I AM THE UPSETTER
Lee Scratch Perry
1968
Available on : I Am the Upsetter
Sanctuary : 2005
[Buy It]

GOOD ADVICES
R.E.M.
Life's Rich Pageant
Capitol : 1985
[Buy It]

ORIGINAL MIXED-UP KID
Mott The Hoople
Wildlife
Island : 1971
[Buy It]

WHAT WAS I THINKIN' IN MY HEAD?
Sly & The Family Stone
Heard Ya Missed Me, Well I'm Back
Epic: 1976
[Buy It]

The other day I said something to upset a friend of mine. She called to ask my advice on something and I gave it. It wasn't even advice so much as a suggestion about the way a major decision should be examimed. But when I made this suggestion, she answered with a kind of silence whose depth made me nervous and whose duration made me more so. Part of me thought that I was just helping another human being work through an issue. But part of me also thought that it was condescending to believe that I was helping another human being work through an issue. Who asked me? Except that she did. And yet another part of me knew that along with the desire to give sound counsel, there was a little bit of personal investment in my answer, because I felt that the situation we were discussing might, in theory, work to my disadvantage if it unfolded in a certain way.

This is all too vague. Here are some untrue specifics: My friend, who is a talented engineer, is thinking of taking a job in Ohio with a company that manufactures several electronic devices used in household chores and also by the defense industry. It's a major decision, not like selecting a shampoo or choosing between red and green apples. I am not sure that I want my friend to move to Ohio, because then she wouldn't live here anymore. A few years ago, one of my wife's closest friends moved away, to somewhere even further than Ohio, and my wife told me that she had a last-minute desire to stop her friend from going. But what I said then I'll say again now: one person is not the C.E.O. of another person's business. If my friend wants to go to Ohio, she should go to Ohio. Plus, there aren't so many good jobs, especially in this poor economy, and she has been offered a position. "Do you think I should give it a chance?" she said.

What could I say to this? Nothing, certainly. I could have said nothing. But I was asked, and so I answered. I made a suggestion that I thought would help her think about it more clearly. I wasn't negative, I don't think, but I wasn't completely positive either, in part because I have heard certain things about this company that give me pause. For example, there is a rumor that this company manufactures some kind of paralyzing sky ray that can, if turned up to the highest level, fry out the brains of innocent civilians. I am not sure this rumor is true. There was an item about it a few years ago in the Intelligencer column of Weapons and Concepts magazine, and you know how they are. It's very possible that the reporter was walking around the office and saw a futuristic desk lamp and let his imagination run wild. But I read the article, and for a minute, at least, it filled me with dread, and that dread resurfaced slightly when my friend asked about Ohio. I went silent as a result, and then I worried that my dreadful silence would be misinterpreted. What if she took my silence as disapproval, or tacit endorsement? I wanted to be clear. I thought that it was fine for her if it was fine for her, and I said so. This sentence sounded idiotic coming out of my mouth. I rushed out several others to cover for it.

After I spoke, she was quiet, and it was clear she was upset, though not at all clear whether she was upset at me or at the very real issues involved in the prospect of a new city, a new job, an employer who could one day possibly maybe unleash a death ray upon humanity. We hung up. I was upset, too, mainly because I wasn't sure if I had exercised my right to give advice or violated my friend's right to talk through an issue without receiving advice. R.E.M. addressed this issue, on Fables of the Reconstruction, in "Good Advices," which has an early Michael Stipe lyric and is consequently mysterious:

When you greet a stranger look at his shoes
Keep your money in your shoes, put your trouble behind
When you greet a stranger look at her hands
Keep your money in your hands, put your travel behind
Who are you going to call for, what do you have to say
Keep your hat on your head
Home is a long way away
At the end of the day, I'll forget your name
I'd like it here if I could leave and see you from a long way away

The song is full of advice but fully aware that advice can devolve quickly into cliche or paradox, not to mention that much of the urgency of the situation in question will, with time, vanish completely. And the plural of the title suggests an even larger problem. What does it mean if there are advices rather than advice? Does it mean that not-Ohio is as valid a choice as Ohio? "It's fine for you if it's fine for you," I had said. But what if the person receiving the advice, the person for whom the advice is intended, has no idea whether she'd prefer Ohio or not-Ohio? What if that's why she asked in the first place? Mott the Hoople has already handled this problem, in "Original Mixed-Up Kid," but handling the problem isn't the same as locating a solution:

And he can't make up his mind where he wants to go
Ain't there a heaven ain't there a hell well he just don't know
For in a crowded street he can see the sleet
When the other men just see the snow

"It's fine for you if it's fine for you," I had said, and thought I was being helpful.

Many of the things I say that I think are helpful have their roots in Sly Stone songs. As it turned out, this one did, too. To say that "What Was I Thinkin' In My Head?" is an odd song is an understatement. It has none of the mind-bending funk, sophistication, or darkness of There's a Riot Goin' On and Fresh. Instead, there's a childish melody, a harsh robotic vocal, and a lyric about a character who is behaving badly because he or she isn't intimately connected to his or her decisions. I wish I could make it less abstract than that:

Thought about it, talked it over
Mentioned it to a very close friend
Played the dozens with a cousin
That's not the way to treat your kin
Making waste by making haste
So many things were on your mind
Overdoing your pursuing
Not taking advantage of all your time

The chorus that follows this first verse, "What were you thinkin' in your head?" is unproblematic, I think. It's one person questioning another person, or giving advice, or at the very least making a suggestion about the way that a decision should be examined. The second verse extends the theme:

Called a brother something other
Than you should have if you had thought
You were only with the lonely
That's not the way that you were taught
Knew it all and you felt tall
Now you realize your own size
'Cause in this world boy and girl
Never a chance to join the wise

But then, after this verse, the chorus surfaces again, this time with a new subject. Now it's "What was I thinkin' in my head?" and this is mind-bending in a completely different way. It's a question that is both so self-absorbed that it nearly disappears from the world at large and so universal that it is vital for everyone. This is what I was asking my friend to ask herself, I think, when I said that Ohio worked for her if it worked for her. I didn't even need to hear the answer; I just needed to know that there was an answer. Then we could have gone on talking in New York, or she could have packed up and gone to Ohio. In time, I would have set aside my concern about the death ray, which was probably trumped up anyway.