Women believe men can just be friends.

Men are more suspicious.

So when my nascent girlfriend was going to the Roxy with her "friend" to see Andrew Gold I was anxious.  This was a new relationship.  She’d known him longer than she’d known me.  Was it real, or could she slip right through my fingers?

In the seventies, Los Angeles was the musical king.  In the sixties, it was the U.K., at least in the middle of the decade, but by the time the decade changed everyone moved to the west coast, even the English rockers, for the weather, for the lifestyle.  In Los Angeles you could be who you wanted to be.

And some of the acts who had been kicking around for eons finally broke through.  Like Linda Ronstadt.  She hooked up with former performer Peter Asher and engineer Val Garay and created an album entitled "Heart Like A Wheel" that zoomed to the top of the chart and became embedded in the public consciousness.  It made Linda Ronstadt a superstar, it was the best thing she ever did, before or after, and there was a third creative genius involved…Andrew Gold.  He was not only a guitarist, but an arranger, his work is stamped all over the breakthrough track, "You’re No Good".

And like every second banana, a key member of the ensemble, eventually Andrew Gold stepped aside, into his own solo career.

And the breakthrough came on his second album, done with the Ronstadt team, Asher and Garay and the rest of the players.  The track was "Lonely Boy".  Andrew Gold had a hit.  And on the follow-up there was a cut that became ubiquitous, "Thank You For Being A Friend", it was the theme for the "Golden Girls".

But I knew that one when it was released.  Because now I was a fan.

In the seventies you didn’t buy everything you wanted, you couldn’t afford it.  You waited for the hit, or you waited to hear the album at a friend’s house.  You bumped into things.  And if you didn’t, you never heard them.

I bumped into Andrew Gold.  That girlfriend played that album, the second one, with "Lonely Boy", all day before she went to the Roxy to see Andrew Gold with him.

And I wanted to hate it, pooh-pooh it, but there was this one exquisite cut on "What’s Wrong With This Picture", the closing number, "One Of Them Is Me".

There’s a girl I know
So far away from here
She’s got a lover, she’s got a friend
And she’s got someone who’s always near

One of them is me
And I don’t know who
One of them is me
And I don’t know who

Where do you stand?  Are you the anointed one, or are you in the dreaded friend zone?

She’s got so many men
Who long to love her
To feel her body next to theirs
Or just to understand her

You know these women.  Only you don’t.  They’ve got charisma, or they’re beautiful, and they’re overwhelmed with male attention.  They’ve got a flock of admirers, they’re endlessly pursued.  But not for what’s inside, they’re hardly known, people fall in love with the exterior.  You think you want to be that desirable, only you don’t.

But it’s not only those who are genetically blessed, those who are just doing what comes naturally, what women don’t understand is they’ve got a flock of admirers.  Each and every one of you.  There are men lying in bed right now, dreaming of you, talking to you, getting into your pants.  I’m not saying you want to reciprocate their interest, but you’re the object of their desire.

Some of these men hit on you, others start a conversation, still more are afraid to even speak with you.  Just to be in close proximity makes them sweat, gets them tongue-tied.

Oh come to me sweet baby
I’m in love with you and I can’t stop it now
You’re a part of me
Oh save me, oh save me from you
What can I do

They have no idea you feel this way.  If only you could open up and be honest, but if the desire is not mutual you’ll be embarrassed, you’ll run, you’ll never get a chance to speak to them again, and if you do, it will be different.

So you decide to hate them.  From afar.  To focus on their flaws.  To save yourself.

Because you’ve been dying.

Dying.

That’s what happened to Andrew Gold.  Yesterday.  I’m stunned.  He was always so alive.  Not a passive player, but someone active, energized by life.  Not that I really knew him.  Had an e-mail exchange, but I’d see him on stage, on television.

You think people last forever.  Or at least longer than you.  When they predecease you, die before their time, you just can’t understand it, especially when they were not sick, when there’s no advance warning.  They were here yesterday, and…now?

Oh look into my eyes
Tell me what you see
One of them is me
And I don’t know who

Send me a signal.  Let me know.  Say yes.  Or put me out of my misery.

You’ve been there.  We’ve all had crushes.  We’ve all had rivals.

Or else we haven’t played.

And life is about playing.  Not only winning, but losing.  If you never lose you’ve got to ratchet up the level of your game.

And you want to do this now, because sometimes there is no tomorrow.

"One Of Them Is Me"

—————-

I had a hell of a time finding an online version of this song.  I eventually found one on the questionably legal service Grooveshark.

If you’re a player and you don’t make your music freely accessible to all you’re going to be forgotten.  A star today is tomorrow’s has-been.  Music must be at our fingertips so it can live on, so it can enrich lives.  I almost didn’t write this because I couldn’t find the track, and if you couldn’t hear it, you wouldn’t get it.  Andrew is gone, his music lives on.  Give a chance for your music to live on.  I’m not saying music should be free, but as long as the rights holders refuse to come up with an adequate offering, one that entices everybody to pay for everything, protest by posting your own music.  It’s about music, not money.  If you fight from the money position first, you’re a businessman.  A musician leads with his music.  There’s always money to be found.  And if not, so what.  It’s like love.  They don’t pay you to fall in love.  Music is just that powerful, don’t restrict it.