Some People

Dance Cheek to Cheek

When you have a lifetime filled with different melodies and lyrics the idea of a trigger becomes something bigger than a smile while remembering a favorite tune. As has been the case within my musical triggers project, each song I write about represents a piece of me or my life. Some triggers will point specifically to a person, others to a place, and some will remind me of a feeling or a mood, but every last one of them will have been a lyric I appreciated and repeated endlessly through its reign on my mental playlist.

Key to my tastes is the words of an artist set to music. I love to write, I love to read, and I love to sing (not out loud, that would ruin everything). It will become somewhat obvious that my triggers will always represent more than the memory and will always be tied in some manner to the various meanings and mindsets behind the melodies that caught my attention. You will likely never see anything classical or instrumental in this series, not because they are not beautiful or worthy, but simply because the way I have always ticked with music seems to always require words. Lyricless is not complete enough to capture my most basic instincts leading to continued listening. This could also be why a lot of the music that is most popular today does not always connect to my inner lyricist. But there are always exceptions to every rule, and there is really no telling what may stick with me and provide the triggers in the future. Give me a good lyric and a memorable tune and I am yours.

In the mid-1980s I was still in my lost boy existence. There was a constant and dangerous routine that I lived and paid no attention to. There was a feeling of invincibility that almost always accompanies youth and young adulthood. I was also enveloped in underlying darkness that meant I didn’t honestly care if the invincibility were to prove itself right or wrong. In an odd irony, it could be said I spent more time in the moment during the drug and alcohol-addled 1980s than I did when it became the focus of change in my early sober 1990s. All that really mattered in 1985 was where the party was, what drugs and alcohol were available, and the insatiable feeling and need to be everywhere with everyone and not miss anything.

In 1985 I was 27 years old. I was at the tail end of a relationship I had lied my way through for almost 2 years, and I was perfectly fine with the way things were. I just didn’t care. My life consisted of freebasing cocaine in my home with my housemate Julie while watching the soaps on ABC, making sure things were stocked for the evening while also working (and drinking) in the booth at Revolver. We would also go out to dance in various other clubs in the West Hollywood/Hollywood/Downtown Los Angeles vicinities. And of course, there was driving everywhere with no sense of concern about the consequences should they arise (and they did), and hosting all-night parties of various sorts to make sure none of us addicts were ever alone.

I have become more and more aware that there was a fundamental theme to my life that I did not have any sense of until sobriety. I touched on being a “manchild” a few posts back with the beautiful Neneh Cherry song, but what this extended concept truly points to is an unwillingness or fear of growing up and, every so often a recognition of the danger and consequences of becoming the adult society tends to expect of you.

Then, naturally, there are the images that youth and young adulthood will have of those who are older than them. To turn 30, 40, 50, or (gasp) 64, where I currently exist on the lifetime scale, was just plain old. To be old meant to be less able to enjoy the spirit of life the way youth has a tendency to portray. Old was a bad word. Old was the end. Old was the enemy.

In 1985 I received the video for British artist Belouis Some (a person, not a band). The single was called “Some People.” I was immediately intrigued by its rhythmic beat and playful melody, but it was the video and, yes, the lyric that made me stop and focus on the message it was sharing and what I was to receive. The artist portrays a type of Pied Piper walking through fields and into coastal British towns filled with middle-aged and older residents going about their lives as adults. The adults are stoic and seemingly unsatisfied with their existence but are soon experiencing the “rebirth” of their inner child as a youthful dancer emerges from behind each one to dance in playful choreography. The older adults stand statuesque and without confrontation. This demonstration of freedom the dancers created always struck me as an example of the inward struggle and fear I always felt as I moved swiftly through a directionless life seemingly unaware, and yet subconsciously in identification with both the young and the old(er) in the scenario.

The funny thing is I have never become the old person I feared so much. In sobriety, I found a way to embrace the youth inside of me as an asset without removing the responsibility and adult patterns or behaviors seemingly required (and somewhat necessary) to adjust accordingly to the world around me. As the video would suggest, I live with an inner child dancing all around me, but instead of watching silently with the sadness of the past, I have learned how to participate and sometimes even dance with everything the youthful character would represent. No matter what I am doing, or why I am doing it, that kid is kicking up a leg directly next to me.

So, when I hear “Some People” and feel that trigger I am apt to do a quick twirl and kick. It may hurt a little, but it is worth it.

Attached also is the first video that was released by Belouis Some earlier in 1985 called “Imagination.” This was a favorite for me in the club as well and sported a very controversial video for that time in the world.

Life was so simple then

A kind of playtime.

You made it easy then.

We had a great time

‘Cause some people are tied to emotion.

And some people understand their dream.