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Friday, September 25, 2009
FEAR IS A MAN'S BEST FRIEND
John Cale
Fear
Island : 1974
[Buy It]
MY FRIEND GEORGE
Lou Reed
New Sensations
RCA : 1984
[Buy It]
BEST FRIEND
Cheap Trick
Special One
Big3 : 2003
[Buy It]
SEE MY FRIENDS
Richard Thompson
1000 Years of Popular Music
Cooking Vinyl : 2003
[Buy It]
Every year at this time I go into a defensive crouch. There are lots of reasons: years of training in back-to-school wariness, the High Holidays and the corresponding high level of vigilance they demand, my birthday. It's last on this list, my birthday, because I want it to be least. I don't like it. Birthdays are occasions of increased expectation, which necessarily means they are times of disappointment. No matter how many times I try to convince myself otherwise, it turns out that the day has no special capacity for ecstasy or surprise.
This year, my hostility toward my birthday is even more pointed because it's a big year, though I won't say which one. Okay: you twisted my arm. I'm turning eighty. As a result of this event, I have been thinking about everything, all the time. Mainly I have been thinking about the way that life limits you. No matter how hard you try, you'll never get to live in enough places or work enough jobs or write enough books or love enough women or hear enough music. If you submit to the limits, you can start to feel defeated. If you complain about them, you come off as churlish or, worse, idealistic. Everyone knows this, but it's hard to let the thought crystallize, because then it's so sharp it wounds. About a month ago, my five-year-old was looking at the clock, and he said, "Time is the thing you can't get out of, right?" Now he will begin the endless process of trying to repress that fact.
So with the impending cake and candle, this has been on my mind, and my mind's been on it, and as a result I have felt a little caged, and as a result of that I have been a little cagey, and as a result of that, the other day, in the midst of all this thinking, I did something thoughtless. I was talking to a friend of mine and I mentioned a piece of news, something interesting and maybe good that's about to happen. She was surprised that she was only hearing about it now, and not pleasantly surprised. She suggested, in no uncertain terms, that I should have told her the news earlier, because she's my friend, and because she deserves to know. About an hour later, she said she wasn't bothered by it, but I was.
In most cases, I don't care if I upset people. In some cases, I prefer it. Call it a character flaw if you like; when you turn eighty, see how much goodwill toward your fellow man you have left. But in a few cases, where a few people are concerned, I care tremendously if I upset them. I care so much that "care" is a precious, polite, desperately insufficient little word that can cast neither light nor shadow on the fact of the matter. Which is this: I have made most if not all of the close friends I will make. The other day, when i was talking to this friend, who is maybe my closest friend, it suddenly occurred to me that maybe I haven't been clear. Sure, I say nice things, friendly things, supportive things, but I'm not positive that I'm ever exactly straightforward about how important (some) people are to me. The older I get, the fewer of them there are, and the more central they become. The ones in the innermost circle have a tremendous amount of power, maybe more than they know, maybe more than they want. As a younger person, I thought that if one friend disappeared, another would appear as a replacement. It may have even been true then. Now I know that's not true. If any of these friends disappear, it will be like losing a limb, and I'll have phantom pain in that lost limb for decades and decades, until I am taken off the case. So I didn't like the idea that I had disappointed this friend by not sharing my news. (It also occurred to me that maybe this friend was displeased with me for receding in the days surrounding my birthday. On her last milestone birthday, she had a nice big party and invited people. I am being a shut-in, relatively.)
Of course, I may be missing the mark by a wide margin. She may not be upset for these reasons or even upset at all. When she said an hour later that she wasn't bothered, she may have been telling the truth. So maybe the point is that I'm upset, possibly as a result of unease brought on by an impending eightieth birthday. As commentary, as cure, even as celebration, I am posting a set of songs that look at friendship, and particularly the way that it takes hold of you over time. The most pointed and pertinent is John Cale's "Fear Is a Man's Best Friend." The funniest is Lou Reed's "My Friend George." The most energetic is Cheap Trick's "Best Friend." And the saddest is Richard Thompson's cover of the Kinks' "See My Friends," which Ray Davies wrote about the his older sister, who gave him his first guitar on his thirteenth birthday and who died later that day after falling ill while dancing at a nightclub. He wrote about her absence often, from every angle; even a song like "Come Dancing" is shot through with melancholy because of it. Davies is sixty-five, and he'll probably feel the loss unti he's my age. You know: birthdays, seen friends, phantom pain.Labels: ben, rock
posted by Ben
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