I woke up singing "Beware My Love".

Well, actually, it wasn’t like a musical.  I didn’t sit up and burst into
song.  It’s just that when my eyes opened, when I finally realized I wasn’t going
to sleep anymore, I started to hear "Beware My Love" in my brain.

I’m not sure where this came from.  I didn’t get home till after 3.  The
person who I was with was not in my dream.  It was someone from my distant past. It was one of those goodbye dreams.  Wherein you realize it’s over.  THIS
might be the closure everybody speaks of.  Fuck those conversations wherein you
state you’re going to remain friends.  It’s when they’re in your dreams and you
no longer want them that the relationship is over.  Still, why BEWARE MY LOVE?

Then again, I discovered the track about this exact time of year.  Twenty
nine years ago.  It’s scary to think that ANYTHING occurred twenty nine years
ago.  Isn’t that kind of like what Warren Miller says?  Every hundred years, all
new people?  Think about it.  It’s kind of creepy.  We don’t matter.  Hell,
that was ANOTHER epiphany.  Sitting in front of my computer Saturday afternoon. 
I was unsure about something.  Felt that SOMEBODY must have the answer,
SOMEBODY must know what’s going on.  And then I realized NOBODY does, that my
opinion is just as good as anybody’s.  They SAY they’re experts, they SAY they know what’s going on, but they’re human beings just like me.  Liberating and scary
at the same time.  I mean I can now say FUCK YOU to the system, but without
any answers, what mistakes am I going to make?

Twenty nine years ago I was living in Salt Lake City.  And I was enduring the
world’s worst case of mononucleosis.  Still, I drove my 2002 entirely across
the country, in four days, back to Connecticut, to recuperate, to recover. 
And I bought six new cassettes for the journey.  One was Wings’ "At The Speed Of
Sound".

Do you know "Venus and Mars"?

"Band On The Run" is one of the best albums ever made.  Oh, I know it’s hip
to say "London Calling", or "Nevermind", I mean this is a business within which
you’ve got to look COOL!  But the pure joy, the EXHILARATION of hearing "Band
On The Run" for the very first time, it was akin to discovering "Hotel
California".  And there was one good track after another, to the point where I
didn’t think twice about buying "Venus and Mars", I was EAGER!

"Venus and Mars" is not "Band On The Run".  God, the hit, "Listen To What The
Man Said" is almost drivel, but there are WINNERS!  Like "Letting Go".

"Letting Go" is a cult.  With no casual members.  It’s not peopled by
consumers who only purchase one record a year, who might have even BOUGHT "Venus and Mars".  No, the "Letting Go" faction is comprised of DIEHARD fans.  The kind of people who love LONDON CALLING!  There’s a riff almost as heavy as a metal song, there are the horns that the Eagles employ to play "Hotel California"
today, and on top of it all, is Paul McCartney’s VOICE!  Maybe if Paul was shot
instead of John, he’d get the due he deserves.  John was angry, sincere.  Paul
was like a choirboy fucking with the heavens.  The kind pulling the girls
behind the pews.  Oh, he smiled, but underneath that warm, unthreatening
countenance lurked the heart of a prankster, the type you want with you at the
campfire, the one you invite to be a member of the Dead Poets Society, this guy is
ALIVE!  I know, I know, it doesn’t look that way now, but that’s the price he’s
paid for continuing to live.  It’s hard to grow up when you’re a living legend,
just ask Phil Spector.

Actually, "Silly Love Songs" is better than "Listen To What The Man Said". 
Then again, "Speed Of Sound" DOES contain the execrable "Cook Of The House". 
Still, there are gems.  Like Denny Laine’s "Time To Hide".  If it wasn’t on a
McCartney album, "Time To Hide" would be one of those secret tracks the
cognoscenti rave about, like the Sutherland Brothers & Quiver’s "(I Don’t Want To
Love You But) You Got Me Anyway".  Well, maybe not exactly, but CLOSE!

Then there’s "Warm and Beautiful".  John Lennon could never write anything
like this.  Then again, maybe he never wanted to.  But, if you’ve got a
sentimental streak, if you ever felt happy as a result of your good fortune, you’ll
like "Warm and Beautiful".

Still, it was "Beware My Love" that I woke up singing.

I woke up singing the chorus, but when I inserted the CD into my Mac, I was
brought back to the magical sound, the intro to the track.

It actually starts off like another song, something baroque.  But then,
twenty seconds in, an acoustic guitar takes over, in a completely different groove,
an OTHERWORLDLY ONE, kind of like Wonkaville, kind of like a DREAM!

I could quote the lyrics, but no McCartney song made it because of the words.
 Especially when Paul no longer got John’s help.

Still, there was a way Paul could emote that rivaled John.  John exuded pain,
Paul exuded pleasure.  John was about sitting around, getting high, revealing
truth.  Paul was about SKYDIVING!  It was an instant ADVENTURE!

And that’s the kind of vocal we’ve got here.  Oh, it starts off sweet.  But
then Paul’s INTO IT!  He’s RAVING!  With just one message, to BEWARE MY LOVE!

God, I live my whole life on guard, my m.o. is to beware of everybody and
everything!  I’ve had too much bad happen.  I’ve lived on the bottom.  I’ve
found, sorry to say, you can’t count on anybody.  Well, that’s the way I felt,
that’s why I go to psychotherapy.  I’m learning that there ARE people who’ll be
there for you.  Not necessarily the ones you think, the ones with the great
repartee, the ones you THINK you’re connecting with, rather it’ll be other people,
ones whose rap might not be quite as good, but their souls dictate they do
the right thing, they’ll stop their lives to pick you up, to give you a hand, if
only you’ll let them, if only you’ll give them a chance.

It’s been a VERY long transition.  And what helped me through was these
tunes, they didn’t change, they were there for me.

That drive cross-country was not fun.  Alone in my car before the days of
cell phones and satellite radios.  Spending ten hours on the Interstate, pedal to
the metal, since my car didn’t have cruise control.

In order to make it through, if a tape was resonating, I’d leave it on. 
Sometimes playing it two or three times in a row.

And I’ll tell you the one song I truly remember from that trip is Steely
Dan’s "Don’t Take Me Alive".  It came clear at a gas station, in Missouri I think,
I’d played "The Royal Scam" so many times I finally got it.  I wobbled out of
the car, I had road fever, I should have stopped, rested, but other than this
gas station, there was nothing around, I kept going.

I remember switching tapes.  The slightest break gets you out of  the mood. 
I don’t know if I inserted "At The Speed Of Sound" into the deck.  But I
played that cassette so many times that even though I can probably count on one
hand the number of times I’ve played the album since, it’s imprinted on my DNA.

So I don’t know why, here in 2005, I woke up with "Beware My Love" on an
endless loop in my brain, hearing the chorus over and over again, telling me to
beware.  Maybe the message was to beware of slipping back into an old life, an
old mind-set, believing what came before was better than what I have now.  For
people never match your memories from the past.  But music does.