4. Genesis by Genesis

 4. Genesis by Genesis

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lXH0nwirio&list=OLAK5uy_kHRLfBQUF_0QymcIJhE18UQBTix328DYk&index=1

Released in October of 1983, this album was perfectly positioned to help kick off The Great Depression, which officially began November 1983. "Illegal Alien" was the only song that didn't seem directly related to the way I felt during The Great Depression, as I was neither illegal nor alien.

"That's All" and "Taking It All Too Hard" are the perfect summation of everything I went through emotionally at the beginning of The Great Depression. That's because the precise beginning of The Great Depression occurred on Saturday evening, November 12, 1983, at the exact moment I was sticking a thin piece of metal with a piece of food on the end into a large heated bowl of melted cheese, and I heard one girl on the army date ask the girl that I thought I was dating if she had enjoyed the Sadie Hawkins dance the night before--a girl-ask-guy dance which the girl I thought I was dating did NOT ask me to go to. And so, in a nanosecond it became obvious to me that she had gone to the dance with someone else because that's what she wanted to do. And in that moment, just as I thought it was going alright, I found out that I was wrong when I thought I was right. I could have left, but I didn't go, though my heart told me so. I couldn't feel a thing from my head down to my toes. 

Basically, my heart froze at that moment, and I didn't think it would ever thaw out. But being the major thickhead that I was, a short six weeks later, I let the same thing happened again, but with a different girl. Oh, no, I made the same mistakes again. And just as I thought it was going alright, I found out I was wrong when I thought I was right. Once again, I took it all to heart, and I took it all too hard. I realized that no matter what girl I was trying to find a way to love, it would always be the same. It's just a shame. That's all. 

So, that's why I stopped dating and going to dances and basically avoided any kind of situation in which there was the slightest chance that I might end up having any kind of conversation with a girl that was outside of a classroom. I took my heart and locked it away and melted the key like it was a piece of geometrically-shaped cheddar cheese. And that's why when the whole school voted me in as king of the senior prom while I was away on band tour, I said, "Hell no!" And when Ronald Jolley tried to intimidate me into going to the dance with the girl that had been voted queen of the prom, I still said, "Hell no!" And when the queen herself in tears begged me to go to the dance with her, I remained unmoved and still said, "Hell no!" And since everybody liked the queen, I then became a thoroughly hated figure in the school until after the senior prom. Only my three friends in the Arimo Mafia knew why I was doing the things I was doing, and frankly, that was enough for me. I just ran track, listened to a lot of music on the stereo at home when i wasn't hanging out with my three friends, and kept my head down until graduation finally freed me from that social hellfire called High School.  

The rest of the songs on the album can be thought of as really good bonus songs, especially the psychotic "Mama," the extra long "Home by the Sea" and "Second Home by the Sea"--both of which should always be listened to as a single song, as that's how they sound on the original album--and the revenge fantasy "Just a Job to Do." I know it's supposed to be a hitman singing, but it just feels more fun to imagine I'm the one doing the hit job.

Now, you might think that since this album is so closely associated in my mind with those initial moments of The Great Depression that I would have felt depressed when I listened to it. But that's not the effect this album had on me. Instead, I got emotionally pumped up when I heard these songs. It was like a mojo booster that made me feel empowered to keep focused on whatever else I was doing in my life and not get bummed out because I didn't have a girlfriend.

That's why this album was one of my favorite ones to listen to after I got back from Sweden. Thanks in great part to this album, I managed to keep the He-Men-Women-Hater vibe going strong until March of 1988. That's when I met Julie and all my previous oaths to not date anymore were broken for good. She was just too much damn fun! And because this Genesis album doesn't play all that well on dates or on trips with the wife, I stopped listening to it as much. But every now and then when I'm all by my lonesome and I want to listen to something that really sends me back in time to my high school years, I'll put this album on and remember all those extraordinarily strong emotions I felt back during The Great Depression. And for some reason, it just makes my mojo levels shoot up so high that I feel really good and that makes life seem easier, even during those times when it feels like it's getting so hard.

Ha-ha-hah! Oooh!

Ha-ha-hah! Oooh!

Nardo