No. 268 – Sappy*

Performer: Nirvana

Songwriter: Kurt Cobain

Original Release: No Alternative

Year: 1993

Definitive Version: None.

* This song was known as Verse Chorus Verse when it was released as a hidden track on No Alternative, but I guess the real title is Sappy as noted on Nirvana’s box set, With the Lights Out, from 2004.

As a general rule, I’m not a big fan of codas. To me, codas are something that writers do when they can’t figure out how to properly end whatever they’re working on (and, yes, I’m guilty of it, too).

But every once in a while, a coda works. Take this song, whatever its name, by Nirvana. Unlisted on No Alternative, it’s the perfect end to the album—something extra, unexpected yet it blends in with what came before. For many years I’ve thought of this song as something of a nightcap—it finishes the evening even though it wasn’t part of the original menu.

With that in mind, I’m going to relate parts of a story that I thought was complete but had more to it. Part of that is because I just have too many songs for stories from 1994 but also partly because it fits the motif. Here are the codas to the story of my first trip after becoming a couple with Debbie—to Chicago on Labor Day 1994, as mentioned way back in good ol’ Nos. 863 and 798:

* I like thinking about that Labor Day trip and imagining that at some point, Debbie and I bumped into Laurie. It’s not entirely impossible that happened, because 1.) Laurie already lived in Chicago by that time; and 2.) we did hang out in some of the same places. I suppose my mindset would’ve been: Who is that obnoxious redhead? Hmm, she’s kinda hot. Never mind …

* Labor Day weekend in Chicago is the weekend of Jazz Fest, which I didn’t know until after we arrived. Neither of us knew until we hiked to Grant Park to see Buckingham Fountain and saw—hey, check this out—live music going on.

It was a nice surprise, and Debbie bought a commemorative T-shirt, but what was even nicer was when all of a sudden, while we listened to the music at the the Petrillo Bandshell, all of a sudden fireworks started going off over the lake close to Navy Pier.

I since learned that Navy Pier shoots off fireworks every Saturday (and now every Wednesday, too), but I didn’t know that at the time. It was another little surprise that helped to make the weekend feel magical. Debbie and I were so much in love at the time that it really was a perfect moment.

* The night we went to Too Much Light Makes The Baby Go Blind (No. 863) turned into a bit of an ordeal. The original plan was we’d hit TML and then head down to Penny’s for dinner. I couldn’t wait to turn Debbie on (wait for it) to Penny’s given how good and how insanely cheap it was. There was no close comp in Columbus.

The idea, as I recalled from Jin living nearby and us doing the same thing, was to take the nearby L to Penny’s. It turned out, it wasn’t so nearby. As I since learned, we walked a little more than a mile to make the L stop by Jin’s old apartment.

That involved walking down a dark street by the train tracks. The neighborhood we walked through was fine—I live close to there now—but I didn’t know that at the time. Instead, I suspected that Debbie was regretting letting me take the lead on the activities and wondering what the heck I’d gotten her into. I talked as though I knew exactly what I was doing, which I definitely didn’t.

Soon enough, we saw the lights of the L station. Whew. While we waited for the L—the only people on either side of the dimly lit, barren platform—we heard this commotion below. Next thing we knew a large group of teenagers came up both sides of the stairs, hooting and hollering.

Just when I decided that this wasn't going to end well, they jumped down on the tracks, made their way across without frying on the third rail (thank goodness) and disappeared down the steps on the other side just as noisily and as quickly as they had come. If they even noticed us, they paid us no mind. Just kids out having fun in the big city, like us.