Second Verse, The Same as the First… Sorta
Wife, child, and I were headed home from a long, long weekend helping my parents and my sister’s family move to new homes. “Tired” is not the word. “Pooped” would be better, although my son would make jokes out of it, so it isn’t the word, either.
Here’s how tired we were — we stopped for dinner at a Little Caesar’s “not really pizza but what do you want for five bucks” pizza joint. Anytime I’m too tired to pop a can of tuna in favor of barely-edible cardboard pizza, know that I am really worn out.
While waiting for the pizza-that-would-never-be-pizza, the radio started playing Take the Long Way Home by Supertramp. I immediately shouldered aside my fatigue, cranked up the radio, and began dancing in the driver’s seat. My son was speechless as he saw his father belting out the lyrics at the top of his lungs.
“Long Way Home” was one of my favorite tunes from my growin-up days in 1979, when I was 17 and going on 30. Although the song never rose above number 10 on the Billboard charts, it resonated quite well among my circle of friends. We all fancied ourselves to be somewhat mature and worldly (despite the fact that we played Dungeons and Dragons in our off-hours), and we all had a weird sense of connection with this mature and worldly tune of angst and longing for better times.
I don’t go out of my way to listen to Supertramp these days, but I gladly welcome the interruption whenever they come across on the radio. I tap my foot, hum and/or sing the tune (depending on the surroundings) and reminisce about the memories and feelings that the song drags out of my past.
As I was waving my head and snapping my fingers through the saxophone bridge, I noticed my son was starting to get into it, too. He likes heavily-orchestrated rock, and this particular Supertramp song had all of those overproduced elements and a harmonica solo, too. I noticed he was cocking his head thoughtfully at the lyrics. It made me stop and do the same — you never know what questions he’ll ask next, so I had learned to be prepared.
I stopped dancing (and it wasn’t just because the pizza had just arrived).
Have you ever had a favorite movie or book that you read as a child, picked up again as an adult, and suffered the mental clash of realizing you never really understood that movie or book until now? Let me tell you, it happens with music, too. As I rolled the words of the song past my tongue, it was if I was really tasting them for the first time.
Does it feel that you life’s become a catastrophe?
Oh, it has to be for you to grow, boy.
When you look through the years and see what you could
have been oh, what might have been,
if you’d had more time.So, when the day comes to settle down,
Who’s to blame if you’re not around?
You took the long way home…
Okay, I knew these words. I’d sung them hundreds of times. Yet part of me was rebelling against my memory. These aren’t the same lyrics, my subconscious was screaming at me. But the lyrics were the same. Then why, oh why, had I never really understood them before now? I thought this was a song about the life of a performing artist; about the sacrifices of family and friends; about the angst of choosing your path and suffering the consequences. I was right, but only partly.
This is a song about growing old. My teenage understanding of the song wasn’t all that flawed. It was just missing another 22 years of perspective.
If you still can’t fathom what I’m talking about, check out the lyrics for yourself. Even better, sing them, or dust off the CD and play them. If the finger-snapping doesn’t give way to a thoughtful frown, then you’re either not old enough or you’ve lived a charmed life.
Okay, now I’m tired and depressed. I’d cheer myself up with some Huey Lewis and the News, but I’m afraid what I’ll glean from Bad is Bad.
