It's was Ruth's album, but I owned it. I kept it in my room by my stereo. I listened to it whenever I wanted. I memorized the lyrics. I sang them when I wasn't even listening to the album. It was in every way an album that defined my musical tastes as a teenager. The album was "Frontiers."
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| This is what aliens looked like in the 80s--Michael Jackson's nose and Emma Stone's eyes. |
Why did I like it so much? In part, because for my very first rock concert I got to see Journey with special guest Bryan Adams at the Mini-dome in Pocatello. (I refuse to call it the Holt Arena!)
The time was early 1983. Journey had just come out with Frontiers and Bryan Adams had debuted his Cuts Like a Knife album. Nice combo! (THANKS!) Mom and Dad let me go because I attended the concert with my older sisters and their husbands, so there was little chance I'd get in any trouble. (Have you seen my brother-in-law Dirk? Nobody messes with Dirk.) Still, after the concert was over and my hearing began to return, I really felt like I had gone through a rite of passage into full teenagerdom--attending a rowdy rock concert with loud music, half-naked women throwing themselves at the band, and lots and lots of pot smoke in the air. I also saw a half dozen drug deals from our seats in the stands, as well as a few fist fights that got broken up by burly men wearing shirts that said "Security" on them. How's that for living up to the rock concert stereotype!
Bryan Adams was excellent, and he basically performed his entire album. The only thing I didn't like was at one point he got the whole crowd to yell "F--- You!" over and over. To what end, I have no idea. Maybe it was a general act of defiance to the moral policing of music that was a bit of a political issue at that time*. Then when Brian left the stage he promised he would come back to Pocatello to perform again. (He never did.)
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| Is he running? Is he dancing? Is he trying to start a new Olympic sport of guitar discus? |
Journey played a lot of their older hits, but mostly they played songs from Frontiers. I remember they smoked and drank a lot on stage. And Steve Perry was at his Perryest, hitting all those notes that are so high it makes your scrotum shrink. (Yours? Or mine? Me or you?) But you know what makes scrotums expand, don't you? Neither do I. But I think there might be a clue in this picture of the band from the 70s.
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| Neal Schon stuck in his thumb and pulled out a disco fro. |
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| Tighter pants. Modest bulge. Better hair. Thank you 80s! |
I cheered so hard at the concert that I couldn't do my fingers-in-mouth whistle at the end, as my lips had given out, which is something to say for someone who played trumpet every day for an hour in band class, and several more hours on pep band gigs per week. I think the band played three encores before they ended it for good and everyone went out to the mini-dome parking lot to wait in line for two hours to get out. Not too shabby for a first concert!
But that's only one reason why I loved Frontiers so much. The second reason was that when all my high school romances went south on me, there were lots of solid breakup songs on it that I could listen to and get out all that anger over being dogged by every girl I ever wanted to not be dogged by. And when I was in that mood, there was no song I liked to play more than "Back Talk." It's a blistering, hard-rockin' pile of shout-it-out-loud angry lyrics. Unfortunately, there is no decent live video of Steve Perry singing this song. The best I could find is a video with the new lead singer, who basically ruins every song he sings. Ugh! It makes me so mad!
Yes, in this instance, the song lyrics perfectly reflect the way I feel about this new lead singer.
I believe you enjoy this aggravation.
Lately that's all I get from you!
You were born to drive me crazy!
Can't take it, can't take it any more from you!
No! No more...
Back talk! I don't need it!
Back talk! I don't need it!
Back talk! Don't want to hear it!
Don't give me no back talk--
Sassy back talk--
Don't give me no sassy back talk!
NO!
Fortunately, I've listened to the Steve Perry version so many times that even this terrible, horrible, awful performance won't make me like the song any less. It is simply the perfect arena rock song for releasing pent-up anger. And if you don't believe me, then keep it to yourself, and don't give me no sassy back talk!
NO!
* Although she had been the drummer in an all-girl rock band called the Wildcats, Tipper Gore didn't like the potty-talk in rock and roll songs, and she wanted warnings/ratings on all the records so that parents could keep their daughters from listening to albums with evil songs on them. Apparently, an impressionable Gore girl bought Purple Rain and played "Darling Nikki"--a song that referenced self-pleasuring--on the home stereo while her parents listened (dumb idea!), and Tipper lost her mind. A couple years later, we started seeing those warning labels on album covers for explicit lyrics, which only made teenagers want to buy them all the more, which in turn made all the artists want to use them more. And that's why teenagers today have such filthy mouths when they give their sassy back talk.
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