Thursday, August 9, 2012

No. 665 – Walks Like a Lady

Performer: Journey
Songwriter: Steve Perry
Original Release: Departure
Year: 1980
Definitive Version: Captured, 1981

I can’t hear this song and not think of Mike, who was my best friend through high school. Mike’s the one who got me into Journey; I’ll leave it to you to determine whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. I make no apologies for it.

Mike didn’t introduce me to Journey, of course. He couldn’t. With the rock dinosaurs rapidly dying off and punk scurrying about unseen beneath the plants, Journey was everywhere at the start of the Eighties. Anyway You Want It was featured to much glory in Caddyshack, and it didn’t get much cooler than that, as far as I was concerned.

But Mike first bought and played for me Captured in our junior year of high school, and that was the killer app for me, if you will. I bought my own copy soon after that and played it regularly. I particularly liked the live version of this song. It was longer, dirtier and, yes, blusier than the original. Mike always liked to impersonate Steve Perry’s introduction of Gregg Rolie and Neal Schon during the long intro.

Mike’s favorite song was Lovin’, Touchin’, Squeezin’, which was on there, too, of course, and he probably regretted telling me and Steve his tale of unrequited love whilst working as a cashier at the Big Bear down by the Scioto River. That was all the invitation we needed to note how the target of his affection was probably lovin’, touchin’ and squeezin’ ano-o-ther, to Mike’s dismay.

I remember going over to the Big Bear a few times toward the end of Mike’s shift to wait for him to get off work before we’d go out and do whatever it was that we did, which most definitely didn’t involve drugs or alcohol.

In fact, we “went out drinking” only a couple of times with a few other guys, and the results were boring. They didn’t involve actually getting drunk or sick or doing anything stupid, although I do remember the first time. Mike took his mom’s Dart, and we drove over to Ohio State to persuade some guy outside a liquor store to buy us a six-pack of whatever. Then we went over to the Ohio State farms, which seemed hidden enough, to let the drunken merriment ensue and then feeling quite disappointed when it didn’t. We clearly didn’t know what we were doing, but we learned soon enough after we got to college.

Not too long after that, I finally got my first real job—at a grocery store, like Mike, as I’ve mentioned—and soon enough I had my own experience of unrequited love. The difference was it was for a customer, not a fellow employee.

Another key difference: I didn’t say anything to anyone about it.

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