Do you remember the first time?

Alternate title: Half-lies, the Holly Theatre, and Sweet Home Alabama

"Where were you when you first heard this song?" I heard her ask, as I wandered in. She and her coworker had AC/DC's You Shook Me All Night Long turned up loud in the otherwise-empty neighborhood shoppe.* 

I'd walked up from my house on this gorgeously Portland sunny, June, Thursday evening, mainly for some exercise and to kill some time. At first, I didn't realize she was talking to me (and not to her coworker).

"I don't know ... This was off Back in Black, right?" I didn't wait for an answer. "Whenever that came out—I was probably in grade school. Why?"

"Didn't you just immediately know, like, how great it was?!" 

My situational awareness suddenly kicked in. I was (at least) 20 years older than both young ladies in the room.

"Yeah," I half-lied.  (While AC/DC is musically important, nothing song-specific was particularly life-changing for me.)**

"1980," she said, looking up from her phone.

"Oh, I was in junior high," I said, feeling super-studly that I wasn't that old—and then immediately realizing I was absolutely that old.

"I wish I'd been alive then," she said, unwittingly twisting the knife another quarter-turn. "That would have been so cool! There was, like, so much good music back then!"

Cut to the following night: I was visiting my good friends, the Lammers' (Kurt and Megan), and a never-ending string of 1980s videos ran in the background all evening. For some reason, so many of them sparked oddly-specific memories. Actually, that's not that odd. The point is, I chose this night to articulate them:

• Tainted Love and Fascination—I was introduced to both these songs while working with a classmate on the playlist  for our 8th grade semi-formal.***

• Steve Miller's Abracadabra—everyone was talking about it at school one day, and I remember laying out in the backyard after school, with a radio, waiting for the song  to come on KBOY. I probably heard it a half-dozen times that afternoon-evening because, well, that's how radio works. I probably also tape-recorded it off the radio that day.**** (For the record: this song is so horrible, on so many levels.)

• Journey Escape (or E5C4P3, as it appeared on the album cover). Yes, the whole album. Christmas day, 1982. 

And blah, blah, blah. Anyway, after having painfully bored Kurt and Megan with these (and several more) stories, I continued reminiscing as I drove home, thinking about how music can trigger things in the brain's deeper recesses. That's when a familiar riff belted out of my 1997 Acura CL's stock speakers ... It was Sweet Home Alabama. 


I'd normally dismiss this iconic Lynyrd Skynyrd cut because of its decades' of over-saturation and commercial, crossover appeal.  But something stuck in my craw. I almost can't remember not knowing this song. How could that be? I grew up in Medford, OR, where, at that time, the aforementioned KBOY's top-40 format was the only alternative to country or classical on the FM dial. SHA broke big in 1974, and of course re-surged years later, but I felt like I knew this tune from the years in between. Then it hit me.

It was 1978, I was 10 or 11 years old. I wasn't musically illiterate (thanks mostly to my friends' older siblings), but I'd barely discovered the radio. I had, however, discovered movies.

I was with (I'm pretty sure) Tommy Gilsdorf, at the Holly Theatre, for a matinee. The movie ... it might have been Grease ... it might have been Heaven Can Wait ... it could have been Hooper (!)—I don't remember, it's not terribly germane to this story.

Instead of the obligatory previews or cartoons, they showed a short film/documentary about a band. As I recall, the only take-away for a couple of  5th-or-so graders was in the closing credits, where they explained that 26 people (including four band members) died when their plane crashed in a "swampy forest." There was also a song with a catchy refrain, simplistic enough, turns out, for an otherwise disinterested kid to remember.

A few weeks later, I heard Sweet Home Alabama on something—perhaps the radio, or it could have been one of those old TV ads for some fantabulous compilation album (like  K-Tel's  Music Express!) I don't remember. But I distinctly remember connecting the dots back to that mostly-boring rockumentary (a term that didn't yet exist).

I was so excited, I called Tommy.

"I just heard that song ... you 'member from that preview movie?"

"What?" he (probably) asked.

"You know, that song that goes, "Sweet home Al-bama ..." from that thing we watched about the band that got killed in a plane crash in the swamp?"

"Yeah," he half-lied. (As I recall, he either he didn't really remember or didn't care.)

"Okay, bye." That was how phone conversations went back then.***** Regardless, I was so proud of myself for recognizing the song—it felt very adult, or at least very teenager-y. The song has always held a special place in my life's playlist, but until a few weeks ago, I couldn't remember exactly why.

Does anyone else remember seeing this short film, as a preview before a late-1970s movie?! Apparently, it was somehow a Pepsi commercial (from a time when presumably ads lasted 15 minutes and barely mentioned the product name). I don't think I saw it ever again. And I don't think I've ever even heard anyone speak of it. But sure enough, You Tube remembered it:

For years, while I knew Sweet Home Alabama (and later, Gimme Three Steps, which still makes me chuckle every time I hear it), I'd pretend I knew the legendary band and their music way better than I did. I don't think I ever heard an entire Free Bird until post-college. I didn't fully appreciate or understand Skynyrd (or any Southern rock, at all, for that matter) till probably 20 years later.****** Truth be told, upon finally re-watching this short film, I gained more trivial knowledge and even more appreciation for the band. But that song strangely hooked me at an early age.

Anyway, returning to where this journey started: I finished my browsing, made a small purchase, and was about to leave the shoppe.*******

"The Beatles would have been so cool, like, you know, in real time?" said my new, young, music friend. I'm not sure whether it was a statement or a question.

"Uh, you know I'm not that old, right?"

"Yeah," she half-lied.

* In your head, you pronounced that "shop-pee," didn't you?  I know Jeff Cervantez did. (And Jeff, I know you also mentally added a "ye old-dee" in front ... and then said "ye old-dee shop-pee" out loud to further your amusement).

** Although, hearing Hell's Bells blast from an ominously dark Beta House as we returned from freshman study tables that one winter night might arguably be considered life-changing.

***  Where I mostly ignored my (out-of-my-league) date—Teresa Clark—under the guise of having utterly vital Student Council/DJ duties, coming off the stage only for a slow-dance song. No, I don't remember the song.  Also, I was super-busy avoiding Mom, who was a parent-chaperone for the dance. 

**** We didn't need no iTunes back then. The radio was our Napster. I was going to say more here, but had to yell at some damned kids to get off my lawn and forgot what I was going to write.

***** Today, of course, my phone convo's—on the rare occasion that I actually answer my phone—are much shorter. 

****** Maybe it wasn't until even later, when I met a particularly pretty Southerner who schooled me in the Southbound ways of the Allmans, Skynyrd, the Marshall Tucker Band, and the like. (Note, for the record, that .38 Special is not included by name and should not be inferred as part of "and the like.")

********Shop-pee. See—you did it this time.