The Year(s) In Music (2020 – 2024)

(By Richard Goodman, 7 June 2025)

Hello!  It has been a while since I last talked to you.  Has anything significant happened lately?  I did not plan to send you the box set of music you are holding in your hands.  It just sort of happened.  When I last sent you a Year In Music CD back in the beginning of 2020, Donald Trump was running a presidential campaign despite concerns about his fitness for office, Elon Musk was making waves in the business world and exerting his social influencer muscle, Brexit was causing turmoil in Europe, the United States exited many global alliances like the Paris Accords, weather patterns were changing and causing unprecedented natural disasters, the Kansas City Chiefs - America’s new favorite sports team - were Superbowl bound, and when someone said the word “Corona”, the first thing you thought of was a beer.

And now, um, well, all those things are still kind of true, but in completely different ways than before.  Part of the delay in sending music to you was because of my procrastination but a lot of it has been a lack of new music coming out in the last few years for some reason.  It almost seems like the world has been concentrating on other things from 2020 through 2023. 

The culprit, COVID-19, has affected public health, global supply chains, political agendas, education, social activities, and yes, even the music scene.  Since streaming music services have killed album sales and they pay out pennies to the artists in return, musicians depend on touring revenue to make a living.  Artists now release albums to help promote their tours, not because they expect to earn gobs of money from selling albums.  

Touring is needed to bring in money to pay the bills, since streaming revenue is negligible.  So if an artist can’t use a new album to generate ticket sales, many feel there is no point in releasing anything new.  When people were unable to safely gather and listen to a concert, musicians stayed at home and had to find other ways to earn a living.

As a result, there was not much new music coming out during the peak COVID years.  Heck, it seems like there were more corona variants coming out then there were hit albums.  We started with the big names in COVID - Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Omicron and then moved on to other “less deadly” variants like Epsilon, Zeta, Kappa, Lambda, and now there are so many we don’t have any fun Greek fraternity names to give them and have just started numbering them like iPhone updates (BA.2.86, JN.1, JN.1.7, JN.1.18, KP.2, KP.3, KP.3.1.1, and LB.1.)

Usually, I have no problem finding two or three CDs worth of material that I want to share but the Covid era made worthwhile new music much harder to find.  There were a few notable exceptions though.  Dua Lipa put out her glorious second album, full of insanely catchy feel-good songs that distracted us from a glum world.  Taylor Swift went in the other direction and released two (two!!) million-selling albums of comfortable, soothing, folk-leaning pop that made you want to stay home, wrapped up in a blanket, drinking a glass of wine.  A lot of us did that very thing, when we could find wine and cheese in stock at the grocery store.  Of course, Taylor Swift could release anything and it would do well- I’m looking forward to her putting out an album during the post-apocalyptic zombie outbreak.  It will probably feature a sequel to “Cardigan”, called “Kevlar Sweater”.

So for 2020 I barely found one CDs’ worth of music and didn’t feel motivated to send anything out.  Then as the pandemic dragged on into 2021, the lack of new music continued.  I explored the back catalog of artists I liked but hadn’t extensively listened to before and I re-listened to past favorites but that doesn’t really let me find unknown treasures for you.  I mean, you all know Belinda Carlisle’s songs, you’ve heard Henry Mancini before, you probably don’t care about Jefferson Starship, and you likely have heard all of Transvision Vamp’s good songs already - there are only two of them.  On the plus side, I got to fully evaluate some legacy artists to whom I had not paid proper attention, for example the whole output of The Bangles, Journey, The Cars, Foreigner, Veruca Salt, Lush, and U2. 

So 2021 also resulted in just one CDs worth of songs.  Still, that means I had two CDs worth of things I found worthwhile that you might appreciate.  It seems fitting that I would send both years at the same time because doesn’t it feel like 2020 and 2021 blurred into one long, long span of time where it was hard to tell one month apart from another and you weren’t motivated to do all the things you normally do?  Yes, yes it did. 

Then, as Covid started to wane and become less deadly and vaccines became widely available and utilized by those who understood how medicine works, I lost a couple of people that were really important to me.  My friend John passed away as did my mother.  Ironically, neither was a Covid victim but they were gone just the same and I was dealing with those losses and the emotions that went with them.  So that lethargy carried on into 2022 and 2023.  Since the music scene had picked back up again in 2023 and 2024, touring resumed and new album releases were coming out on a regular basis from people other than Taylor Swift, I figured I might as well wait until 2024 ended and include that year too and send everything at once.   

That’s not to say there weren’t some positive side effects of the pandemic.  Since everything has been anguish about COVID since it showed its’ face, I wanted to take a moment to recognize a few good things about what we experienced. This is not intended in any way to disregard or minimize the terrible death toll and the social impact of the virus but rather to celebrate the urge to look for silver linings and cheer on the adaptability that comes from adversity.

So first, traffic was amazing during the pandemic period.  It took almost no time to get to work and on days when I didn’t want to drive into the office, I could work remotely from home.  This meant more sleep time, less need for gas, and I could eat lunch from my own fridge with no need to pack a lunch or get take-out from a restaurant.  Gas prices were really low - I mean like 1980’s low.  Global emissions and carbon output dropped drastically, and some notoriously smoggy cities had clear skies for the first time in decades. 

There were no new television shows being produced so there was time to catch up on things that were backlogged on my DVR.  Clearing that backlog was bittersweet though.  Many of the episodes that I had waiting for me were the final episodes of series that had been cancelled and I was saving them because I didn’t want the show to be over because I loved it so much.  I watched the last season or final few episodes of The 100, Wynonna Earp, Last Man Standing, Agents Of Shield, High Fidelity, Silicon Valley, The Good Place, Modern Family, Brooklyn 99, and The Magicians.

Then there were the streaming services that exploded in the last four years. Everyone stuck at home, unable to go to concerts, or movies, or dinner out with friends, or sports events, or on vacations or dates, instead watched stuff on streaming services.  Yes, some of it was garbage like Tiger King but there was also The Queen’s Gambit.  I was amazed at how much I loved this drama about chess.  Everyone watched this show and talked about it, and it even kickstarted a public resurgence of interest in chess.  On the opposite end of the spectrum, I also loved Teenage Bounty Hunters, a dramatic comedy about some teenage girls who are, as you would guess, bounty hunters.  No one I know watched this show, which is why Netflix cancelled it, and I was crushed that I never got a chance to talk about it with anyone.  It was hilarious, heart-warming, satirical, soapy, sexy, and thrilling and no one will ever know it existed, except for me.   

People got to explore everything on streaming that they had never watched before or to revisit old favorites, which made Friends and The Office hugely popular shows again. 

Drive-in movies became a thing again.  While theaters were closed, pop-up drive-ins, um, popped up because people could isolate in their cars and still a see a movie on the big screen.  When theaters did reopen, they were not as crowded, and people could reserve their seats.  I enjoy having an audience when watching a movie, but I don’t want people in the seats on both sides of me, boxing me in and crowding my armrest.  Theaters were pro-active and enforced spacing so there were certain seats blocked off to maintain distance between patrons. 

Once COVID restrictions were lifted, reserved seating stayed.  At first, I wasn’t a fan of reserved seating because I was used to getting to the theater early and finding a good seat but I eventually came around because a little planning ahead meant I didn’t have to spend time waiting around in the theater lobby, reading a book or fiddling around on my phone.  Ever since the Merrifield Multiplex theater closed and the Area 51 arcade game was gone, I haven’t really wanted to hang out in the lobby because it isn’t as fun anymore.  Sometimes I saw a movie with friends, so I could talk to them while waiting to get seated, but about 50% of the movies I see are by myself so hanging out in the lobby isn’t that much fun post-Area 51. 

Another forced benefit of the pandemic was that buying groceries was a breeze.  Not because there was an abundance of choices but because there were none.  Supply chain issues meant a shortage of almost everything.  Because many factories are specialized, they could make commercial paper products but couldn’t quickly switch to consumer paper items like toilet paper, even assuming there were enough healthy workers to staff the factory.  If you wanted toilet paper, eggs, bread, or vegetables, you grabbed whatever was there, as quickly as you could before someone else got it and the shelves were empty again.  Shortages even extended to metal used for coins and aluminum cans.  Gone were the days where I could choose whether I wanted Cherry Coke Zero, Cherry Vanilla Coke Zero, or Minute Maid Zero Lemonade.  Coca Cola cut back to just their core products so I got to choose from Coke, Diet Coke, Coke Zero or nothing.

There was also a renewed appreciation for simply going outside and taking a walk.  People who didn’t normally bother doing that in the “before time”, realized how enjoyable it was to get outside for some fresh air, opens spaces, and physical activity.  When you see the same four walls for weeks on end, you learn to appreciate different views and surroundings. 

Economically, there was lots of hardship, so I was happy for the little breaks that we got.  Income tax deadlines were pushed from April until July for the first year of the Corona virus, and then we also got three stimulus checks in the next couple of years.  It was nowhere near enough to replace a salary for people who lost their jobs, but it was a nice bit of relief for those still working who were struggling with the unexpected costs arising from the difficult circumstances.  Libraries stopped charging late fees for overdue books, and that stayed in place to this day. While I have always considered late fees as a way of supporting the library system, I’m happy to do that other ways instead of worrying when I need to return a book that I haven’t finished yet.  I would much rather give them money by going to library book sales. 

Another economic break was restaurant delivery fees.  Since restaurants weren’t doing dine-in service, they relied on pickup orders and deliveries.  To encourage people to order from restaurants, delivery fees were waived.  Owners wanted your food order and weren’t going to discourage that by charging you $5.00 to deliver it.  You got to feel like a hero for ordering food and not spending time cooking for yourself.  For me, that is an amazing plus.  I could order cooked food from a restaurant and feel like I’m supporting my community and being a good neighbor.  Granted, waived delivery fees just went back to the drivers as tips because they were being even bigger heroes, by bringing the food and interacting with people they didn’t know who might be contagious with a deadly virus, and possibly not wearing a mask.

Zoom was a gamechanger because it enabled you to stay in touch with people outside your household, conduct business, attend school, see concerts, and remain connected to the world.  This remained the case after the pandemic ended, and I’m very happy that I no longer have to travel to attend meetings or do training.  People can work remotely and be productive.  The time and expense saved by conducting gatherings electronically is a major plus.    

Finally, the pandemic likely forced you to spend lots of quality time with family.  You learned a lot about them because there was nowhere to go and nothing else to do.  This forced people to get better acquainted.  Even though you sometimes got on each other’s nerves, you later appreciated the time together, especially if you lost a loved one to the virus.  I’m so thankful that all my family and friends made it through the pandemic.  Although some of them are no longer here, at least they all survived the biggest health crisis of the last 50 years.

So that is a very roundabout way of telling you why I wasn’t prioritizing the delivery of my Year In Music CDs.  Now though I don’t any such excuses, other than laziness or spending too much time watching YouTube, which doesn’t sound like a reasonable excuse.  Thus, you now hold five CDs in your hands, covering my music obsessions from 2020 to 2024.

Looking at what I had sent out in 2018 and 2019, it felt like I was a bit too inclined towards pop and dance-y songs so I checked out more rock-based artists.  I already mentioned going through the back catalog for Journey and Foreigner, and gained newfound appreciation for them, although none of their stuff is on the CDs since they aren’t undiscovered artists who need promotion.  If you look at the 2020 track list, you might say “So why is Huey Lewis on here?  We all know him (them?)”  Yes, but during the pandemic, I learned that Huey Lewis has an ear condition and is going deaf. 

As a musician, it is very hard to play or write music if you are deaf.  (Yes, there was Beethoven - 250 years ago! - but can you name anyone else?)  Huey and his band put out what may be their final album of new material.  It was a decent album and I really connected with the song “While We’re Young”, which I am not, and neither is he.  The song is about making the most of what you have while you have the chance to do so and that was a very impactful sentiment considering what the world was going through that year. 

I also enjoying Green Day’s take on a Joan Jett song, Royal Blood’s latest monsoon of rock, and an album from a long time favorite – Local H – who is long overdue for recognition of their great work since their one hit twenty years ago.  I listened to a spinoff band (liarflower) from another huge favorite (Queen Adreena), a couple industry veterans (Dion and The Fleshtones) who re-emerged to share great new music, and some mid-level artists taking the next step up in their career (Tennis, Tame Impala, Avalanches, Travis, Dua Lipa).  I found yet another great Tom Jones song, an interesting acoustic cover of a Guns & Roses song, and multiple collaborations. 

The most unusual thing I came across this year was an artist called Poppy, who started out as a You Tuber called That Poppy.  She made bizarre videos on YouTube, some involving her mannequin friend Charlotte, others with her doing performance art, like the one where the whole video is her saying “I’m Poppy”, and some which were straight up music videos of her original songs.  The music had a bubble gum pop sound, but the subversive lyrics were razor sharp satire.  Most bizarre of all were interviews I found online where she went through the interview in character as a robot pop artist.  (See  one here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2J5WqyJFbVs.)  Her answers, her affect and vocal inflection were as if an AI chatbot were doing the interview, but this was a couple years before chatbots and AI tools were a thing. 

There are even some reaction videos online where kids are reacting to her personae and then she reacts to their reactions, culminating in her appearing in person, inside a box to talk to the kids and the kids just freak out!  (you can see the thing here: Poppy Reacts To & MEETS Kids React Cast: The ENTIRE Saga https://youtu.be/QJORKxYYrhQ?si=n3JriiYT0z9MUQ0q).         

Even more interesting than whether Poppy is a real robot, or just a normally manufactured YouTube star, is her musical evolution.  I included three consecutive songs for this year so you can see her change from a satirical pop princess to a message driven artist, to an alternative metal singer.  Her last few albums have been very metal-edged, and the videos and songs remind me of Nine Inch Nails.  Then she will suddenly throw a curveball come out with something like “Stagger” (https://youtu.be/yp5A8awHfas).  I’ve just been fascinated watching this.  It is like a documentary of music history, or the Spinal Tap of pop music, or the blueprint for becoming internet famous.    

So that was 2020.  In 2021, I retreated further back into the past while listening to new releases.  By that I mean a lot of legacy artists put out new music.  So I heard stuff from Paul McCartney, Lindsey Buckingham, Pixies, Edie Brickell, Duran Duran, Sting, ABBA, and Barry Gibb but it wasn’t their oldies.  It was recent music that sounded like their oldies, which turned out to be a good thing.  Barry Gibb put out a covers album of his own songs done as duets with country artists.  It might sound like a weird combination, but it works.  The track he does with Alison Krauss is amazing.  While I think his vocals on the original version of “Too Much Heaven” are jaw-dropping, what Krauss does on this cover duet with him is equally magnificent. 

ABBA put out a new album some, let me check here…, FORTY YEARS LATER!  It was not worth the wait, but it was a nice bookend for their career and there were three songs on it that I quite liked.

There were a couple of throwback songs too. Ones that had been around for decades until I finally heard them this year.  I discovered Paul Anka’s “Times Of Your Life” - a sappy, over-produced, but surprisingly emotional and touching late career hit. Plus an old techno-industrial hit by My Life With The Thrill Kill Kult, and a Bryan Adams Christmas song that I first heard this Christmas even though it had been around awhile.

There were exciting songs and albums from alternative favorites (Pretty Reckless, Royal Blood, Dandy Warhols, Courtney Barnett, Julianna Hatfield, and a full-on nu metal song from Poppy) and newly discovered favorites, specifically The Beaches, Zella Day, and Wet Leg.  Wet Leg was the biggest surprise for me, and the most exciting find.  The reason for the surprise is because I heard their first single, "Chaise Longue", and was not impressed.  I couldn’t understand why people were digging the song so I dismissed them.  Then I heard their second single, “Wet Dream”, and loved it.  That song deserved all the praise that it received.  Then I heard a few other songs of theirs, and they were all pretty good but not as good as “Wet Dream”.  When their album was finally released, I was not expecting it to be anything other than a collection of the singles I’d already heard plus some more filler.  Boy am I glad I was wrong!

The album came out in 2022, so let’s move on to that year’s disc.  I included Wet Leg’s “Angelica” and “Ur Mum” because they were awesome – equal or better than “Wet Dream”.  Their whole album was amazing, ending up as my favorite of the year. 

Also carrying over from 2021 was Zella Day.  I liked “Dance For Love” in 2021, so in 2022 I dove into her whole catalog, finding several favorites, including this disc’s feisty “Mushroom Punch” and shimmery “Golden”.  Writing this in 2025, I know what she has done next, which is an almost a Poppy-level switch-up, but I will discuss that when I do the 2025 disc since her new incarnation will have an entry on it.    

In fact, the 2022 CD is mostly filled with surprises and unexpected resurrections.  For example, who expected Elton John to have a major hit again by covering an old song of his?   During quarantine, Elton ended up doing a duets cover album thing as well, just like Barry Gibb did the year before.  Elton teamed up with Dua Lipa for a modernized mash-up of four of his songs.  As Wikipedia puts it, “The song is a medley of four songs written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, as well as Andrew Meecham, Dean Meredith, Nicholas Littlemore, Peter Mayes and Sam Littlemore, with the production completed by the latter three as part of the dance music group Pnau. Interpolating John's songs "Rocket Man" (1972), "Kiss the Bride" (1983), "Sacrifice" (1989) and "Where's the Shoorah?" (1976), the remix is an upbeat contemporary synth-pop, dance, dance-pop and pop song describing the decline of a relationship.”   Interestingly, I had also been unrelatedly listening to PNAU since they were connected to Empire Of The Sun and Sleepy Jackson, bands I found enjoyable in a slightly over the top way.  “Cold Heart” was a major pop hit for Elton John and Dua Lipa, a big surprise for Elton John fans and no surprise to Dua Lipa fans.

Another unexpected release came from Tears For Fears.  Their previous album had come out in 2004 and was long-time mainstay Roland Orzabal’s reunion with original member Curt Smith.  That 2004 album was also unexpected at the time since Orzabal had been basically doing solo work, just under the Tears For Fears name, since 1990.  With Orzabal and Smith’s exemplary reunion release being named “Everyone Loves A Happy Ending”, I expected that to be the end of their recording career, and for 18 years I was correct. 

Then in 2022 came “The Tipping Point”.  It was another new Orzabal and Smith TFT album, 18 years later.  Not quite an ABBA length absence, but still a long time gone since releasing new material.  The first couple of songs I heard on the radio were not encouraging though.  They seemed slow and melancholy.  When the whole album came out, I learned that the genesis of the album was Roland trying to work through his grief over his wife’s illness and subsequent death. 

I can understand how that would affect the songwriting process and become a more meditative work without the usual energy I attribute to them.  There was no “Shout” or “Sowing The Seeds Of Love” on this album.  After an initial listen, I set aside the album.  Later on, after continuing to think about the album and feel disappointment after such a long wait, I pulled it back out to give it another try in case I had dismissed too casually.  I listened to it again, with no expectations since I knew what it wasn’t.  After two or three listens, the songs made their way into my brain, and I appreciated what the album was and how it unwound as a slow burn and not an explosion.  The trademark TFT choruses were there, as was the impeccable production and the baroque chamber pop flourishes, and I fell for the album.  I ended up loving some five or six tracks and I really had a hard time deciding whether to include “My Demon” or “End Of Night” on this compilation since both are excellent.        

Another unexpected treat was a new Tom Jones album, with a bunch of unexpected covers that seem tailor made for Jones as an 84-year-old man, who had lost his wife in 2016.  He was unsure if he would ever perform again because she had been his rock, his love, and his emotional support for sixty years.  The songs reflected the relevant topics of aging, anguish, legacy and social consciousness he had been exploring on his last few albums in the 2010’s but this one had an extra dose of sadness.  Then there is his voice – it is still the Tom Jones voice that sends shivers down your spine.  The thing I included here is an oddity from the album.  Basically, it is like spoken word poetry in time with a rough beat.  It is too slow to be considered a rap; it sounds more like a monologue from a fervent and slightly sarcastic clergyman, and (trigger warning) it concerns a political figure.

The surprises continued this year with Gorillaz putting out a really good album after a couple of dull ones.  The Cult, Black Keys, Mitski, and Pixies did the same- a good album after a couple yawners- so I plucked a standout track from each to include here.  A magazine column from David Crosby (R.I.P.) got me to hear the Sarah Jarosz song, and I loved a super old song I heard from a 1972 Bee Gees album, released during their “lost years” phase when they were past their Beatle-ish and ballad years but before their disco resurgence, when they could not get a song or album on the charts.  After listening to this song, I just don’t understand how the public decides what to like.  This song is a banger.   

Moving on to 2023, I am mostly back in the present day, musically.  There are current songs, although from artists old and new.  Jason Mraz has a new hit, the impossibly upbeat “I Feel Like Dancing” which makes you feel just that.  Spoon, The Hives, Metric, and Juliana Hatfield- some of my favorite alternative rock artists- are back with new albums. 

Metric are icy, alternative pop, and are hit and miss but I included the album highlight.  The Hives are The Hives, which means – as they will tongue-in-cheekily tell you- they are greatest rock and rock band ever.  To describe them I would say to imagine the Ramones if they were brasher, catchier, more cinematic, and could write more than one song.  Spoon is an oddity.  When people say something is lo-fi, I imagine a guy sitting in a rocking chair playing a banjo, or a three-piece band doing one take into a small microphone in a bedroom or garage and refusing to do overdubs or multi-tracking. 

As someone who first heard music by listening to the radio in the 1970’s, a period ruled by artists like ELO, Pink Floyd, the Bee Gees, Chicago, Rod Stewart, Earth Wind & Fire, and Billy Joel, songs with a DIY feel or lack of strong production skills take some getting used to.  Granted, the 1970’s also had America, Olivia Newton John, and John Denver, which leaned more acoustic, but they were still perfectly produced.  They didn’t sound like they were sloppily recorded in someone’s bathroom.  This is why I’m surprised that I like Spoon.  They are definitely not overproduced.  You can clearly hear every instrument playing, there are no backing beats or electronic flourishes.  What makes them so enjoyable is the song construction and passionate delivery.  I read a review for the album “Kill The Moonlight” and decided to give it a try.  I went into it not expecting to be impressed but several songs hooked me and I’ve been listening to them ever since.  Every album is pretty much guaranteed to have four or five terrific tracks.          

Then there is Juliana Hatfield, an artist I have been listening to since 1992.  Every album is a treat, a present to unwrap and see what has been going through her mind lately.  On the 2021 mix CD, you got her gory and glorious “Chunks”, from her oddball, riff-y political leaning album “Blood”.  For her follow-up, she does one of her covers albums, this time focusing on Electric Light Orchestra (ELO).  Not exactly a straight line from one to the other. 

While I enjoyed the ELO covers album, I didn’t love it. It was too-straight forward and if it sounds almost like the originals, why bother.  There is no way anyone else can replicate ELO’s production.  That said, I wanted you to have a taste of the album, so I shared one of the lesser-known songs that I enjoyed.  Then for good measure, I included her cover of Neil Young’s “Lotta Love”, one of my all-time favorite songs.  It has been covered by many people and I love them all, from Nicolette Larson to She & Him to Juliana Hatfield to Courtney Barnett.  Incidentally, I feel the same way about covers of Neil Young’s "Only Love Can Break Your Heart", covered by artists such as Saint Etienne, I Blame Coco, Natalie Imbruglia, and Juliana Hatfield.

Speaking of covers, I included Dennis DeYoung’s “Hello Goodbye” which isn’t exactly a cover although it does include parts of that Beatles song. This is more of a pastiche of various Beatles songs and lyrics.  See how many Beatles references you can spot in this one song.  Similarly, I came across some mashups on YouTube by Wax Audio that combined multiple songs into one new Frankenstein song.  Those are actually on the 2022 disc but I wanted to mention them now.  Listen to “Blue Jump” and see how many songs you can hear.  I count four distinct songs that were combined into this one.

The other mashup song on the 2022 disc is “Stayin’Alive In The Wall”, a combination of “Another Brick In The Wall” and “Staying Alive”.  You might not think they go well together but once you hear the combo, you can’t imagine them not together, like a Reese’s Peanut Butter cup.  Chocolate is quite good by itself but you will always consider whether you want it with peanuts or peanut butter after having had a Reese’s peanut butter cup. 

The movie “Barbie” came out in 2023, and I know that because two of the songs on this disc are from that soundtrack, which is just as great as the movie is.  First, Dua Lipa, who is having her moment in case you didn’t already realize that, had a highlight song in the movie, during the dance party segment where Barbie (a terrific Margot Robbie) asks “Do you ever think about dying?”  Then at the end of the movie, when Barbie meets her creator, the Billie Eilish song “What Was I Made For” plays.  I got a little misty eyed during that scene in no small part due to that song so how can I not include it here? 

There are two songs on the disc from the band Sorry, a recommendation from Elizabeth that I’m glad I took to heart.  They are an English band I’d never heard of, but I ended up loving their two albums.  There is a Little Steven song I’d loved since seeing the video on MTV in the 1980’s and finally got around to buying the digital single.  The video was stupid- Little Steven riding around on a bicycle- but the music was anthemic. 

What else is left?  Some songs from Therapy?, Chemical Brothers, and Herb Alpert as I worked through my accumulated backlog of albums from those artists.  A representative Veruca Salt song as I delved into their catalog via John’s collection.  A hazy, dreamy, hypnotic song from Bakar, the Dutch band The Art Company with their UK Top Ten sing-along song “Susanna” from an 80’s collection, and a pair of instrumentals from Neil Richardson that give me happy 1960’s jet-set vibes every time I listen to them, which is only when I play this 2023 collection because I don’t think they were ever heard by the general public and are near impossible to buy now.      

That leaves three more songs on the 2023 collection.  There is the Billy Joel song “Turn The Lights Back On”, written and released 30 years after his last pop album.  It is neither a good nor bad song.  It would fit in reasonably well on the “Streetlife Serenade” album.  I include it here simply because it is Billy Joel, one of my top ten all-time favorites, and I think people should listen to it and decide its’ merits for themselves.

Another all-time top ten favorite is Kylie Minogue and in 2023, she was having another moment.  These seem to come along for her every 20 years.  She burst onto the music scene in 1987 with “The Locomotion”, a top ten U.S. hit, and then the UK # 1 hit “I Should Be So Lucky”, also a top forty hit the United States.  She was then completely ignored by the U.S. (but not the rest of the world) until 2001 when “Can’t Get You Out Of My Head” went to # 7, and #1 everywhere else in the world.  The U.S. went back to ignoring her again until 2023 when “Padam Padam” would become another worldwide hit, selling millions of copies, and winning her a second Grammy award.

Finally, we come to Midlake, a band that appears to have one excellent album among the half dozen they recorded.  I heard the song “Young Bride” on a Sirius channel and fell in love with the mournful, melancholy, ballad.  Even though it came out in 2017, I can imagine it being played by a guy in a tavern in coal country in the 1800’s.  It is the violin the gets me the most.  The vocals are sad and bitter but when the violin kicks in for emphasis, it just devastates me.  Let me know what you think.  I paired this song and the Billie Eilish “Barbie” song to close out the 2023 collection and leave you weeping sadly, a perfect way to end the pandemic.

By 2024, COVID was behind us, maybe not in actuality since it continues to hang around and infect several thousand people a month, but its lethality is greatly decreased, and people no longer take any precautions to protect themselves from it any more than they do to avoid getting the flu.  So we are now in the new normal, in society and the music industry.  That means concerts are going on, new albums and singles are coming out, late night shows are promoting artists, and I can hear large amounts of new music.  As a result, I ….. have retreated to the past.

It wasn’t intentional but during the pandemic, I started getting hooked on a compilation series called “Now”.  I’m sure you have heard of them since they have been popular in England for decades and about 15 years ago, the U.S. started doing their own version.  A couple of times a year, “Now” collects the biggest songs that were released since the last collection came out.  I had picked up a few of the CDs when the series first rolled out, but I stopped pretty quickly because, to sound old man-ish, a lot of the music sucked, and I was better off just cherry picking the singles I liked and buying them individually.  Paying for $3 worth of singles sounded better to me than spending on $14 to get those same songs and 14 others I didn’t like.                

In the last five or six years though, the people who put out the “Now” series got clever and started releasing a “Now Yearbook” series.  This is a four-volume collection of the biggest and best songs of a specific year.  So each year’s release had around 80 songs, and they included British hits too.  That means some of my favorite hard to find 1970’s and 1980’s hit singles like Sheila E’s “Love Bizarre”, Alexander O’Neal’s new jack swing classic “Fake”, and John Paul Young’s “Love Is In The Air” were available without having to buy a whole album just for one song.  As a plus, I got to hear what was hot in England during the same time, including a lot of songs I’d never heard before because I was not buying imports of S Club 7 or Deacon Blue.     

Even more insidious, the company started releasing a “Now Yearbook Extra” series consisting of three discs of additional and lesser-known songs from that year. I decided I would get all the “Yearbook” And “Yearbook Extra” volumes for 1973 to 2000 and then stop collecting anything before or after that since my music collection was pretty well stocked on both sides of that time period.  Heck, it is well stocked even within those years, but I was enjoying getting some of the rare selections and hearing what was on the British charts at that time. There is no pattern to the release schedule, so in a given year they might put out volumes for “Now Yearbook 1974” and “Now Yearbook 1992” and “Now Yearbook Extra 1998.  I’ll be done once 1975, 1976, 1989, and 1994-1997 get released. 

Then the bastards started a “Now Yearbook Vault” series.

It is meant to fill in the gaps in the years that are not covered by the seven volumes already released for each year.  You would rightly be skeptically of the merits for the “Vault” series.  The problem is that the five released so far have covered 1980-1984 and 1976-1984 is my favorite period of music, without question.  Can I live without them?  Yes, I could.  Did I want to have them so I could hear additional songs from one hit wonders like Dexys Midnight Runners, M, Rupert Holmes, Fun Boy Three, and Yello?  Yes, I did.  Plus getting them, I’ve built up a nice collection of hits by Shalamar, Madness, OMD, Gary Numan, Japan, The Tourists, and The Stranglers that I wouldn’t otherwise have sought out.  So I’ll wait and see how far the “Vault” series expands but unless it covers 1976-1984, I should be able to pass on those, like I have on the “Now Millenium” series for the post-2000’s years.  

This is my meandering way of apologizing for and explaining why you might recognize some older songs on my “Year In Music 2024” collection.  I’ve included several selections from the “Now” volumes, but they are likely to be new to you, like the bonkers spoken word UK song “Hole In My Shoe” by Neil, Matt Bianco’s festive groove “Half A Minute”, or the humorous female empowerment anthem that never became an anthem, Carole Bayer Sager’s “You’re Moving Out Today”.    There are also personal oldies favorites, like UB40’s cheerful “Rat In Mi Kitchen”, Paul Young’s booming vocals on “I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down”, Robert Plant’s moody dirge “Big Log”, and Tina Turner’s “Let’s Stay Together”, included simply because it is a great song and to recognize the passing of Tina Turner during this year.

Some other older favorites here that are not from the “Now” series are included here.  Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s “Murder On the Dancefloor” had a resurgence due to being included in a pivotal moment of the recent movie “Saltburn”.  I’ve enjoyed Sophie’s music ever since randomly buying a CD of hers on a trip abroad fifteen years ago and I was glad to see her get some attention stateside.  The song is always a pleasure to hear.  New Order apparently has too many great songs to bother releasing them all.  “Touched By The Hand Of God” was released as the B-Side of their remake “Blue Monday 1988” and wasn’t released on an album except a 1994 best-of collection and as a remix on a couple remix collections.  Give it a listen and see if you think it sounds like a hit. 

Tears For Fears had a few studio leftovers from their recent album so they put them on a live greatest hits album.  The live album was okay but if it wasn’t for the four new studio songs, you could ignore it in favor of the original versions of the songs on the albums.  Of the four new songs, two are nice and two are blah.  I did give them a thorough listening though to make sure I didn’t initially ignore TFT stuff a second time in a row.  I put my favorite of the four on this compilation.

Don’t worry- there is also a lot of recent stuff too.  Billie Eilish continues to turn out touching ballads like “Birds Of A Feather” so I included that standout from her recent album.  I also liked “Lunch” but that is a bit too metaphorically raunchy to include.  When I was watching a morning show, I heard a band called Guster doing a live song that captivated me.  After playing their most recent album, I found that song and a few others that charmed me with their melodic wistfulness.  Two of them are included here and tissues may be needed since they are a little downbeat.      

Last year I shared Kylie Minogue’s “Padam Padam” from her new album “Tension”, and normally that means I’d have to wait another couple of years for the next album, but she surprised me and released “Tension 2” in 2024.  Kylie is often opaque with her lyrics, touching on universal themes rather than explicitly linking them to her personal experiences but “Someone For Me” sounds like she might be trying to say something about herself and that sentiment resonated with me since I sometimes feel the same way.   

The Dandy Warhols are another long-time favorite artist, possibly top 25, and after a stretch of mediocre albums, their last two have reminded of what I love about them.  Their songs have a distinct vibe, a fuzzy, slightly psychedelic, groove driven sound.  If I was a stoner, I would love these songs for this reason.  As a music fan, I love them for their unique texture and clever lyrics.  “Root Of All Evil” is representative of their recent output.  Still, nothing will match their first three albums, but this recent album is a welcome throwback to that style.    

Mysteries Of Life are an offshoot of The Blake Babies, an earlier band of Juliana Hatfield.  The two Blake Babies who are not Juliana formed Mysteries Of Life so I was curious to give them a listen and I liked the pleasant “Going Through The Motions”.  Dicte’s “You Wanna Dance” was discovered by letting Spotify play me stuff chosen by their algorithm after the album I had selected was over.  That is often a way that I find artists to check out further.  Susanna Hoffs has become a favorite artist of mine.  I love the smoky, soothing sound of her voice and generally enjoy hearing her sing anything.  Given that she either covers classics or write engaging new material, she has a high percentage of good songs.  “City Girl” was a B-side on a single but I feel it deserves to be judged on its’ own merits.              

Speaking of smooth and seductive voices, we are down to the last two songs on my 2024 collection.  Clairo is an indie-leaning artist that I just recently noticed, and I need to go listen to her previous work beyond what I’m hearing on Sirius XM but “Sexy To Someone” immediately struck me and put her on my radar as someone to pay attention to.  The song has a seductive feel while echoing the longing sentiments in Kylie Minogue’s “Someone For Me” of wishing someone would notice her.  On the other end of that scale is Sabrina Carpenter’s Espresso.  She knows that everyone is noticing her, and they all want her, like a caffeine addict needing their shot of espresso. Both of the songs discuss desire but from different perspectives, but both do it with a voice so smooth and seductive that you cannot imagine either of them having a problem capturing someone’s attention.  They certainly did that with me, at least musically.  

So that has been my musical journey in the last few years.  I used the framework of the COVID pandemic to give it some form of context, but looking back at my selections, I notice some other commonalities emerging.  I see that I responded to songs about having a purpose in life (Clairo’s “Sexy To Someone”, Billie Eilish’s “What Was I Made For”, Billy Joel’s “Turn The Lights Back On”, Paul McCartney & Beck’s “Find My Way”, Mysteries Of Life’s “Going Through The Motions” ), about death and aging (Paul Anka’s “Times Of Your Life”, Huey Lewis “While We’re Young”, Guster’s “When We Were Stars”, Pretty Reckless’ “Death By Rock And Rock”, everything by Tears For Fears), and political and social unrest (Ministry’s “Alert Level”, Tom Jones’ “Talking Reality Television Blues”, Dandy Warhols’ “Root Of All Evil”, Poppy “Time Is Up”, Edie Brickell’s “Horses Mouth”.) 

Maybe subconsciously I’m trying to find answers to these unspoken questions?  Maybe listening to pretty and catchy songs on these subjects will let me avoid thinking about them?  Maybe it is a coincidence?  I think that will be a topic for another day because this is already long enough. 

Thanks to those of you who read through to here.  Let me know what you think of the music.  It isn’t a good collection if I don’t have at least a couple of songs that people absolutely love and a couple that make them want to punch me in the arm for subjecting them to such a stupid song.  

Do you have things you can recommend to me?  It doesn’t have to be just music either.  That’s why I like doing this- I want to start conversations that are not about the serious topics I just mentioned.  Sometimes you just want to enjoy yourself and clear your head.  Since there are forms of entertainment besides music, I’ve included some recommendations below in case you are interested in the other things I appreciated in the last few years. 

So that’s a wrap on 2020 -2024.  I’m eager to see what surprises 2025 has in store for us.  I hope that they are mostly positive and that life treats you well until next time.

The Leader

Wild beast roaming free

too curious to settle

eyes the open plain

 

The pack wails and howls

as the leader bounds away

to the last frontier

 

The pack will not starve

Hunting skills were well learned

just feral joy ends

 

Each time the moon fills

they offer cries of thanks for

the time together

 

The beast remembers

taking their spirits along

Her journey goes on

(This was written for a co-worker who was leaving the company and moving to Alaska.  As I posted on her farewell Kudoboard, “How to say goodbye to Caitlin, who has been such a bright light in our organization? When considering how to do this impossible task, an image popped into my head. I decided to write you a haiku, actually five of them, to make the overwhelming simple and concise.”) 

I Am A Rock, I Am An Island

Someone I know from college writes a blog about writing. Every Tuesday she diligently posts something about her life or an observation she had that week and then ties it back to the task of writing. Sometimes she makes very astute observations, like her post about cheap beer and Walter Matthau. Other times they are humorous and only vaguely relate to writing but then occasionally she makes me wonder why she bothered at all that week, like the post about the escaping biscuits (http://dianevallere.blogspot.com/2010/07/biscuits-got-tired-of-waiting.html). Really? Like biscuits will motivate me to write? I couldn't help but to think that if you don’t have a topic that resonates, why bother writing anything at all? Today as I’m staring at several gaping holes in my apartment walls, I suddenly understand her biscuits. It’s the same as my story about the flower.

Back in third grade, we had a story contest one day. Every kid spent the afternoon class session writing and illustrating a short story. We weren’t exactly little Hemingways though, with a pipe clenched in our teeth as we pounded out a masterpiece on a typewriter in the Caribbean sun. No, these were really short stories, like about five pages long on wide rule paper and in the big block letters we had just recently mastered, accompanied by some hilariously bad drawings. At the end of the class, we read our stories out loud and then voted on which was best. My story was about a flower, not exactly a typical boy subject and I have no idea why I picked it, but what I did was change the perspective of the narrator. I wrote from the point of view of the flower and how he- yes, at least it was a boy flower- felt about what was going on in his world. Of course, a flower’s world is pretty narrow. It’s all about getting watered, avoiding bugs or cutting shears and not liking the taste of bug spray. Still, this was a different approach from everyone else in class and it struck a chord with them so they picked my story as the winner. I got the prize- a LifeSavers candy storybook (5 LifeSavers rolls packaged to look like a book.) Aside from my first taste of the delicious flavor of butter rum LifeSavers, winning the contest was an amazing feeling and probably the single biggest reason I became infatuated with story-telling.

That’s what the biscuits were really about. Trying to imagine the biscuits’ motivation for escaping their tube was the same as my flower story. It’s not so much the topic as it is about the exercise of writing and trying to uncover something that makes a connection. The connection can be with the person reading the post, it can be about tying into the themes you’ve developed previously or even about digging into your own mind and seeing things you had never consciously thought about before. These gaping holes in the walls were making me do that right now. About two months ago, my condo association informed the tenants that the windows on our building were thirty years old and needed to be replaced as part of some long-term improvements to the building walls. About a month ago, they told us how much it would cost and where to send the check. No credit cards would be accepted. So not only do I have to pay to replace windows which still work fine, but I can’t charge them. My bank account does not like that.

Now there are guys standing in my bedroom, using hammers and crowbars to smash out my window frame, spraying caulk and wood shards everywhere. The carpet is peeled back and all my furniture has been shoved aside so they can get to the windows. If my home is supposed to be a castle, then I’m being invaded right now. The barbarians have breached the gate and are determined to give me a home makeover. I’m a little bit shaken right now because I have issues with change. I enjoy a modest change of pace, like when I’m deciding where to go on a vacation or if I’m picking a place for dinner. Also, I voraciously listen to new music; you are much more likely to find me scouring the airwaves for something new to hear than tuning in to the retro station that plays “oldies” from the 1980’s. I’d rather hear the new song from Crystal Castles or Interpol than I would hearing Journey or Madonna played yet again, much as I love “Into The Groove”, “Material Girl”, “Separate Ways” or “Stone In Love.” (Although it was awesome to hear the cast of the show Glee cover those artists and songs, especially “Vogue” and “Don’t Stop Believing”- plus a WTF cover of Men Without Hats’ “Safety Dance”.)

Still, this doesn’t overcome the fact that major upheavals bother me. I’ve built security into my life, deliberately and probably even unconsciously. For example, I don’t job-hop. I’ve had three jobs since graduating college. I might have been able to find more money if I looked elsewhere but I’d also be the new person and face an uncertain future. Would I fit in with everyone? Then if the economy turned downward, like it has recently, I could be the person who gets laid off. I could also be bad at my new job and get fired, which is something I worry about. That’s why I’ve tried to find things I can do well and make my living doing them. It boggles my mind that one of my previous roommates had jobs with six different companies in the two years I knew him. I couldn’t do that. When I leave a job, there has to be a really good reason, like the company is about to go out of business, which is what happened with my first job.

I’ve also been cautious about making friends with new people. Yes, part of that is because I’m a bit shy but also people can be crazy. You never know if you’ll find a lifelong friend or if you’ll run into the person who texts you every hour to see “wassup?” For every friend I make at school or from work, there are a dozen people who are like Alex Lee, who thought the CIA was spying on him with cameras in the walls or like Jim Beahm who moved out suddenly because the bill collectors had finally found out where he was. I value the friends I have and try to keep them. Nothing kills me so much as a friend who disappears. I’m still upset about Daniel, one of my best friends from high school, who I haven’t heard from since junior year of high school despite my efforts to keep in touch through college and the first few years afterward. Now I’m worried about Amelia, my sort-of “pen pal” from AAA, who recently moved back to Virginia but didn’t tell me her new address, email or phone number. I might have thought it was deliberate but since she will read and comment on my blog, I’m still hoping it was unintentional. And don’t even get me started about Julie. That’s a really, really long story.

As a trained psychologist would probably assume (when doing a case study about how nuts I am), I’m very particular about my possessions too. I hate loaning out books or DVDs because I worry about how people will treat them. I hate cracked spines on paperbacks or torn dust-jackets on hardbacks. Also, I still don’t understand how rental DVDs get scratched up. You take them out of the case, put them into the player then back in the case when you are done. The only way to scratch them would be to put them somewhere other than those two places but why on earth would you do that? Nor do I let people borrow my car and I would think someone was crazy if they wanted to borrow some of my clothes (and I would definitely question their fashion sense because I’m not exactly cutting edge.) Not that I don’t want to share or I couldn’t buy another one if something happened to them but if they come back damaged or worn out, it messes with my sense of security. That’s part of the reason I don’t have a roommate anymore. I liked having another person around, despite my “people are crazy” comment, but they weren’t as concerned about protecting my stuff and maintaining my sense of comfort. They would smoke inside and not care that they burned holes in the carpet. They didn’t take out the trash or clean the bathtub. Sometimes I’d come home on a Wednesday night looking forward to having some peace and quiet only to find a dozen people in my place having an impromptu party. Of course my roommate wouldn’t clean up afterward. It drove me crazy. If I can’t maintain control over my own things and my own space, how can I control the rest of the chaos that exists in the world?

So maybe you can imagine how I feel about the windows being replaced. The windows in the sunroom, the second bedroom and the master bedroom, including the floor-to-ceiling window, were being torn out. These guys weren’t careful either. When they were done with a drill, they would rest it on top of my books. Buckets of caulk sat on the carpet, no one covered or removed their shoes after walking across the lawn and their McD’s drinks left wet rings on my shelves. Heck, one of the guys even made fun of me for having so much stuff in my bedroom. Yeah, I got mocked by a stranger in my own home! Another guy did such a poor job of caulking a window at first that I could actually see outside through the crack he left uncovered. I had to get him back in to finish it up, otherwise all the creepy crawlies from outside would be have a big doorway in and my existing slight spider concern would be more like that William Shatner movie Kingdom Of The Spiders. (It was on TV in the 70’s, right during my impressionable years.) I should have been a sobbing mess curled up on the floor. I wasn’t though and that was a big surprise to me. I felt worse the day before when I was moving the furniture away from the windows than I did when my walls were getting indelicately gutted.

The reason I didn’t feel that bad is quite paradoxical. Now that I was standing in the opening they made in my bedroom and looking at the results, I saw that my apartment was really just a bunch of concrete and wood put together thirty years ago by some unknown workers who could care less if everything was perfect as long as it passed inspection. Slap on some paint and add carpet to make it look nicer and that was my place. When it was being built, I’m sure there were old coffee cups strewn around and there was sawdust, nails and broken sheetrock everywhere and besides, someone else had lived here before me. It wasn’t an untouched sanctuary or some stronghold of perfection. It was the place lived in by a guy who hates to dust, who leaves his jogging clothes lying on a kitchen chair, who pounded dozens of holes in the wall to hang pictures and who has mold he can’t get to in the cracks of his shower stall. I have slowly added to the imperfection of this place. Home & Garden will not be featuring me in their magazine. So as I stared at the peeled up carpet, I thought about my friend’s blog and wondered what she would do with this situation. If she could use biscuits to find some insight into writing and to her view of the world, surely I could do something with major property demolition. I started thinking about why I felt so strongly about having some constants in my life, why I hung onto possessions, why I didn’t naturally seek out big changes. In other words, why I was basically a wuss.

I finally decided that it had a lot to do with moving around as a kid. I think that made me adverse to impermanence or shaking things up. I was an Army brat and moved every couple of years. I was born in Maryland, in Aberdeen, but my family didn’t stay there too long. By the time I was four years old and living in Germany, I had already moved from Maryland to Florida to Sweden and then Michigan. In Florida, we stayed with my grandmother and in Sweden we were with Mormor and Morfar. At an early age I was around many people who loved me. Then we left them for Michigan. And then on to Germany, all by age four. I might not have been old enough to think rationally most of those four years but some impressions or feelings must have sunk into my psyche. One of my very first memories is from Germany and it’s about loss and attachment. A neighbor lady locked herself out of her apartment but her kitchen window was open. I was playing nearby with some other kids and she wanted me to get up on the trash dumpster and climb through her kitchen window and unlock the door. I thought it would be fun to do that but I was hesitant about her suggestion to leave my toy guns and holster behind since I might not fit through the window with them on. I liked climbing but I didn’t want to take off my holster and leave it on top of the dumpster. What if the trash truck came and took it away? Even though the lady promised to keep an eye on it, I didn’t want to do it. Some other kid ended up going in because I couldn’t leave my stuff behind, much as I really wanted to climb through a window. Why would I be so concerned about my stuff at such a young age? Didn’t four and five-year olds leave toys lying around everywhere? I must have already developed some attachment issues.

After Germany, we went back to Florida for a few weeks and then on to Fort Lee in time for elementary school. On base at Fort Lee, I made friends with some neighborhood kids. Pat Kelly and Mike Gunnels were my main friends but I did play with Matt and a couple others whose names escape me. We watched cartoons, played in the woods and creeks, pretended to be Star Trek characters, climbed trees and drainage pipes, tore down rain gutters, all the things kids did. My grandparents also came to visit- Morfar taught me how to ride a bike while Granny and I looked for rocks in the creek. It was nice. Then we moved to Chester. Middle school was all about Chester. That’s where I met Paige Bowles, my first “real” girlfriend, Chris Hubbard, my new best friend, Scott Gregg, my next-door neighbor and friend but also the first person I got into a fist-fight with. There were also some other kids, like Clint Arthur- the KISS fan- and Janelle Pope. Chester is what I consider as my typical childhood period. Right at the end of middle school (Carver Middle School), we moved again, to Colonial Heights. I’m not sure why this move happened. Dad wasn’t relocated because he still worked at Ft. Lee and we only moved about a dozen miles away. Still, since I wasn’t driving age yet it meant I only saw Chris and Paige at school but since Paige was older than us, she hung out with other kids at school. This is when I also became friends with Daniel Nabors, Vince Remcho, David Eaton and John Dobbin. Just as it became time for high school, the next big period of a kid’s life, I was in a new house. Naturally this move put me in a new school district so two-thirds of the people I knew from Carver went to L.C. Bird while I went to Thomas Dale.

I lived close enough to John and Daniel that Mom didn’t mind driving me over there sometimes and later I could drive myself over sometimes but still I had to make some new friends at my new school or it would be a very lonely four years. It seems like each year I added a small new group. One year was cementing friendships with the holdovers from Carver, another year was getting to know the comics and D&D group like William Guyther and Darryl & Terry Midgette. Then there was the German Club years where I met Carla Boardman, David Gardner, Jesse and Herschel Alexander, Cheryl (now Cat) Thornton, Jody Rothhaar and the rest of that gang. And of course there was the year with Julie. Eventually, I was driving and working at Ukrops so I had my own mode of transportation and a little money. I made a few work friends too, people I played volleyball with on summer evenings after work or that I went to school with and got reacquainted with, like Daniel or Kevin Blevins. Things were going well. Then John moved to northern Virginia and I had no official best friend anymore, except Julie but don’t get me started on Julie. A whole set of abandonment issues came from just that one relationship. Still, I had a nice group of friends and I was starting to feel comfortable. And then I graduated and went off to college.

Only about five people from my high school went to my college and none of them were more than casual classmates. I went to William and Mary and most of my friends and classmates went to UVA or some other school like James Madison. The rest of my friends were still a year behind me so I lost them too and had yet another fresh start in front of me. During my first year in college, I think I had literally four old friends that I was still in touch with. If I wasn’t already sensitive about losing friends, that would have done it right there. Freshman year was a struggle because I had to reconcile separating from the friendships I’d finally developed and maintained for more than two years plus my family I’d been with during every move and I was in a new place where I had very little that was mine alone. College ended up being great though because it was four years in one place, relatively speaking. Yes, I did move around campus- first Faquier, then Giles, off-campus to Monticello, then Old Dominion, Chandler and Chandler again- but it wasn’t like I wasn’t able to see people. It is a fairly small school. Heck, sometimes I was in other people’s buildings more than my own, especially if you include computer labs. Still, in the back of my mind was that concern that I would have to leave people behind. I knew either graduation would come or people would eventually disappear. At one point, I was even trying to deliberately isolate myself from feeling connected to anything because I knew that the same thing that happened before, that happened after high school, would happen again. Junior year my favorite song was Simon & Garfunkel’s “I Am A Rock” because of the lyrics- “I’ve built walls, a fortress deep and mighty, that none may penetrate. I have no need of friendship, friendship causes pain…I am a rock, I am an island…I have my books, and my poetry to protect me; I am shielded in my armor, hiding in my room, safe within my womb, I touch no one and no one touches me. I am a rock, I am an island, and a rock feels no pain, and an island never cries.”

In one sense, I knew it was a sham. I understood that the song was about needing people even if that need causes some pain eventually. It made me feel good though to repeat the lyrics and to think that maybe, just maybe, it was possible to avoid those feelings. It was just a matter of time though. School wouldn’t go on forever (although I tried to stretch it out with an extra semester and a summer school session.) In fact, I was already getting a taste of the inevitable. One summer I was at Ft. Bragg for six weeks for ROTC and then right after graduation I was at Ft. Benjamin Harrison in Indianapolis for three months so I was again separated from people and in a new place for an extended period of time. (Just to wrap up all my moves, after school and the Army training, I was in Williamsburg for a couple months and then Centreville for two years and then Vienna until finally ending up in Oakton.) I couldn’t make anything stay the way I wanted it. People were fluid, life dictated location. That’s why I tried to think of my apartment as a fortress. Here, nothing changed unless I wanted it to. I could be near my friends- my parents couldn’t make me move somewhere else and lose them. Again, that was a sham. Elizabeth changed jobs, John got married, Steve moved to Seattle, Leona got married, Trevor fell out of touch, my parents moved to North Carolina, my grandparents died, roommates moved out, people stopped keeping in touch. Life happened even if I was pretending it didn’t. There was nothing I could do about it. That’s what I contemplated as I stared out the windowless window, at the huge holes in the walls and in my psyche.

Nothing in life is permanent. That’s a hard fact for me to accept. I’ve spent decades denying that, trying to hang onto things, to people and to the past even though I got hints to the contrary, both big ones (my grandparents dying, my hair disappearing) and small ones (girlfriends dumping me, my little sister having a baby). Heck, I’ve kept shoes and clothes I can no longer wear just because they remind of an earlier time. I doubt I’m ever again going to put on the Cub Scout uniform hanging in my closet and I’d be embarrassed to wear that electric blue sleeveless muscle shirt that Julie gave me for my birthday in 1985. I was embarrassed by it when it was still in fashion (i.e. the summer of 1985). I’ve let myself become petrified in both senses of the word. Fear has kept me frozen in place but it also made me feel comfortable about my immobilization- because a rock feels no pain- but I’m beginning to feel differently. As I move my furniture back where it belongs, I think that it might look better arranged a different way. I decide to toss out the pair of running shoes I used in ROTC since they hurt when I wear them now. I pull a box of mementos out from under the bed and decide to sort through them. I look at the curtains and window shade and think how old, faded and dusty they are. Maybe they should be replaced. Something with a nicer color, maybe light blue.

I think about the first time I played Texas Hold’em poker with someone besides John and what came out of that. You might be surprised to learn that I usually don’t get involved in social situations on my own because I’m no good at superficial conversation. Rather than make small talk, I’ll say nothing, which isn’t an effective conversational skill and doesn’t really endear you to a group of people. Unless you are really good looking, which I clearly am not, because then anything is excusable. On my good days, I pretend that I’m “Not Ugly”. One evening I overcame my inhibitions and walked into a bar by myself and talked to a bunch of strangers in order to play poker with them. I came back the following week and did it again. That took some effort for me but I ended up making some poker friends that I can now talk to during a game, which led to a group I now periodically play poker with on weekends. I’ve also done a few other things with the group that doesn’t involve poker at all. When things get set in motion, all kinds of things can happen and sometimes those turn out to be good things. If I hadn’t left Chester, I would never have gone to Thomas Dale and met my German Club friends. If I hadn’t left Waxie Maxie’s or Forbes, I would have been out of a job when the companies folded and the locations became a nail salon, a Baja Fresh ad a Target. If I hadn’t won that story contest, I might never have started writing.

Other things have started to change too. I’ve started talking to strangers when I’m on vacation, which has led to some really fun trips lately. I’ve stopped thinking that I have to become best friends with someone I meet. Instead, I can just enjoy them for who they are and for however long we are in touch. That’s a big difference since the days of writing to Elizabet Alm, the girl I met in Sweden who lived near Moster Iris and Morber Sven’s summer cottage. It turns out that transatlantic pre-teen pen-pal friendships with non-English speakers don’t work too well. I’ve learned to accept the temporary nature of some friendships and be able to enjoy the connection while it’s happening. Betsy & her husband and Kirk & Millie from the Black Sea trip were great to know, even if I won’t see them again and wasn’t anywhere near their age range. I loved having them ask me if they should save me a place at their table that night- it made me feel like I was one of the characters from Cheers. I’m glad I could hang out with the girl I met on a 6-hour tour with my parents while in Iceland even if I never saw her again after the tour. Tara was a marvelous person to talk to on the Danube trip. Not only was she intelligent and witty but most of all she reminded how it feels to make new friends and why it’s worth doing. The meals and tours I shared with her and her mom were much more enjoyable then they would have been on my own. She helped me remember there are so many interesting people in the world that it would be a shame not to try to meet them. At some point, every one of my friends was a stranger before I got to know them. Why stop now? What other fun experiences are waiting among the other 5 billion people in the world?

Where I live is just concrete and wood. It isn’t who I am. It’s a reflection of me, but it isn’t me. Just like a wall can be torn down, I can change what I do. I can be remodeled too. I shouldn’t be scared to demolish things and rebuild them if it might make them better than now they are now. When this thought came to me, I realized this explains my fascination with checking out houses under construction. When I see a new house being built, I’ll go inside and check it out. I love to walk through them and see the unfinished walls and imagine what the rooms will look like when they are done. I imagine where I would put furniture, where my den would be and what countertops will go into the kitchen. The construction represents new beginnings and possibilities. You can make the house into what you want it to be. Each house is a little different from any other and what you fill it with makes it even more different. Subconsciously, I embraced the idea of change and reinvention. If I love new houses and unpacking and organizing a room, why wouldn’t I want to do that with myself? I can’t do the impossible, like keep every friend I every made, have absolute professional and financial security, live where and in I want (a castle in Sweden; See, I said impossible)- but at least I ought to take some steps to start getting as close as I can. That means changes.

The other day I watched the recent remake of the movie The Women. Aside from the fact that none of the new women could match Rosalind Russell from the 1939 original, two other things stood out. First, I couldn’t connect with the characters and not because they were stereotypes. I couldn’t relate to their surroundings. These women lived in houses that I drool over. If I can’t live in a castle, their places would be a nice second best. The other thing that stood out was the plot’s crucial questions- who are you and what do you want? Meg Ryan’s character had defined herself as her husband’s wife until he started cheating on her and then she had no identity left. She looked at what she wanted out of life and what needed to be done to achieve that. She made the necessary changes in her life to find long-term happiness. This meant becoming a clothes designer, something she had dreamed of in her youth, and getting her eventually chastised husband back, on her terms. She got both these things, because it is a Hollywood movie starring Meg Ryan. My life is more like Memento, a series of sidetracks and false starts, self-delusion, and the inability to put the past behind me and find love. Still, the questions are legitimate and honest, even if they came from the Hollywood cliché factory.

The windows have now been replaced and I can easily see the lapses in craftsmanship. The caulking was done hurriedly, the carpet was not put back securely, there is debris in the screen and the walls are scuffed up. The area is a bit messed up but still serviceable. It’s definitely not perfect but then nothing is ever perfect so why delude myself that it can be? As if to drive this point home, I got a call from the condo board contact the week after the window went in to tell me that it wasn’t installed quite right and the workers needed to come back and adjust it a bit. So they stomped back in, tore up the carpet again, removed the caulk, refit the window and then smeared more caulk around the edges. I put all the furniture back in place again, glad that it was all over and tried to figure out which is better- to change radically or over time. Two days after that I got a call saying that things still weren’t right. So the workers needed to come back yet again to readjust the window they just finished adjusting. My fortress was invaded by incompetent assailants, again. The world will get in and mess stuff up no matter what I do. Another song came to mind at this point, not doubt stirred up from the fog of the past by my thinking of my living space as a fortress. Yes, Sting’s song "Fortress Around Your Heart".

The lyrics seem to talk about someone building a fortress around their heart (duh!) and keeping everyone out. If you take a closer look though, it has the same deceptive slant that the Simon & Garfunkel song has. The fortress isn’t supposed to keep people out- it was built by Sting to keep the occupant at bay, to cut them off from affecting him, until he realizes that his only chance for happiness is to topple the towers and reconnect even though it will be dangerous because of what he had done before. Here are some of the lyrics: “And if I built this fortress around your heart, encircled you in trenches and barbed wire, then let me build a bridge for I cannot fill the chasm, and let me set the battlements on fire… Then I went off to fight some battle that I'd invented inside my head, away so long for years and years, you probably thought or even wished that I was dead… This prison has now become your home, a sentence you seem prepared to pay. As I returned across the lands I'd known I recognized the fields where I'd once played. I had to stop in my tracks for fear of walking on the mines I'd laid”. If Sting can admit he made mistakes- at least as the lyrics imply- and should make amends and changes, then surely I can do the same.

As if to drive the point home, my hair dryer finally died around the same time. (War metaphors, hair dryers- yeah, Sting and I are simpatico.) I had owned it since college, when it was still necessary to dry my hair so it looked okay and I wouldn’t catch a cold by going out in winter with wet hair. Nowadays it is more of a pointless habit. Still, it was another sign that I couldn’t live in the past. It would eventually die off around me and I would be left out to dry. (See Sting, I can do metaphors too. Or is that a bad pun?) Next, my hallway got flooded. One day at work, I got a call from the condo association contact that the apartment below mine was getting flooded and had something burst in my apartment? Not being home, I could really answer that question but I sped home to check out the situation. When I arrived the carpet in my hallway was soaked, the sofa was wet and a picture had fallen off the wall because of all the water coming down from the ceiling. It turns out that the water heater in the apartment above mine had burst and water poured down the walls to drench my apartment and what little didn’t soak into the carpet continued on down to the tenant beneath me. I spent more than an hour using towels to soak up the water from the carpets and then eventually peeled back the edge of the carpet so air could get underneath and dry things out so mildew wouldn’t develop. As if it wasn’t enough of a sign to have my windows bashed out, I was now getting rained on indoors. How more permeable could my sanctum get? The rug was being pulled out from under me. Or at least washed out from under me. Could things get any more obvious?

Apparently, yes. There was one final sign to come. At first, I was going to wrap up this blog by using the water-heater as a metaphor for my life and the need to change. It was a good analogy too- about how I need to periodically make adjustments and replace/change things before the pressure built up too much or else things would burst and spill out, destroying everything around me. It would make sense since I had asked myself the questions from “The Women”, which are who am I and what do I want? I already know who I am. I don’t need to go Eat Pray Love to find myself. I also know what I want. No Visionquest required here. What I didn’t have was the motivation to seek out these things that would make me happier than I am now. I was afraid to make the effort. I wanted to stay in my fortress, locked deep within my room, with my poetry and sarcasm and rituals to shield me. To be a rock and an island. It wasn’t working though. It gets lonely and boring if you think friendship only causes pain, if you touch no one and no one touches you.

That’s when the third sign came about. You may not believe in signs but if you start looking for connections and odd coincidences, you’d be surprised how often you find them. For instance, I saw the movie Machete the other day. It was stupid fun and I like how some older, semi-forgotten stars were called back into action, kind of like a PG-13 version of The Expendables. Machete had Don Johnson in a major role and as I got in my car after the movie, the very first song playing on the radio was “Heartbeat”, Johnson’s lone pop hit, from the 1980’s. How often does that get played nowadays? Coincidence? Maybe but it could also be a sign of universal synchronicity. Anyway, my home sent me one last kick in the pants when my clock radio stopped working. Well, more accurately, the alarm function stopped working. The time displays correctly and the radio still plays but the alarm stopped going off. I had this particular clock radio since right after college, when my roommate Trevor gave it to me as an un-housewarming gift, when I moved out of the apartment in Centreville to relocate closer to my job in Bailey’s Crossroads. If I was looking for a sign or appropriate metaphor for making changes, it can’t get more obvious than this- I needed to find a new way to wake up because my old way wasn’t working. My wake-up call wouldn’t happen unless I made some changes.

So what started with people smashing holes in my walls ended up with an “ah ha!” moment about biscuits, which reminded me of the flower, which triggered thoughts of globe-trotting and songs about fortresses and rocks, the benefits of poker and how an indoor waterfall was a sign from the universe that it was time to get a wake-up call from a non-functioning alarm clock. It seems pretty clear, right? It’s time to get off my butt if I want things to be different. Change happens regardless of whether I want it to, so I should start embracing it and trying to steer it in the direction I want to go. I’ll have to come up with a new song to like. Maybe Twisted Sister because of the opening line “What do you want to do with your life?” But then again, no- I should stay away from rocks from now on. As I look through my CDs though, I don’t see anything that jumps out at me. Most of the songs about change seem to be about mortality or finding new love and that’s not really what I’m talking about. I guess it is appropriate that I can’t find the right thing in the past I’ve accumulated. I’ll just wait for the right song to find me, something that is new and yet to be discovered, the way life should be. Let’s hit the road, Jack, because life is a highway and time keeps on slipping into the future.