Guilty Pleasures?
Some people may have guilty pleasures but I do not. Mine are entirely innocent...
Of all the advantages of getting older (and yes, there are some…) it seems to me that the greatest is caring less about what people think about you, assuming of course anybody thinks about you at all. It is a revelation that comes to most of us, whether we like it or not.
Fundamental to my epiphany was the acceptance that I would never be cool, at least, not in the way Joe Morello is cool and therefore I had better stop wasting my energy and just accept that some are born cool, some achieve coolness and some have coolness thrust upon them. I though, fell into none of those categories and I would be wiser and happier to simply embrace my inner schmuck.
Doing that as a young person however takes a huge amount of confidence, awareness or masochistic tendencies, at least two of which I lacked then, as I lack now. What I did have though was long hair, desert boots, Jeans of (of course) and a copy of Pink Floyd’s “Meddle” which I would pointlessly carry around with me, tucked under my arm like the village idiot’s pet pig.
Then the world changed. Punk, New-Wave, Electronica and Ska were the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse that heralded Armageddon for my sense of “cool” and burgeoning musical tastes. Their arrival affected me so much that I would actually lose sleep worrying over it was possible to be loyal to my beloved Yes and Genesis whilst still being able to embrace the delights of the “new sounds” I so adored of Magazine and XTC without inducing mental illness.
It was. It’s not even up for debate and these days if I hear something my own offspring are into that I like, I am free to do so without fear of mockery or persecution. Indeed, the way that they too have no problem with this represents a key shift in how such things are perceived. I mean, if you are over 50, can you imagine your parents saying to the 17 year old you “I really like that stuff you were playing earlier. Can you do me a copy for the car?” without provoking fits of eye-rolling and embarrassment inspired vomiting?
The problem though was not so much accepting the fact that I had a fondness of the Italian progressive rock band PFM and also could not wait for the new Elvis Costello LP to be released but in keeping this self-evident truth hidden from all those but my closest friends. Oh the shame of it!
What I am describing is the concept encapsulated by the phrase “guilty pleasure” – a relatively modern if queasy epithet that seems nevertheless to capture the essence of a phenomena of which we are all aware; movies, TV and music – especially music – that we dearly love but feel for some reason that we should not.
Hopefully, by the time one has reached my age, no sentient human being should still feel encumbered by these misplaced echoes of teenage angst but I imagine fewer may be able to pinpoint the exact moment that they dropped the millstone and as I did and declared for all to hear, something along the lines of “You know what? I am completely infatuated with the relaxed vocal stylings of Val Doonican and I don’t care who knows it!” No, it wasn’t Val Doonican for me but Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark but that’s kind of the point; it wouldn’t, shouldn’t and didn’t matter if it had have been.
Well Doctor, it was just an ordinary day…
I had just purchased OMD’s “Messages”, on 12” no less, when on the way home I encountered another one of my tribe, a long haired young man I’d known from school, walking towards me. He was wearing a cheesecloth shirt, the ubiquitous Jeans, Desert Boots and was inexplicably carrying a copy of Pink Floyd’s “The Wall”.
We exchanged pleasantries.
“Man!”
“Man!”
So yeah!”
“Yeah!”
Nodding and grunting profusely at the profundity of our exchange, his eye settled upon the bag I was carrying and enquired as to what treasures might lie within – The Mahavisnu Orchestra? Hawkwind?
Oh law. This was the moment. Fight or flight – To lie or to reveal the terrible truth?
Stiffening the sinews, I mustered – that act one only seems to perform with courage and no other quality – no one ever “musters” their apathy do they? – I mustered my courage like no one had mustered previously and showed him.
“It’s the new OMD single. It’s amazing”.
My companion considered this, looked at the object as if it were a decomposing vole, at first incredulous, then angry, his head began rotating faster and faster and faster until, due to the centrifugal force created by the maelstrom, blood and mucus began spurting from his facial orifices, spattering passers-by and sending small children screaming for cover.
No he didn’t.
He just looked at it and said,
“Ok. Yeah. Right”.
And with that we parted. Nobody died – not of terminal embarrassment or chronic credibility loss or anything else.
I got home and played the thing, summoning every bit of treble and bass my archaic stereo could muster…hey! Muster! So I was wrong! It’s not just courage! Other things can be mustered!
Anyway, again, no fatalities were recorded. I had taken the first step of that particular journey of 1000 miles that has brought me to this place; A place where I can cheerfully exclaim my devotion to Joni Mitchell and The Young Knives and Delius and Dave Brubeck and Kate Bush and not give one fig or rolling donut about whether I’m cool or not. Because nobody is cool. Not really. Except for Joe Morello.