Forty-nine seconds of one human, likely with more of her life behind her than ahead, having a moment of absolute ecstasy. That's what that video is. Bliss. I virtually left my body.
The dog toy squeaker noise before the first chord, is me. Tuck had found a website that could give very accurate predictions of concert setlists and it had been right about everything so far. I was ready.
“Are you happy? We’re so happy,” is how I progressed, at the speed of sound, in my friendship with the woman next to me.
Her husband, not at all standoffish himself and very tall, unfolded from his narrow seat and took his wife's arm. I was 100% of the mind that these people were my tribe. Everyone who was starting to stand up was One of Us. This had not happened for any song before this. “We dancing? We dancing? WE DANCING!” I exclaimed, and my crocheting and my glasses and my phone went… somewhere.
Around forty years ago, I first heard the song “My Ever Changing Moods” by the Style Council. I’d been in, I think, a Kentucky Fried Chicken. I knew halfway into the song that no matter what other bands I loved for the rest of my life, and even if I hated everything else this band ever did, that this was my favorite song for life. It was my *theme* song.
I went to the counter to ask what it was. The boy working there didn't know; the music, he said, came on a looped system from corporate, and they had no way to see the artists or song titles.
There was no internet, but I could understand the title phrase, and fourteen-year old me tracked it down, over time. I was a bit surprised — it was that dour-faced man from the Jam, who had never much interested me. I didn't buy the Style Council album the song was on, either. But I'd find it every so often out in the world, and then on YouTube, which is the best place to find music, because of the comments.
Before the concert this week, we’d gone into a burger joint where there were a few seated customers, including a man in middle-age and a Jam t-shirt a size too small. I smiled at him, and he — and the next couple who came in — were not avoiding eye contact. They were searching for it.
People ended up needing to share tables, it got so busy. From everyone we spoke to, Tuck and I were the only people from Philly. People had flown in. Driven from Pittsburgh. It was amazing. “I saw him about forty years ago,” someone said, and I thought *What? Are we in a Tolkien novel? You can't have done anything FORTY years ago and then expect to do it again.*
“My Ever Changing Moods” was not my only organic group dance. At the exit nearest the end of our row, one man stood playing air guitar, the other just bobbing and smiling. “LET ME GO PEE AND I'LL COME BACK TO BE WITH YOU!”
When I got back there were five more people. “Shout to the Top” was starting. I was dancing much harder than my Chiari brain and wobbly legs could handle, and was stumbling into smiling faces and open arms. I was exhausted. Tuck and I looked at the set list and realized it was twenty-nine songs long, and we knew we’d never make it.
We stayed to sway for “Rise Up Singing” and got a car home.
Will anything ever feel like that again? My musical bucket list can always get longer, but: Stevie Wonder singing “As”, Peter Gabriel singing “Solesbury Hill”, David Byrne singing “Naive Melody” — I've experienced them all, with my arms around my children. And although I was with my partner, “My Ever Changing Moods” live at age 54 was entirely for me.
Will anything ever feel like that to me again?
Will it happen to my children? Have they heard their song yet? Is their song… a painting? A puppet performance? A loaf of bread?
(For other Style Council fans, or for anyone, I recommend the YouTube channel Style Council House Jams. One of the many artistic wonders produced during the pandemic, it is a young man and his father sitting on their front steps performing Style Council songs with a guitar and tambourine.)
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