isobel Catherine Bernadette O’Brien became Dusty Springfield.

In the early 1960s, The Springfields scored several UK hits and cracked the US top twenty with “Silver Threads and Golden Needles.”

In 1964 Dusty launched a solo career built on her obsession with American pop and soul and Motown. She had a solo smash right out of the gate with “I Only Want to Be with You,” which is going to be my wedding song should I ever get someone to propose to me—still wishin’ and hopin’. Speaking of, that first chartbuster was followed by a run of hits on either or both sides of the Atlantic, including “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself,” and “The Look of Love.” She didn’t just sing these songs; she controlled the sessions, including selecting material, shaping arrangements, and re-recording her vocals dozens of times until every note was exactly right, often refusing production credit even though she’d directed the entire vision.

Her obsession with American soul music went deeper than sound. She was a white British woman who became a “soul evangelist.” In early 1960s Britain, soul music was largely confined to underground clubs and dance halls. In 1965, Dusty hosted The Sound of Motown, a British TV special that gave The Supremes, Stevie Wonder, The Miracles, and The Temptations their first UK television appearances, introducing them to a national audience that had never seen them before. The special helped launch Motown’s success in Britain. In addition, she demanded it be written into her contract that she would only perform for integrated audiences. When she was told she had to play a segregated venue in South Africa, she famously told the New Musical Express she’d be “on the first flight home”—and she was, deported with a police escort.

To those watching her, she was fearless. But internally, she was still that girl dodging food.

I’m making a career pivot. I still love music, but I’m over the “business.” I am done with the egos, the politics, the greed, and the manufactured “next big things” with nothing real to offer. Mostly, I’m tired of answering to “the man.” I’ve decided I’d much rather answer to myself.

I’m pursuing corporate speaking. Yes, really. Me, Mr. “Invisible is safe,” now wants to stand on stages and talk to rooms full of people. Surely there are less terrifying career pivots, like skydiving or defusing bombs. At least with those, if you screw up, you don’t have to face anyone afterward. I want to do work that matters. At the same time, I want to keep my limbs so I can dance at my wedding. Still wishin’ and hopin’. Corporate speaking is the choice lets me do both: work that might actually make the world a little better, and Macarena.

Public speaking is not completely new to me. I’ve spoken at conferences and presented at company-wide meetings for years, putting an emphasis on being entertaining and relatable over PowerPoint slides and dry data. For example, as be a fun way to showcase projects my departments were working on, I wrote a parody video of the television show The Office, starring my staff and me. The majority of the company loved it.

There was one notable exception. The day after the video was shown at a company-wide forum, our head of Human Resources summoned me to her office to discuss some of the more “inappropriate” humor in the script, specifically, jokes connected to diversity. The irony: I managed the most diverse departments in our division (and, not coincidentally, the most successful). The rest of the division was whiter and straighter than Donny Osmond’s teeth. Apparently pointing that out was a problem.

That same day my colleague Lauren stopped me as I was walking down the hall. “Here,” she said, handing me a DVD. “I made a copy of your video to show Dwayne. He loved it. He thinks you’re hilarious.” Dwayne was her boyfriend, now husband. Dwayne Johnson. The Rock.

You’d think a thumbs-up from the biggest movie star on the planet would matter more than Ruth from HR’s disapproval. But The Rock didn’t offer me a job; Ruth could actually cause my career harm.

Being at Warner Music felt safe. When I spoke with artist managers or foreign affiliates or potential clients, I was representing the company, advocating for artists and catalog, delivering business strategies.

This new path is different. I’m not representing a label or a brand. I’m not representing anyone but myself. And for someone who spent forty years trying to ensure everyone liked the “corporate” version of him, standing on a stage with no company behind me is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever done.

My speaking topics, drawn directly from my work experience, are diversity and inclusion. To help market myself as a speaker on these subjects, I’ve written a book that uses stories about artists and songs and draws on examples from my four decades in the music business to show that innovation happens and productivity increases when organizations make space for people who don’t fit a set mold. I strongly believe that diversity isn’t just a moral imperative; it’s a competitive advantage.

The book, Make Diversity A Hit!: What My 30+ Years Of Negotiating 10k+ Deals For Music’s Biggest Artists Can Teach You About How Diversity Can Grow Your Business, took me five years to write. Five years of reading scores of articles and books about diversity and inclusion. Five years of writing and rewriting, proofreading and polishing, telling that voice in my head to be quiet so I could just finish the damn thing. Five years.

And then, hurrah! It was finished. Ready to be published. Ready to change lives. Ready to launch my speaking career.

That was in 2019.

I told myself not to rush into things. It was important I do this right. I had to learn how to self-publish. And as the book is meant to be a calling card for speaking, I had to prepare for that, too. And so, during these last six-plus years, I’ve been preparing. I read books about self-publishing. And books about speaking. And books about marketing books with the goal of speaking. I attended webinars and seminars and symposiums and conferences. I went to forums and panel discussions and roundtables. I listened to podcasts and audiobooks. I watched TED talks and YouTube tutorials and masterclasses. I took courses on personal branding, thought leadership, and teaching through storytelling. I learned about SEO optimization, social media strategy, and the algorithm. I joined LinkedIn groups and never posted or read what was posted because I hate LinkedIn. I joined Facebook groups and never posted or read what was posted because I hate Facebook. I bookmarked articles about overcoming impostor syndrome—141 of them. I traveled to Las Vegas to attend masterminds where I brainstormed with other speakers/writers, many of whom have magically published more than one book in that time and are now considered experts on their chosen subjects. I became an expert in preparing to plan to start getting ready.

A therapist may say I have anxiety stemming from perfectionism. But is perfectionism demanding of oneself an extremely high level of performance, in excess of what is required by the situation? I would say no, while the American Psychological Association Dictionary of Psychology says yes. Who are you going to believe—the combined wisdom of every licensed psychologist in America or the guy who still kicks himself because he doesn’t know the lyrics to Three Dog Night’s “The Show Must Go On”?

The truth is, I’m terrified to put it (me) out there.

At Toastmasters I won so many Best Speaker ribbons that one year the club president stopped giving them out. He thought it wasn’t fair to everyone else. I didn’t care about the ribbons. I was competing with myself, trying to convince that ten-year-old in the back of the station wagon that it’s okay to live out loud. To experiment. There was nothing of consequence at stake. It was safe to fail.

But now? Now I’m trying to make this a career. Now there’s something at stake. I look at other speakers—the ones with the PhDs and the massive platforms—and I feel like a fraud with a handful of blue ribbons. Okay, a boatload of blue ribbons. With just the thought of actually booking an engagement, I am instantly ten years old again, terrified that if I step out there, the world will echo my family and tell me to be quiet. What if I deliver a speech that isn’t well-received? And someone posts about my debacle? And that post gets shared? And every hiring manager in America knows I’m the guy who bombed on stage?  What if this one speech ruins any chance I have at this career?  That would prove the lesson I learned in 1974 was correct: By not trying, you avoid the sting of failure. Invisible is safe.

In 1968, Dusty Springfield went to Memphis to record with session musicians behind some of the soul records she revered. She walked into American Sound Studio. The rhythm tracks had already been recorded. Now it was her turn. She stood at the microphone in the same vocal booth where her heroes had stood.

She froze. A therapist may say she had anxiety stemming from perfectionism. She would have called it fear.

 “I hated it,” she later said, “because I couldn’t be Aretha Franklin. If only people like [record producer] Jerry Wexler could realize what a deflating thing it is to say ‘Otis Redding stood there’ or ‘That’s where Aretha sang.’ Whatever you do, it’s not going to be good enough.”

Eventually, she left. Wexler would later claim he “never got a note out of her” in Memphis.

The vocals would have to be recorded somewhere else. Somewhere she could relax. Somewhere peaceful. Somewhere quiet. Somewhere unintimidating. New York City, obviously. Away from the weight of that Memphis studio, she found her voice. Which means Dusty didn’t actually record Dusty In Memphis in Memphis, making it the most blatant case of a fraudulent album title since The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds.

The songwriters on Dusty in Memphis were a “Who’s Who” of pop music greatness—Carole King and Gerry Goffin, Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil, Burt Bacharach and Hal David, Marilyn and Alan Bergman with Michel Legrand, and a rising star named Randy Newman.

But the song that became the album’s hit single was written by the lesser known team of John Hurley and Ronnie Wilkins. They intended it for Aretha Franklin to sing, but the Queen of Soul, famously the daughter of a preacher man, passed on singing how the only man who could ever love her was the son of a preacher man.

Dusty took “Son of a Preacher Man” and made it a global Top 10 smash. (Seeing its success, Ms. Franklin did end up recording her own version.)

Despite the popularity of the single, the album Dusty In Memphis was a commercial “meh,” missing the British and American top 40. It would be just shy of 20 years before she again achieved the commercial height of “Son of a Preacher Man,” when Pet Shop Boys, over the objections of their record label, who preferred they record with Tina Turner or Barbra Streisand, recruited Dusty for their song “What Have I Done To Deserve This?”

That single went to #2 on both sides of the Atlantic. She was back. Critics dusted off their copies of Dusty in Memphis and realized they were holding a masterpiece. Soon it was included in many Best Albums Of All Time lists. Elvis Costello called it a record “that will chill and thrill, always and forever,” adding “Dusty Springfield’s singing on this album is among the very best ever put on record by anyone.”  Then came 1994 and Quentin Tarantino. The writer/director put “Son of a Preacher Man” in Pulp Fiction. The soundtrack sold over three million copies in the U.S. alone; more people owned that album than had ever owned a Dusty Springfield record.

On March 2, 1999, the day she was scheduled to receive an award at Buckingham Palace as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire for “services to popular music,” breast cancer took Dusty Springfield’s life. Two weeks later, she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, where Elton John called her “the greatest white singer there has ever been.”

Where Mary O’Brien was terrified of saying the wrong thing, Dusty made herself heard. She’d fought for integrated audiences and came out publicly as bisexual in 1970, a time when the number of openly LGBTQ pop stars could be counted on one fist.

Mary O’Brien spent her childhood being quiet to stay safe. But with a beehive and a little mascara (okay, a lot of mascara), she transformed herself into Dusty Springfield and made herself heard.

I don’t sport a beehive, nor do I wear mascara (that one night in college notwithstanding). I never found my superhero uniform, the one that would make me invincible. Instead, I spent years being invisible, thinking silence was safety. It wasn’t safety; it was erasure. I succeeded in the corporate music world because I was confident I could. I won ribbons at Toastmasters because the stakes were low enough for me to feel comfortable to experiment. The truth is I only tried things where I already believed I could succeed. I avoided anything that might give the world a reason to criticize me. Fear of failure didn’t stop me from achieving; it stopped me from risking. And spending my life avoiding the risk of failure is still a kind of failure—the failure to find out who I might have been without the fear.

I recently came across an interview with Fiona Apple, an artist I adore, worship, admire and worship, not in a creepy way. In 2020, another Apple admirer, Bob Dylan, invited her to the studio to play piano on a song he was recording. Even with all her acclaim and years of experience, she was terrified, convinced she’d mess up the work of a legend. She told Dylan of her trepidation. His response: “You’re not here to be perfect, you’re here to be you.”

After spending many hours thinking about that, I realized that I had been auditioning for a role that doesn’t exist. “Perfect Glenn.” He never messes up, because he never actually participates.

Dusty Springfield managed to finish making Dusty In Memphis, and it became a masterpiece—not because she stopped being afraid, but because she sang through the fear. I’m done waiting for proof that outweighs my doubt. My book has been gestating for twelve years, and now I’m having my baby. I’m putting the book out. I’m seeking the gigs.

Maybe my work will be as great as Dusty in Memphis. Maybe it won’t. Either way, I’m turning the radio up. My voice deserves to be heard.

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Tunes Du Jour Presents 1973

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If you were flipping through radio stations in 1973, you might have been forgiven for wondering whether you’d accidentally landed on multiple stations at once. In a single week, you could hear Stevie Wonder’s “Superstition” — all nervous funk and clavinet — followed immediately by Tony Orlando & Dawn tying a yellow ribbon around an oak tree. That wasn’t a coincidence or a quirk of programming. It was just what 1973 sounded like: a year when pop music was genuinely pulling in several directions at the same time, and somehow holding together anyway.

Soul and R&B were operating at an extraordinary level. Marvin Gaye’s “Let’s Get It On,” Gladys Knight’s “Midnight Train to Georgia,” the O’Jays’ “Love Train,” and the Spinners’ “Could It Be I’m Falling In Love” all landed that year, each with its own emotional weight and personality. Curtis Mayfield’s “Superfly” brought something sharper and more cinematic to the mix, while Ann Peebles’ “I Can’t Stand the Rain” — still somewhat underappreciated in the wider cultural memory — was as raw and soulful as anything released that decade. Eddie Kendricks, fresh off his Temptations run, went solo with “Keep On Truckin’,” and it clicked immediately. The breadth of what Black artists were producing in this single calendar year is genuinely remarkable.

Rock was doing its own sprawling thing. The Rolling Stones released “Angie,” one of their more restrained and melancholy singles. Elton John’s “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road” was the title track of a double album that showed he could sustain a full artistic statement across four sides of vinyl, not just deliver three minutes at a time. Pink Floyd’s “Money” brought an odd-time signature to FM radio in a way that probably shouldn’t have worked as well as it did. And then there were the louder contingents: Deep Purple’s “Smoke on the Water” became one of the most-played riffs in guitar shop history, Grand Funk Railroad declared themselves an American band, and Slade and Sweet were doing glam rock with considerably more volume than glamour. Meanwhile, Iggy & the Stooges released “Search and Destroy” — which most of 1973’s radio audience largely ignored, though history would eventually course-correct on that.

The year also captured several artists at particularly interesting transitional moments. David Bowie’s “Space Oddity,” originally released in 1969, finally broke through in the US in 1973, reaching American audiences who were now ready for its strange, detached storytelling. Lou Reed’s “Walk on the Wild Side” had no business being as widely played as it was, given its subject matter, but here we are. Bob Dylan contributed “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” via his Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid soundtrack — unassuming and brief, but immediately recognizable as something that would last. T. Rex’s “20th Century Boy” and George Harrison’s “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth)” filled out a year that seemed to have room for almost anything, provided it had a decent hook.

What holds up most clearly, looking back at 1973’s output, is that the music wasn’t being made according to any unified cultural script. Some of it was deliberately commercial; some of it was confrontational; some of it was deeply personal. Carly Simon’s “You’re So Vain,” Roberta Flack’s “Killing Me Softly With His Song,” and Paul Simon’s “Loves Me Like a Rock” feel like they come from entirely different worlds, yet they all landed in the same twelve-month window. Ringo Starr had a hit with “Photograph.” The Allman Brothers were rambling. Cher was charting with “Half-Breed.” By any measure, 1973 was a disorganized, contradictory, frequently excellent year for popular music — and that’s precisely what makes it worth revisiting.

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Tunes Du Jour Celebrates Presidents’ Day

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From folk protest to funk, punk rock to hip-hop, this eclectic Presidents’ Day playlist spans decades of American political commentary through the lens of popular music. Not every commander-in-chief makes an appearance—some presidencies inspired little musical response, while others (particularly Kennedy, Reagan, and George W. Bush) sparked entire catalogs of artistic reaction. The collection moves chronologically through the office holders, though the songs themselves range from contemporary responses to retrospective reflections, capturing how each president’s legacy resonated with musicians of different eras and genres. Whether celebratory, satirical, or scathing, these tracks remind us that popular music has always served as a vital form of political discourse, holding power accountable and giving voice to the frustrations, hopes, and criticisms of the American people.

James K. Polk – They Might Be Giants
An infectiously catchy history lesson that chronicles Polk’s ambitious single-term presidency and his campaign promises to expand American territory.

Abie Baby – Hair Original Cast
This number from the groundbreaking musical Hair celebrates Abraham Lincoln’s legacy of emancipation with psychedelic 1960s exuberance.

Louisiana 1927 – Randy Newman
Newman’s haunting ballad captures the devastating Mississippi River flood during Calvin Coolidge’s administration and the government’s inadequate response.

We’d Like To Thank You Herbert Hoover – Annie Original Broadway Cast
A Depression-era shantytown chorus sarcastically thanks Hoover for the economic catastrophe that left Americans destitute and homeless.

Harry Truman – Chicago
This gentle rock ballad uses Truman as a symbol of simpler times and American authenticity before the cynicism of later decades.

Eisenhower Blues – The Costello Show Feat. The Attractions & Confederates
Costello’s cheeky cover plays with 1950s nostalgia while questioning the era’s conformity and Cold War anxieties.

Murder Most Foul – Bob Dylan
Dylan’s seventeen-minute meditation on the Kennedy assassination weaves together American mythology, cultural memory, and the loss of innocence.

President Kennedy – Eddie Izzard
The British comedian takes on the misunderstanding that President Kennedy declared himself to be a doughnut.

The Day John Kennedy Died – Lou Reed
Reed’s stark, melancholic reflection places Kennedy’s death in the context of personal memory and national trauma.

Lyndon Johnson Told The Nation – Tom Paxton
Paxton’s folk protest song sardonically captures LBJ’s escalation of the Vietnam War and the duplicity of official statements.

You Haven’t Done Nothin’ – Stevie Wonder
Wonder’s funky, cutting critique of Nixon’s broken promises and political corruption became an anthem of Watergate-era disillusionment.

Impeach the President – Honey Drippers
This funk instrumental’s famous drum break refers to Nixon, though it’s become better known as one of hip-hop’s most sampled beats.

Funky President (People It’s Bad) – James Brown
The Godfather of Soul delivers hard-hitting social commentary on economic hardship during the Ford administration.

(We Don’t Need This) Fascist Groove Thang – Heaven 17
British synth-pop warriors take aim at Reagan’s cowboy diplomacy and the early 1980s conservative political climate.

Ronnie, Talk to Russia – Prince
Prince’s Cold War plea urges Reagan to pursue diplomacy and nuclear disarmament before it’s too late.

Bonzo Goes to Bitburg – Ramones
The punk legends blast Reagan’s controversial visit to a German cemetery containing SS graves, delivered with their signature three-chord fury.

Old Mother Reagan – Violent Femmes
The Femmes’ acoustic punk assault critiques Reagan’s policies with youthful anger and folk-punk energy.

Reagan – Killer Mike
The Atlanta rapper delivers a scathing indictment of Reagan’s policies on race, drugs, and economics decades after leaving office.

5 Minutes (B-B-B Bombing Mix) – Bonzo Goes To Washington
This mashup satirizes Reagan’s notorious hot-mic joke about bombing Russia by splicing it with dance beats.

If Reagan Played Disco – Minutemen
The iconoclastic punk band imagines an absurdist alternate reality with their typically angular, political edge.

Fuck You – Lily Allen
Allen’s chipper, profanity-laced dismissal of George W. Bush was initially posted on her MySpace page under the title “Guess Who Batman.”

When the President Talks to God – Bright Eyes
Conor Oberst’s devastating critique questions Bush’s certainty and religious justifications during the Iraq War.

Mosh – Eminem
Eminem’s urgent call to political action rallied young voters against Bush’s policies in the 2004 election.

Let’s Impeach the President – Neil Young
Young’s protest rocker methodically lists grievances against Bush with straightforward outrage and rock-and-roll directness.

I’m With Stupid – Pet Shop Boys
The synth-pop duo skewers Tony Blair’s subservience to Bush’s foreign policy agenda with biting British wit.

Dear Mr. President – P!nk featuring Indigo Girls
P!nk’s open letter challenges Bush to walk in others’ shoes and confront the human cost of his decisions.

Obama – ANOHNI
This haunting piece wrestles with disappointment in Obama’s continuation of drone warfare despite his hopeful campaign promises.

Fuck Donald Trump – YG & Nipsey Hussle
The West Coast rappers deliver an unfiltered denunciation of Trump’s rhetoric and policies with raw urgency.

The President Can’t Read – Amy Rigby
Rigby’s folk-rock takedown questions Trump’s competence and intellectual curiosity with pointed observations.

Streets of Minneapolis – Bruce Springsteen
The Boss’s response to the killings of American citizens by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement under directions from President Trump.

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Tunes Du Jour Celebrates Black History Month

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Music has always been more than just a backdrop to history; it is a living, breathing part of it. It’s the coded message in a spiritual, the roar of protest in a soul anthem, and the unshakeable pride in a hip-hop verse. This playlist was curated with that spirit in mind. It is not just a collection of songs by Black artists or about Black experiences, but a deliberate sonic journey where each track serves as a chapter in the long, complex, and powerful story of Black history. From the harrowing journey of the Middle Passage in The O’Jays’ “Ship Ahoy” to the defiant celebration of identity in Beyoncé’s “BROWN SKIN GIRL,” every song here is a direct link to a person, an event, a movement, or some combination of the three.

The running order is intentional, designed to guide the listener through a powerful emotional and historical arc. We begin in the depths of oppression, bearing witness to the brutality of slavery, the terror of Jim Crow, and the pain of foundational betrayals. From that bitter root, the playlist pivots to the fire of resistance. It chronicles the fight for Civil Rights in America and the parallel global struggle against apartheid, honoring the heroes who led the charge and the anthems that fueled their movements. The narrative then moves into the modern era, where the fight for justice continues in the face of new challenges, chronicled with unflinching honesty by artists from Bruce Springsteen to Janelle Monáe.

This journey through pain and protest ultimately leads to a place of empowerment, joy, and hard-won hope. The final act of the playlist is a celebration of contribution, a lesson in self-love for future generations, and a recognition of monumental triumphs. It culminates in the profound resilience of Aretha Franklin’s “A Change Is Gonna Come”—a final, stirring testament to an unshakeable faith in the future. This Black History Month, we invite you to not just hear these songs, but to truly listen. Follow the stories, look up the names, and feel the weight and glory of the history they carry. Let the rhythms move you, but let the histories change you.

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