No. 983 – November Hotel

Performer: Mad Season

Songwriters: Barrett Martin, Mike McCready, John Baker Saunders, Layne Staley

Original Release: Above

Year: 1995

Definitive Version: None

If you date anyone for any length of time—particularly someone who lives more than a 15-minute drive from you—eventually you get around to the notion that the constant commute is wasted time. In the summer of 1995, I was living in German Village, which is about a half-mile south of The Columbus Dispatch where I worked. Debbie lived near Reynoldsburg, which is at the far East reaches of metropolitan Columbus.

I was basically driving everywhere to do anything, and I was starting to get a little tired of it. So that’s when Debbie and I decided to move in together. It was a huge step, of course. I had never lived with anyone I was dating, and after being alone for six years, I wasn’t sure that I was willing to have someone else “invade my personal space.” But I was willing to give it a try. Even though she had never lived with someone to whom she wasn’t married, she was game. We decided that once her annual lease ran out in July, we’d make the move.

This decision led to the unofficial—though no less real—rift between me and my Dad’s side of the family, which then lasted for 4 years. I was never disinvited from anything, but Debbie was never invited to anything. The natural result was I hardly went to anything—the notable exception being things that involved my brothers Matt and Casey.

Because this is the first time I’ve brought this up, I must make this disclaimer: Everything is totally cool now—water under the bridge—but what happened is a matter of record, and if I am writing about my life’s soundtrack, I have to mention this event at least in passing. What’s important for you to know is that there was a rift. I’ll explain why at a later, more appropriate point, but I’ll keep said discussion to as much of a minimum as I can. TMI and all that, you know.

Anyway, by this time I had turned Debbie on to the whole Seattle scene—just in time for it to be over. (My timing is nothing if not impeccable.) Nevertheless, when Above came out, we both loved it, and it was on my stereo all the time in the spring and summer of 1995 when we decided to move in together and start looking for places. So when I hear pretty much any song off that album—but this instrumental with its frantic guitar solo center in particular—I flash back to that time when I was willing to pay a high price for following my heart.