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Too late to "Change Today?"
May. 12th, 2003 09:14 amThere’s one album that I always associate with my dead friend Rachael. I never listened to it with anyone else and I don’t think I’ve actually listened to it since 1984. When she died, I bought it online but haven’t been able to put it on until today.
Rachael had moved out of her mother’s house hurriedly, and into her father’s garage. This was not a nice converted comfortable garage, but just a garage, swept out and with a couple of homey touches and a mattress but not much else. We had to roll the manual door up whenever we entered of left. There were no direct stairs into her dad’s apartment. I don’t remember if there was even a bathroom.
She had moved quickly and without her records. She had the album that was on the stereo when she moved. It was TSOL – "Change Today?" One summer week when all of our other friends were away or unavailable we hung out in her garage every night, all night, drinking, listening to this one record and occasionally fooling around. Her dad was upstairs busy drinking and snorting away a lump sum severance agreement so we were left alone.
I think one of the hardest parts of the grieving process is feeling ok about not feeling bad. Does that make sense? During the first bit it was impossible for me to think about anything else but sadness and death. But as I started to do my regular work and daily tasks, I’d realize sometimes I hadn’t been thinking of Rachael and get a twinge of guilt. I can rationalize it away. But there was a part of it I liked. As long as I was having constant memories, even painful ones, Rachael still felt with me. As the intense reminders go away I worry about forgetting all of it.
Music has the power to put me back in times and a places I’ve forgotten. And I guess that’s what I expected, listening to it today. I expected it to be evocative. I hoped for some unknown memories flooding back, some images I’d forgotten. I think I wanted a return of intense feelings upon hearing the music instead of the gradual acceptance that’s taking over. My sadness and pain are numbing. I haven’t cried at a stupid sitcom or TV commercial in weeks. Most days I still hold short, little conversations with Rachael’s picture, but mostly now it’s just "Hello" instead of asking why things had to happen the way they did.
As for "Change Today?"? It’s not very good. Weirdly, I remembered it as being a much mellower album than it actually is. Probably in comparison with what other things I was listening to at the time, it was. The only line I really remembered from it before I put it on was the cheesy, pseudo goth punk, "I don’t need your 6-6-6 pack . . ." from the song "Blackmagic".
The first few chords of the album did put me back into that garage for a moment. I saw the bare yellow light bulb hanging from the ceiling and the always-cold concrete floor. But then it drifted away. In retrospect, we were using the album as background music, too interested in each other to really pay attention. Playing the record was more like running into an old co-worker who you never had much in common with, rather than an intense reunion with a loved one.
The only notable song on the album is "American Zone" which is a pretty much boilerplate Anti-Reagan/Anti-war (with allusions to Johnny Got His Gun) but well performed. While that evokes the desperate, under-attack, fighting-for-our-lives time period,* I feel like I’ve already written that into the ground in my 8/15 post and elsewhere.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
slit’s response to that post is worth reading though.
I guess the thing about memories is that you can’t predict what will make them flood back in.
*There are a bunch of albums that are much more evocative of Rachael’s memory for me: Flipper "Generic Album" and the "Get Away" 7", and Social Distortion "Mommy’s Little Monster" in particular. Parts of The Clash "London Calling" also, though there are way too many memories in that album for me to relate it to Rachael only. Rachael and I formed a band for about a half hour once with a guy named Lordan (!), getting so far as learning "Sex Bomb" by Flipper and "Police and Thieves" by The Clash (our cover was of the Clash’s version, not Junior Murvin’s) so those will always be special, if strange, tributes to her in my head.
Rachael had moved out of her mother’s house hurriedly, and into her father’s garage. This was not a nice converted comfortable garage, but just a garage, swept out and with a couple of homey touches and a mattress but not much else. We had to roll the manual door up whenever we entered of left. There were no direct stairs into her dad’s apartment. I don’t remember if there was even a bathroom.
She had moved quickly and without her records. She had the album that was on the stereo when she moved. It was TSOL – "Change Today?" One summer week when all of our other friends were away or unavailable we hung out in her garage every night, all night, drinking, listening to this one record and occasionally fooling around. Her dad was upstairs busy drinking and snorting away a lump sum severance agreement so we were left alone.
I think one of the hardest parts of the grieving process is feeling ok about not feeling bad. Does that make sense? During the first bit it was impossible for me to think about anything else but sadness and death. But as I started to do my regular work and daily tasks, I’d realize sometimes I hadn’t been thinking of Rachael and get a twinge of guilt. I can rationalize it away. But there was a part of it I liked. As long as I was having constant memories, even painful ones, Rachael still felt with me. As the intense reminders go away I worry about forgetting all of it.
Music has the power to put me back in times and a places I’ve forgotten. And I guess that’s what I expected, listening to it today. I expected it to be evocative. I hoped for some unknown memories flooding back, some images I’d forgotten. I think I wanted a return of intense feelings upon hearing the music instead of the gradual acceptance that’s taking over. My sadness and pain are numbing. I haven’t cried at a stupid sitcom or TV commercial in weeks. Most days I still hold short, little conversations with Rachael’s picture, but mostly now it’s just "Hello" instead of asking why things had to happen the way they did.
As for "Change Today?"? It’s not very good. Weirdly, I remembered it as being a much mellower album than it actually is. Probably in comparison with what other things I was listening to at the time, it was. The only line I really remembered from it before I put it on was the cheesy, pseudo goth punk, "I don’t need your 6-6-6 pack . . ." from the song "Blackmagic".
The first few chords of the album did put me back into that garage for a moment. I saw the bare yellow light bulb hanging from the ceiling and the always-cold concrete floor. But then it drifted away. In retrospect, we were using the album as background music, too interested in each other to really pay attention. Playing the record was more like running into an old co-worker who you never had much in common with, rather than an intense reunion with a loved one.
The only notable song on the album is "American Zone" which is a pretty much boilerplate Anti-Reagan/Anti-war (with allusions to Johnny Got His Gun) but well performed. While that evokes the desperate, under-attack, fighting-for-our-lives time period,* I feel like I’ve already written that into the ground in my 8/15 post and elsewhere.
slit’s response to that post is worth reading though.I guess the thing about memories is that you can’t predict what will make them flood back in.
*There are a bunch of albums that are much more evocative of Rachael’s memory for me: Flipper "Generic Album" and the "Get Away" 7", and Social Distortion "Mommy’s Little Monster" in particular. Parts of The Clash "London Calling" also, though there are way too many memories in that album for me to relate it to Rachael only. Rachael and I formed a band for about a half hour once with a guy named Lordan (!), getting so far as learning "Sex Bomb" by Flipper and "Police and Thieves" by The Clash (our cover was of the Clash’s version, not Junior Murvin’s) so those will always be special, if strange, tributes to her in my head.
