Rush

Sebadoh has this cover of “Everybody’s Been Burned,” by David Crosby. It’s on Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock. It’s one of those songs for me.

Those songs that help me.

I’m like lots of people. Sometimes, girls kill me. Just kill me. Used to happen a lot, in my 20s. A girl would be with me for a while, and it would end, and I’d fall into a tailspin.

And, then I’d find a song that would help pull me out. That cover of “Everybody’s Been Burned,” was one of them.

But, the one I want to talk about is “The First Part,” by Superchunk. And I want to thank my buddy Zane.

Zane knows an insane amount of information about Rush. He loves them. We played this game, where I would say, “Fourth album, third song,” and Zane would say:

“That’s ‘The Twilight Zone’ on 2112. It’s 3 minutes and 19 seconds long.”

And then, he might tell me a bit of trivia, if he knew any. Or, he would just quote a lyric.

Maybe you think that it’s kind of weird, being able to do that. Maybe you think it’s a little over the top, being able to do that. Maybe you’re laughing at my friend’s passion for a Canadian prog rock band.

Shut up. Admit it. You totally wish you could do that. You totally wish you loved something so much, you could do that with it. We wish you were that devoted to something. To anything.

Point is, my friend Zane loved Rush, and I had just had my heart removed by a girl, and I had just heard this song called “The First Part,” by Superchunk, and I bought the CD. And we went for a drive.

“The First Part,” gets right into it. A chord gets struck and the guitar line hits. Four notes, and then this part where it goes up. That happens a couple of times. And then the singing. And there’s this break. When Mac sings something about the clocks winding down, there’s a bit where the strings on the guitar are muted as he hits them. It’s all tension, begging for release. The strings want so much to vibrate freely, but his palm covers them. And then, he lets go.

Foolish is a breakup album. Mac and Laura, guitar player and bass player, had broken up. The whole album is drenched in the break-up.

And, man, “The First Part.” That one really got to me.

When you’re in a girl-related depression, and your stomach has sort of lifted in your chest, and you’re 20, and your head buzzes all day, and every time you forget you remember again, and you have to carry it all with you wherever you go (because you think maybe going out for a walk will get distance from it, but it doesn’t), you grasp at anything that offers a moment of pure, ecstatic glee. That tension, tension, tension, release of muted guitar strings did it for me. It’s a three-minute song. I needed an hour of it. I needed two hours.

So, I played the song, over and over. I played it over and over in Zane’s car, on his stereo. He drove. I played the song. He drove. I pressed rewind. I played the song. He drove.

And he really didn’t complain.

The man just wanted to listen to something else! Anything else! Rush, maybe. But, he listened to “The First Part” with me. Over and over.

Zane’s the best.

Thanks, Zane. If I could blog, I’d blog about you.

***

The illustration for this post was provided by my very talented friend Michael R. Sanchez.

To hear his band The Way It Is, go here.

To see him perform stand-up comedy, go here.

To see short films and a trailer for an upcoming feature film he is making, go here.

I'd recommend: At the Party, My Molly, The Donut, Up to the Minute with Brandon Ivey (Bicycle).

Also recommended: everything else.

A warning: once you start looking, you will spend all day with him.