Saturday, November 5, 2022

ABC: Many Happy Returns (Autumn Music Series)

The fall of 1982 was a wondrous time in my life. My sophomore year had begun and much of that adolescent awkwardness was falling away. I felt confident and it was glorious to be alive. 

I was a cross-country runner and that autumn I met one of the people that would musically change my life in the most profound ways. I distinctly recall the first time seeing him walking up to our squad on that first day of practice wearing a Tommy Tutone shirt. He had ridiculously mod hair and it was quickly apparent that he knew his shit when it came to music. 

Over the course of the next few weeks, Steve introduced me to a plethora of amazing records. This was the guy who turned me on to Paul Weller, the artist who is now second only to John Lennon for me. I'll never forget listening to Sound Affects by The Jam and having a whole new world of music opened up to me. 

One of the big records during this time period was The Lexicon of Love by ABC. It had come out the previous June but for me, it will always be a fall record because we obsessively played it on the bus ride to our cross-country meets. Sony Walkmens=Represent!

The key track for me has always been "Many Happy Returns." The lyrics are brilliant and it has all of my autumnal tropes. The keyboards echo off into windswept, multi-colored leaves and swirl forever, keeping that time always around my shoulders like a warm blanket...


Steve remains one of my best friends to this day, 40 years and counting! He's an extremely talented musician in his own right and still turns me on to colossally awesome music:)

No comments:

Post a Comment