She died.

And she’s not the only one. Not a week goes by that someone from rock history doesn’t pass over to the other side, and it’s so weird. It’s not like they were cut down in their prime, but it’s the end of an era. And it’s only going to get worse.

The household names? I used to be convinced that the Beatles would last for at least another hundred and fifty more years, but Steve Jobs is unknown to the younger generation and I don’t see anything happening to make him a latter day hero. And I always cite W.C. Fields, who was an icon in the sixties, we saw his movies, imitated his voice, I don’t think anybody under fifty even knows who he is.

And when I grew up, we could see the beginning of the enterprise, i.e. movie-making, now not only are there decades of movies, almost like books, but there’s footage of events and little is left to the mind to picture.

Now Libby Titus is famous for one thing, she co-wrote “Love Has No Pride” with Eric Kaz. Originally appearing on Bonnie Raitt’s second album “Give It Up,” the song was then covered by Linda Ronstadt and ultimately became a standard.

But Titus was also involved with Levon Helm. And was Donald Fagen’s long time spouse when she died. And there was that physical altercation that made the news, funny that Paul Simon had a similar situation, but if these people weren’t famous no one would know. And although I’ve never been so angered as to touch a woman, and I don’t approve of it, it’s not only musicians who do it, and sometimes women do it too.

What I mean is the story would be average, if the people involved weren’t celebrities.

Not that we really knew who Libby Titus was. I bought her Columbia album, there was an indie LP years before that that was completely unavailable. I needed to go deeper, after all she wrote that song! And I’m not going to sit here and tell you the album is one of my favorites, but I did lay down cash and I did play it and…

It’s completely different today. If you’re interested in someone who wrote the song… You go online, you check out their version, probably don’t make it all the way through, and then you never go back to it ever again.

And that person is wholly available. Not only on Spotify and YouTube, but Instagram, TikTok, X… Although there are aged punters proud of being offline, they’re the exception, and they’re fading away, everybody else is known and accessible, there’s no mystery, and even the biggest acts are cults.

Taylor Swift? Donald Trump? Cults. Trump selling merch is no different from Swift and the rest of the acts doing the same thing. And I can’t seem to find anybody who hasn’t been to the Eras tour who can name, never mind sing, two of Swift’s songs. Ditto on Trump. Who bought stock in Truth Social? Never mind the Bibles and the rest of the chozzerai, but that’s stardom today. Let me be clear, everybody needs something to believe in to get through life. Otherwise you’re dislocated. And since so much happens virtually, you need to tie yourself in, you need to make an effort to belong, otherwise you’re alone and depressed. You’re not a pariah, because no one cares about the left out. There’s just too much going on to be concerned with those outside the game. The classic example here is when someone didn’t know about a record pre-internet, musos would make fun of them. If you make fun of someone for not knowing a song or a movie or a TV series today…I’m laughing at YOU! Is your world so circumscribed, so tiny, that you’re deep into one thing to the exclusion of others? Or are you just one of those pricks who is always jockeying for position…

So this was not breaking news, Libby’s death. It didn’t merit a red headline atop the CNN homepage. I stumbled on it.

Used to be the death of those from the classic era was a big story, a shock, that we all needed to be made aware of, that put us in a bad mood as we testified how great they were.

Now it’s just news.

The one I can’t get over is Christine McVie. 79?? I mean she was not cut down in her prime, but she sat out the Fleetwood Mac reunions, got back together with the band, was as great as ever, and then PFFFT! Gone! And who is going to follow her?

So thinking about Libby Titus, I was reminded of “Give It Up” and I pulled it up on Qobuz, the best-sounding streaming service. You have to wait for the track to spin up, it’s not instant, the service is not the tweaked to perfection Spotify, but the sound…

Is oftentimes better than CD.

But “Give It Up” was not in Hi-Res, 24 Bit/96kHz, but it sounded…

Clear as day, yet primitive.

This is one of my favorite albums. Was the best Raitt until “Luck of the Draw.” Yes, Bonnie is one of the few artists who peaked again, like Bob Dylan with “Blood on the Tracks.”

And for some reason I wanted to hear the jangly opening cut, “Give It Up or Let Me Go.” And it made sense, but then I changed to my absolute favorite, her Joel Zoss cover, “Too Long at the Fair”:

“Jesus cried, he wept and died

I guess he went up to heaven”

Wow, Freebo’s bass.

And then “You Told Me Baby,” which Bonnie actually wrote, along with “Nothing Seems to Matter,” an absolute killer on the first side.

And all this led me to Jackson Browne, actually, the two are buddies.

I needed to hear the piece-de-resistance, “Late For the Sky,” and in this case, it was in Hi-Res.

“All the words had all been spoken

And somehow the feeling still wasn’t right”

This was the song you listened to, the album you listened to after a breakup, even though it’s not considered a classic breakup album.

And Jackson earns his stripes with these words:

“You never knew what I loved in you

I don’t know what you loved in me

Maybe the picture of somebody you were hoping I might be”

Genius. Right up there with Don Henley’s “Wasted Time”: 

“So you can get on with your search baby

And I can get on with mine

And maybe someday we will find

That it wasn’t really wasted time”

And of course I played “For A Dancer,” and there was Freebo’s tuba on “Walking Slow” and…

I needed more.

But it had to be in Hi-Res. I wanted to hear “For Everyman,” yet it was not.

But the debut was, and I pulled up my favorite song from the LP, “Something Fine,” and Jackson sounded completely different. His voice was higher and thinner. And Crosby sounded great in the background, and the production was good, and after “Rock Me on the Water” and “Song For Adam” I needed more.

But when it came to Hi-Res…

I ended up playing “Looking East” from the recent live album, “The Road East – Live in Japan.”

And this was a completely different Jackson. He was comfortable with his voice, it was deeper and…

I was stunned how great the lyrics in these songs were. Because that was what Jackson was selling, songs, not his vocals. He was one step above. And very few are. And if you are, people take notice.

And I thought to myself, is anybody writing songs this good today?

And while I’m contemplating this, I’m thinking about Jackson’s age. I remember talking to him about his 70th birthday at the side door of the Orpheum, when was that?

I checked on Wikipedia. Jackson Browne is 76, as a matter of fact, he just had a birthday on October 9th.

Does anybody under twenty know who Jackson Browne is?

And how many only know him from “Somebody’s Baby,” from “Fast Times at Ridgemont High.” Or “Doctor My Eyes.” Both of which don’t even get to the heart of the matter.

He could die any minute.

Or live to a hundred, I don’t know.

But what I do know is time keeps on slippin,’ slippin’, slippin’ away.

I heard Steve Miller’s “Rock’n Me ” the other day, pushing through Spotify. It was next, next, next, next, I couldn’t find a song that satiated me, but then this…

“Rock’n Me” was a comeback. Miller was considered done.

And the stunning thing is “Rock’n Me” is only 3:09, from an era when everybody was stretching out, this hearkened back to the sixties.

And maybe more youngsters know Steve Miller more than Jackson Browne…

But if you’re a boomer, chances are both are part of your DNA… And they’re fading in the rearview mirror as I write this.

Did you see that the Robbie Robertson tribute hasn’t sold out? I keep seeing ads on social media. Impossible. But then a promoter told me…how many people want to see 75 year old guys? And Eric Clapton and Van Morrison are pushing 80, just one year away.

Time marches on.

But we didn’t expect it to be this way. We thought we’d rule until we died. Everything we deemed important would remain so. But then they kept making more people and along came the internet and despite so many trying so hard to hang on, the conveyor belt keeps humming along, ready to push us all over the edge.

Icons!

But when they come to town, the whole burg doesn’t know about it, like we did in the seventies. There’s just too much information.

And younger acts that can’t hold a candle to the legends are selling tickets. More commerce than music. Closer to Trump than Libby Titus.

And life is too hard to be a songwriter. You may never make it. And then you won’t be able to afford health insurance, and when your car breaks down you’ll be SOL and then you’ll be on your deathbed and someone will start a GoFundMe…

It’s just plain weird.

I know who Libby Titus is. And I’m stunned reading the obits that she had a whole life. They all do/did. But we didn’t think so. We thought they made records, performed live and were rich and lived a much better life than the rest of us, that we could aspire to but never reach.

But this didn’t turn out to be true. The more time that goes by the more they’re like me and you. They couldn’t go to the grocery store, and now no one even bugs them if they do.

All I’m saying is it’s positively strange.

I didn’t anticipate this phase of life.

But here we are.

Tune in Saturday October 12th to Faction Talk, channel 103, at 4 PM East, 1 PM West.

If you miss the episode, you can hear it on demand on the SiriusXM app. Search: Lefsetz

https://shorturl.at/RdLfw

This is a fantastic book. (And easy to read too!)

For those of you not on the Strout train… You’re the lucky ones, because you can go back and read all the books that preceded this one. If, like me, you’re totally up to date, you’ll be fascinated by the fact that seemingly every previous character plays a part in “Tell Me Everything.”

In reality, it’s all about style. And I can’t say I can define it, but I’ll try to relate the experience of reading the book.

It’s set in the modern world, the world we live in, but really it’s more like the world we used to live in prior to the internet. We’re all overwhelmed with the election, social media, there’s a tsunami of information, and although there are some proud Boomers who will tell you they’ve got flip phones and have never been on Instagram, never mind TikTok, most of us want to know what is going on, and we’re drawn into the maelstrom.

Not that “Tell Me Everything” is set in a fantasy land.

Then again, it is set in Maine. And if you’ve been there, if you know people from there, you know Maine is in many ways behind, off the grid, don’t compare it with its neighbor New Hampshire, never mind Vermont, it’s a completely different culture.

And the map doesn’t do the state justice. Maine is big! And although there is the city of Portland down south, and coastal towns, and summer people, the basic Mainer is iconoclastic, and oftentimes rugged, and definitely self-sufficient. They don’t need you. Many are internalized, or part of a small community, and they’re proud of this.

And some of the people in Crosby and Shirley Falls, where most of the action in the book takes place, are transplants, retirees, but most of them are locals. They know each other, they know everybody’s story, they went to school together. I found this stifling when I lived in a small town, the pre-judging, the lack of anonymity, but you know many more people when you live in a hamlet, a small burg, than when you live in the city.

So, although there are references to the pandemic and the internet, “Tell Me Everything” is disconnected, and that’s one of its appeals. It’s a whole community, identity and history are important, wealth not so much.  You’re treated like a regular person, not that it’s the land of kumbaya, everybody does not always agree, nor is everybody given the benefit of the doubt. But ultimately everybody intersects. If you think you’re special, better than the rest, you won’t make it in this book, or in Maine itself.

Unlike in many books, a lot happens in “Tell Me Everything.” There is not endless description and setup. Not that it’s bare bones. There’s just enough description and…

What you’ve got here mostly is those who can see the end of life. Those fiftysomething and older. They interact with their children, or not, and at this late date they know who they are. They’ve made their choices, are they good ones?

And there’s a murder mystery. And death from illness.

And a ton of family interactions.

But the overarching theme is a crush. Bob on Lucy. Is it reciprocated? Should Bob bring it up, should he take action?

Now in popular culture, everybody follows their heart, acts on a whim. But really… Especially after one divorce, you tend to learn what you’re getting in your primary relationship, which may not be what your crush delivers, but to take action and “ruin” everybody’s life and maybe find out you made a mistake… The grass does look greener on the other side. And, you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone. But we’re always running scenarios in our brain. And they’re in this book.

And the question of obligation. Especially when you get older. Do you help those in need? The less mobile? In the city, those on the fast track will tell you they don’t have time, that somebody should be hired, but in smaller communities…

Now despite being such an easy read, there’s a ton of wisdom in the book.

“She’s a bully, and bullies are always frightened.”

I’d never thought of that, never mind known it. But contemplating it, it’s true!

“That Bob had spoken these words to her remained a thumbprint pressed deeply into his soul of real sorrow and regret.”

In this case it’s something Bob said to his mother, who is deceased, and he can’t let it go. There’s so much I can’t let go of. The scenarios run in my brain, what I said and what I did. And I’m old enough to know that the object of my pain may not even be aware of it. But one thing great about getting old is people eventually die, and you may never encounter them again, you don’t feel that urge to contact them, you realize you’re flawed and march to the end.

“People always tell you who they are if you just listen—they will always eventually tell you who they are.”

Which is why you’re better off asking questions and listening than talking, because people will tell you everything. And when it comes to romance, people tell you who they are very quickly, and don’t expect them to change.

“There is nothing sexier than talking.”

I had a shrink who got frustrated with me and said I’d rather talk to women than screw them. (That’s almost a direct quote!) I guess… I never feel confident enough. They’d want to roll in the hay with ME?

I was at a friend’s house a while back, and I had a long conversation with a woman who is a household name, but is not an entertainer. She was famous for a while, and if you were alive when that happened… And I felt a connection, but it couldn’t have been reciprocated, right?

Almost ten years later I went to someone’s house, and she was one of about thirty people there. And I avoided her. That’s what I do when I have feelings, I’m just too anxious. You’ll know I’m interested by the fact that I’m not connecting with you when we’re in the same space. And then, after dinner, after dessert, when the evening was winding down, this woman came up and said…AREN’T YOU GOING TO TALK TO ME?

I was completely blown away. I was busy apologizing. After all this time, I figured she’d never remember. But she looked me in the eye and started talking about everything we’d said years before. She felt it too, who knew?

Yes, you can call “Tell Me Everything” literary fiction. But it’s not from the Iowa Workshop, Elizabeth Strout was not trained by everybody else, and that’s one reason her work is so good. It’s not overwritten. All her books flow, quickly. She seems to be writing for herself, with a need to tell these stories as opposed to needing to impress some fictional high priests. Strout was a lawyer and then…

You don’t have to have read any Strout books to enjoy “Tell Me Everything.” And it’s not a huge commitment, it’s not long, never mind dreary, but there will come a point where you’ll start regretting it’s going to end, you want to live with this book forever.

And if you tell me you saw the dramatization of “Olive Kitteridge” on HBO…

Well, as great as Frances McDormand is, I don’t see her as Olive at all. And a film or a series can’t convey what is so great about books…feelings, interior dialogue.

Now it’s not like I’m the only person raving about “Tell Me Everything.”

And if you’re male and a fan of nonfiction only, I’m not going to tell you to run out and buy it…

But the truth is if you’re human, with some level of self-knowledge, you’re going to get caught up in, become enraptured by “Tell Me Everything,” really all of Strout’s books.

“Tell Me Everything” is for everybody. It’s not a fantastical adventure, but real life.

And that’s what we’re all doing, living life, just like the characters in this book.

Alynda Segarra is the front person and major creative force of Hurray for the Riff-Raff. Listen as they tell the tale of dropping out of high school, riding the rails, moving to New Orleans, starting as a pure indie, and then moving to ATO and ultimately Nonesuch, changing musical direction along the way. You may not know their music, but you’ll want to after listening to this podcast!

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/alynda-segarra/id1316200737?i=1000672490558

 

 

 

https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9ff4fb19-54d4-41ae-ae7a-8a6f8d3dafa8/episodes/f959382e-fc88-4416-9ee6-2946b0beb1e2/the-bob-lefsetz-podcast-alynda-segarra