41. The Grand Illusion by Styx

 41. The Grand Illusion by Styx

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aIuCdQtNBgg&list=OLAK5uy_lFI8Niz0KvEK_YdIo-ixA464L3jVaF2Go

I'm not sure why Renda bought the 8-track of The Grand Illusion while she was in high school and then didn't take it with her when she went to college. Maybe it had to do with the fact that it was an 8-track. But I'm glad she left it, because I nearly wore parts of that tape out from hitting that ca-chunk button to try to get back to a place where I could hear my favorite songs again. Eventually, I came to like the entire album so much that I didn't really hit the ca-chunk button as much. 

For some reason, during my freshman or sophomore year (I can't remember which one), Santa thought I'd like a weight set for Christmas. In my vain attempt to get jacked up for football, track, and basketball, I would put this album on and go through my workout routine at least three or four times a week. I'd also lift weights and listen to it whenever I felt in an especially pissed off mood. (Why must you be such an angry young man?) That's why this album got a lot of airplay during the last three months of 1983 and the first 8 months of 1984. After that, I went to college and couldn't take the album with me. Why? Because it was an 8-track, and I was going to college. And although I had never been to college, I was pretty sure that (a) I couldn't take the stereo with the 8-track player with me and (b) if I played 8-tracks in college, I'd be made fun of by everyone else in the dorm.

The album was a huge success for Styx when it was first released on 7/7/77. (Nice date. THANKS!) And songs from the album still get regular airplay on the classic rock stations--mostly "Come Sail Away" and "Fooling Yourself." But the song that got me ca-chunking the hell out of that 8-track was, of course, "Miss America." In my teenage mind, it was the best song on the album. 

You were the apple of the public's eye
As you cut the ribbon at the local mall.
A mirage of both you and us.
How can it be real?

We love your body in that photograph.
Your home state sure must be proud.
The queen of the United States!
Have you lost your crown?

Well, are you really who we think you are?
Or does your smile seem to wear you down?
Is the girl who you once were
Screaming to jump out?

And the dream that you must live,
A disease for which there is no cure,
This roller coaster ride you're on
Won't stop to let you off.

Well, it's true. Just take a look.
The cover sometimes makes the book.
And the judges, did they ever ask
To read between your lines?

In your cage at the human zoo,
They all stop to look at you.
Next year, what will you do
When you have been forgotten?

Well, aren't you? (Miss America)
Don't you? (Miss America)
Won't you? (Miss America, our love)

James Young's lyrics and Tommy Shaw's driving rock guitar in this song encapsulated the feelings of my 17-year-old jilted heart so magnificently that there were times I was sorely tempted to go buy the vinyl record so that I wouldn't have to ca-chunk that 8-track anymore, and I could just easily move the needle back to listen to the song over and over as many times as I wanted. However, it would have been impossible to justify to Dad why I had spent money on buying an album that we already had in the family's collection, so I just had to keep on ca-chunking my rage away in between all those sets of arm curls and bench presses.

Now that my youthful rage (and muscles) has been replaced by aged hopelessness (and fat), my 55-year-old mind says that "Man in the Wilderness" is the best song on the album, hands down.

Another year has passed me by.
Still I look at myself and cry
What kind of man have I become?
All of the years I've spent in search of myself,
And I'm still in the dark,
'Cause I can't seem to find the light alone.

Sometimes I feel like a man in the wilderness.
I'm a lonely soldier off to war.
Sent away to die, never quite knowing why.
Sometimes it makes no sense at all.

Yep. That pretty much sums it up for me.

Of course, when I'm on my deathbed, I'll probably wish that I could see a gathering of angels appear above my head and sing to me a song of hope. At that point, I might decide "Come Sail Away" is really the best song. However, if much to my surprise, the angels turn out to be aliens that just want to add me to their collection of human oddities, I'll become super-pissed again, and my teenage rage will emerge yet again, and I will battle these space invaders to the death by shooting at them from behind small green buildings. 

Unless the ship looks like one of those that I've seen on ELO album covers. In that case, I'll be happy to climb aboard their starship and head for the skies. 

Nardo