April, 2021 | tape the night

I still cannot hear the opening lines of “King of Pain” without thinking of a little boy with a bowl cut and a jean jacket, I want to say his name was Dennis, running around the schoolyard when I was in the first grade singing, at the top of his lungs, “There’s a little brown spot in my underwear…!!!!”

And I sincerely hope that sharing that memory does not do that to the song for you moving forward. The song deserves much better than that.

That was my first, unofficial, introduction to The Police.

The official introduction would come the next weekend when I repeated the lyric at home and my dad made me sit down and listen to the actual song.

I loved The Police and I loved Sting’s voice, a trait shared by most 30-something mothers in the 80’s, I’m sure, because Sting was on constant rotation in our house. While my mother ultimately preferred the rasp of Rod Stewart, the punk and reggae styles made The Police the much cooler option.

And when “All For One” came out in 1993, well, let me just say, heads exploded in my house.

But I’m getting ahead of myself and feeling slightly ashamed that “All For One“ is the first video link in a post about Sting.

(Of course I can absolutely edit and change this, but what does it say about me that I haven’t?)

First, at age six, I thought there was no cooler band name than The Police, because even at that age I could tell there was a bit of irony to the name, even though I didn’t yet know what irony was. These were not the uniformed good guys. These guys were rebellious.

I was eight when Band-Aid released “Do They Know It’s Christmas” and this was a big deal in our house. My dad was from the Isle of Wight and a proud Briton and I remember him telling me about each of the artists in the song. We watched Live Aid on our little 13 inch TV set in the living room of our small apartment and I get goose bumps on my arms now just thinking about how incredible that was. The most amazing thing I had ever seen on television.

When Sting’s first lyric comes up in the song, I still emphasize the fact that he sings his own name when I sing along to the song today.

Okay, just for kicks and saves you a search, 1:25 into the video below:

Fast forward to age 14 and I had my own money from my own job and there was a flyer in the TV Guide for a music-buying club called Columbia House. After reading through all of the fine print with my parents, I took the plunge and put in my first order.

Eight cassettes for a penny each, then of course you had to buy X many more at $X in X amount of time, but those first eight cassettes… to date one of the most difficult decisions I’ve ever had to make in my life.

The first pick was easy though: The Police – Every Breath You Take: The Singles.

Every Breath You Take Singles - Front

I filled in the little circle next to that title so fast that I actually had to catch myself, because I now only had seven choices left.

The prevailing argument was to go for collections. If you were going to get eight cassettes for a penny, the bang for the buck was to make sure each one was full of gold.

I still have them all (I took this picture this morning) and, for general interest, here were the first eight tapes I chose:

But back to The Police.

I had them now, literally in my pocket. “Message In A Bottle”, “Roxanne” and “Every Breath You Take” were easy adds to the mix tapes I would make for Mother’s Day every year. I’m shocked the tape still works, given how many times I played it.

Whenever I would hear Sting speak in an interview, or read something about him, I would always come to the same conclusion: he is effortlessly the coolest man alive.

Not a very deep conclusion, I admit, but that’s what I come away with.

Which is why, in writing this, it surprised me to discover that so many people hate him. I’d never read this side of Sting before.

Is he pretentious and cocky, or just introverted and misunderstood?

My need for a good does of confirmation bias led me to this article and I’m happy I did.

In person, Sting seems to take himself much less seriously than the public image of him would have us believe. Given all the flak he has attracted over the years in the press, does he care what people think of him?

“In some ways I consider it an advantage to know how other people view you. You’re under no illusions about how you’re thought of. You have to strike a balance: there’s people who can’t stand the sight of you, there’s people who really love you and obviously the truth is somewhere in the middle. That’s the passage I’m navigating… I don’t get unduly hurt. I might get a bit crazy…”

What – you might punch someone (the Police were well known for their impromptu back-stage fist-fights)? He gives a lazy smile. “No, I wouldn’t do that. I might rehearse it in my mind, but I wouldn’t do it.”

All is right in the world again now and we are back in the place where BMI has named “Every Breath You Take” the most performed song in its entire catalogue.

I haven’t listened to Sting or The Police in years. I mean, sure, every Christmas his rendition of “I Saw Three Ships” from A Very Special Christmas 3 ranks right up there in our house as one of the best, but I haven’t really sought out what he’s been up to.

Until a couple of months ago.

One of the best YouTube rabbit holes I’ve discovered during the pandemic is the Tiny Desk concert series from NPR. So many great artists, so many new music finds, and such a small desk… I can spend hours watching these.

And one of the best by far is Sting and… wait for it…

Shaggy.

Seriously, do yourself a small favour and take the time to watch this entire 14 minute set.

This whole set had me smiling the entire time and reaffirmed that I STILL want to be Sting when I grow up.

His newest album, My Songs, has been downloaded and while on it’s front it could appear as though he is cashing in on re-recording some of his best work, as the people in that first article linked to might have you believe, I have an incredible respect for the nostalgic take and thoughtfulness that went into his choosing which songs told his own story.

Maybe it’s pretentious; more likely, Sting is doing his own thing in his own way knowing that his work will find its audience.

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Further Reading: My Songs

For a track by track walk-through of all the songs selected and re-recorded on My Songs, click here.

After writing only one post in the last three years, the jury was out on if I’d ever return to this format as a creative outlet.

I hadn’t even scratched the surface of the songs, soundtracks and setlists that had shaped me before the stress of life took over and I didn’t have the bandwidth to keep at this. I also made the mistake of going public with it, sharing posts and links across my other social media channels, and when people didn’t respond the way I had hoped, I started to question if I was doing anything of value here.

I had a breakdown, not because of the blog, but because work took over and completely consumed my life and I had the most stressful year of my career. Then I recovered, and then we had the pandemic, which quickly became the most stressful year of my career.

I took time off during those early days of the pandemic, when I was still fragile from the previous stresses, to remember what made me feel balanced in my life and what made me happy. The answer was simple: writing. I picked up the novel I had been working on since 2007 and I finished writing it. I started writing short stories again. I’ve just recently started a comic strip.

And all the while, Tape The Night just sat here, collecting internet dust. I’d renew the hosting every year thinking, “I should really pick that up again,” and on March 10th of this year, I almost did.

On March 10th I read that Lou Ottens, the inventor of the cassette tape, had died, having outlived his invention by a good decade (at least according to the Oxford English Dictionary).

For the last month my mind has been returning again and again to this blog and why I started it in the first place.

As we face this third wave of the pandemic and I am once again feeling knocked back a step or two, it’s time to get back to writing more regularly and, in the case of this blog, I write about what I want to learn about. The music that has been the soundtrack to my life has another level to it that I’m not conscious of when I’m singing with the windows rolled down or dancing in the kitchen. The stories behind the songs and the music makers, the meanings of the lyrics I have sung for decades without really stopping to think about them, this is why this site exists.

And I don’t care if I’m the only one who ever ends up reading this.

Tape The Night exists because I want to write it more than I want people to read it.

Having finally returned to that rationale and feeling that balance and synchronicity again inside me, all I can say to the nobody who will read this is: it’s good to be back.

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Weezer – Red Album

For me it goes Blue, Red, Pinkerton, in order, for top three Weezer albums, and one of the reasons for that is the album features the song, “Heart Songs”.

“Heart Songs” is one of Rivers’ most personal songs and everything about the song fills me up with the same emotions and sense of purpose that this blog does.

Nostalgia, inspiration, remembering who you were and how you came to be the person you are now… these are the themes I find extremely fulfilling to explore.

When the song hits the Nirvana verse and Rivers’ channels his best Cobain when he sings “had a baby on it”, I get that sense of elation… that’s the only word for it… because we already feel we know the end of the story he has been telling in the early verses and that moment is the validation that we’ve been right all along.

Rivers on Nirvana being such a huge inspiration and when he first heard Nirvana (from Rolling Stone):

“I was working at Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard in the spring of ’91, and another cashier, Harold, said, “Hey, Rivers, I know something you might like. It’s called Nirvana.” As soon as I heard “Mom and Dad went to a show” [from “Sliver”], I immediately started dancing around. It was exactly how I felt, and they were putting it to music. It inspired me to do the same thing.”

And then, after the Nirvana lyrics, the song brings the listener, you and I, right into it and we become a part of the story.

Make a record of our own

A song comes on the radio and now people go “This is the song”

It’s what I like to call, “The Bastian Moment”.

That Bastian Moment

Weezer at the Warehouse was my first major concert. It was 1994, the Blue Album was exploding, the Happy Days infused video for “Buddy Holly” was on constant play on MuchMusic and Weezer was coming to Toronto that August. I had just turned 17 and had seen a number of bands and shows during the day (my first actual concert was The Pursuit of Happiness playing for free on a Saturday afternoon at the corner of Yonge and Shuter the year previous), but Weezer would be my first time going out with friends, at night, to a rock show.

God bless the Internet – here’s the setlist.

I had never seen anything like it. The lights, the crowd, the wristbands for beers I couldn’t get, this was my first show.

And they killed it. I don’t think I stopped smiling for three days, which was right about when my ears stopped ringing.

To bring it all back, the Blue Album is FILLED with my own personal Heart Songs that I’m sure will populate future posts on this blog.

And I didn’t even know this prior to writing, but Weezer doesn’t play “Heart Songs“ live, so you won’t hear it at one of their shows.

I did come across this interview below with Rivers where there are a number of performances; fast-forward to the 24 minute mark to hear him speak about “Heart Songs” and then hear a mashup of “Heart Songs” and “In The Garage” that just rocks.

And that is why I write here: not only to remember what has shaped me and revel in the glow of nostalgia, but to peel back the layers a little and hopefully discover something new along the way.

This is my HeartBlog.

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Further Reading: Into The Lyrics

Check out the Genius lyrics for all the references Rivers makes in the song.