appendix to I Love Distortion, part four - Elliott Murphy (Bonus Video Friday)

(This is the final installment of May's series; appendix to I Love Distortion.  In June we'll return to  
 the rather more random nature of Bonus Video Fridays.  I fully realize there was a lot of nostalgia,

 a lot of looking back in May, but I felt it was necessary to set up the May 27 blog entry - which was  
 largely concerned with The Twilight Kids' live show - so readers would have some rough idea
of what that band might have sounded like.  Intro to this last installment by Sean Richter;) 

Elliott Murphy's song "Rock Ballad" figures fairly prominently into the story of I Love Distortion.  First, I believe it's one of the ten best songs ever written in the rock & roll idiom, period.  And second, it provided me with the go-ahead to begin the affair with Nicole all the way back to the first night I read her poetry.  (see blog entry I Love Distortion - chapter three, March 13th, 2013)

I remember putting Elliott's album Just A Story From America on while I was reading those poems, listening with headphones so as not to wake Melanie and having the following verse waft in my ears;

"And these jobs and these schools teach romance is for fools

And the dream always ends upon waking

And we all kept our cool like a hustler shoots pool

And soon your whole life is spent faking

'Cause to try is to fail and as the wind left your sails

All you heard was the sound of their laughter

But I was running so fast with the wind racing past

All I heard was a voice say, 'Go after her.'"

- Elliott Murphy, 1977

I didn't have a whole lot of people to confide in that late March night, in that dark livingroom on the West Side of Columbus, Ohio.  My last band had ended in December, 1977; I was facing a future in retail store middle management; my four year old marriage had cooled to an extended friendship.  I needed advice and I needed it right then.

If you think it's insane to change your life based on the lyrics of a rock & roll song, I guess I can see your point, but I can also see that you haven't been following the message of this blog or the story of I Love Distortion very well.

All I can say is; at its best moments, when love & music ruled over guilt & sadness, this song is exactly what my life felt like in 1978. - Sean Richter

© 2013 Ricki C.