No. 223 – … And So to F …

Performer: Phil Collins

Songwriter: Phil Collins

Original Release: Product (Brand X)

Year: 1979

Definitive Version: RKO Captured Live, 1983.

I first heard this song during the first broadcast of the RKO show on Q-FM some time in 1983, and it was the standout performance. I loved how loose and jammy it was, which was very different from Phil’s other solo stuff (and Genesis for that matter).

My sophomore year at Wabash, I looked for this song in Jim’s record collection. He had both PC albums, and I thought Droned from Face Value was this song, but it didn’t seem quite right. Of course, as I later found out, it isn’t a Phil solo song.

By the time this here list began two years ago, I had a digital copy and a name: … And So to F … . It originally was slugged “Mystery Instrumental” by Scott when he gave me a digital copy of an old tape recording. That’s what we called this previously unknown song for years. But being a perfectionist, I had to have the proper information nailed down. What you see above is correct.

The RKO concert was rebroadcast on Q-FM soon after I graduated from Wabash in May 1986, and this time, Scott had the tape recorder rolling over at Dad’s. The tape, which was copied, became a regular play that summer when I was at Food World. For the first hour I worked, as I think I mentioned, I was by myself in the store, so I could play music over the P.A. That certainly made the hour go by faster than it might otherwise.

The summer of 1986 also was when Beth and I got bold about spending nights together without any parental supervision. Actually, in retrospect, we got almost blase about it.

Although we had been sleeping together since 1983, the first overnight we spent together was Beth’s senior prom in May 1985. Our story that night was we were attending an all-night party at a friend’s house. The reality was more sleazy—a motel on the outskirts of town. If Karma exists, it made sure that we spent a large portion of that night worrying over whether we’d be caught instead of enjoying the freedom we thought we’d won. That’s kind of how it goes sometimes.

It’s amusing to think about it now, but there’s NO WAY Beth’s parents couldn’t have figured out the truth about our adventures at some point. You’re going to let your 18-year-old daughter go to “an all-night party” with the guy she’s been dating for nearly three years? Good thing they didn’t believe in Reagan’s philosophy of “trust but verify.” We never would’ve survived.

An even more ridiculous story happened the next year. Dad and Laura were going out of town—probably to Torch Lake, because Scott and Jin were leaving, too—and they wanted someone to housesit the week they would be gone. They asked Beth.

OK, so … the all-night party after the prom. That COULD happen, right? Prom is a time of partying. But Beth spending a week alone in my dad’s house with me in town … NOTHING is going to happen then, right? Riiiiiiight.

That’s the story we sold—successfully in our minds. It was simple: I HAD to stay at my grandparents’ home to watch their place in their absence. I mean, that’s where I was living anyway, so, sure, Beth and I would see each other as normal during the evening, but we COULDN’T spend the night together even if we wanted to. Trust us … but don’t verify it.

Of course, we spent EVERY night together. It was a solid week of glorious overnights, although for a number of reasons, we conducted most of our rompage at my grandparents’ house and we actually slept at Dad and Laura’s.

What I remember most about that week—besides discovering that dress ties have more uses than merely being an item of clothing to be worn during work—was that Dad slept on a board the seeming thickness of a railroad tie.

When I was young, I liked a mattress that I could sink into like a beanbag chair. (Time since marked an end to that foolishness.) So when we climbed into Dad and Laura’s bed the first night, I felt like I was sleeping out in the driveway, as in the actual driveway itself. What the Hell?

Beth and I peeled back the mattress and found a long, thick plank of board between the mattress and box springs on Dad’s side of the bed. Geez, why not just sleep on the floor? The plank quickly was dispensed with until the end of the week for a more pillowesque night’s sleep in my girlfriend’s loving embrace … until I had to get up at 5 a.m. to be at Food World by 6. Ugh!

At least I had my Phil Collins blaring on the store P.A. as I set out the day’s produce nattily attired in one of my newly multipurposed dress ties.