New World
What if after a long bout of writer’s block you put out an album nearly as good as your debut, but most people ignored it?
Then you’d have Karla Bonoff’s 1988 LP “New World.”
Produced by Mark Goldenberg of Cretones fame and released on Danny Goldberg’s Gold Castle Records this gem sank like a stone…what chance do you have of your less than stellar work breaking through today’s internet cacophony?
Not much.
Therefore people become disheartened and give up. Sometimes you need to stay the course, sometimes the public just hasn’t caught up with you yet. And at least twenty-odd years later “New World” lives on online.
THE BEST PART OF YOU
My favorite track on the album, the one that went through my head as I just walked through the front door.
Friday has been my record shopping day for time immemorial. It’s when life slowed down, obligations receded, and I could do what I wanted to. I’d get in my ’63 Chevy and drive to Burlington to stock up at Artec, I’d drive to Westwood in my 2002 and shop at Grammy ‘n Granny…the hipsters preferred Rhino, and I went there too, but the promo selection was better at the former, and the clerks didn’t insult you.
But now music comes to you, in a tsunami. Scarceness is history, as is anticipation and the breaking of the shrinkwrap.
I’ve got a CD of “New World” at arm’s length, I used to play it a lot, but now I can just click and hear it on Spotify, and you should too.
I know they’ll never fade
These memories we made
Sad times slip away
And I hold on to the best part of you
We do. Look in the rearview mirror and reminisce about the good times that is.
“The Best Part Of You” evidences the synthesizer so prevalent on this LP, marking not only the era, but the fact this record was made on the cheap. Yet on “The Best Part Of You” the synth texture is part of the magic, it sets the mood.
Sure, there were hard times, “the hurt we thought we’d never face,” but “The Best Part Of You” feels like that old Simon & Garfunkel song from “Bookends,” “America.” There’s travel, there’s a reference to this great country of ours, to youth, when we were full of drive, when opportunity was prevalent.
Pull this up late at night. You’ll be set at ease and haunted at the same time.
If your mind ever drifts back to what once was and never more will be.
STILL GETTING OVER YOU
When I finally find
I finally find
My love, I’ll still be getting over you
Whew!
We live in an instant culture, where we’re supposed to instantly forget the past, the good times as well as the hurts. Society tells us no one wants to hear it, you’ve got to keep it to yourself, especially if you’re a guy, you’re supposed to buck up, put a smile on your face and be optimistic.
Hogwash. Breakups hurt. Live long enough and you know it’s mutual, on both sides, both the leaver and the left feel bad. As for the breakup itself being mutual? Decided on by both? Anybody who tells you this is lying, someone always wants it more, the leaver feels guilty and the left doesn’t want to be perceived to be a loser so neither tells the truth. But what goes on in your head cannot be suppressed.
They stay in our brain forever. The memories fade, but they never go completely away. The new person is not identical. They’re better overall, but they don’t have that certain something the old person did, which still haunts you.
Who’s singing about all this?
Karla Bonoff!
ALL MY LIFE
We don’t know how to love. If we’re lucky, someone gives us some hints. But truly we learn through experience. Sometimes you’re the teacher, sometimes you’re the student.
And I never really knew how to love
I just hoped somehow I’d see
Oh I asked for a little help from above
Send an angel down to me
The beautiful might not understand, they may be overwhelmed with offers, from people who see the exterior but not the interior, but the rest of us…we pray, maybe not to God, but to someone above to help us, to deliver them to us and allow us to behave reasonably.
I never thought I could feel a love so tender
I never thought I could let those feelings show
But now my heart is on my sleeve
And this love will never leave
I know I know
This is the warmth, this is the essence of a relationship, not the sex, not the physical intimacy, but the sharing of information, it’s what separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom. We have a unique desire to be known, to share our thoughts, not only our victories, but our dilemmas, our inadequacies. And when you’re deep in love you feel safe opening up, you feel someone is finally open to you. That’s what bonds you together.
Some people never take the risk.
Then there are others who overshare, who are so busy talking they don’t listen.
And then there are those whose best self is drawn out by the other.
That’s what Karla is singing about here.
GOODBYE MY FRIEND
The track I listened to on 9/11.
Oh we never know where life will take us
We know it’s just a ride on the wheel
And we never know when death will shake us
And we wonder how it will feel
Ain’t that the truth. You think you have it figured out, that you know where you’re going, but that’s patently untrue. Life is a pinball machine. Some become so frightened they take themselves out of the game and live lives of quiet desperation, the rest of us keep getting banged around, ending up in places we could never conceive. Are you doing the work you thought you’d be? You might have envisioned being married once with three biological children yet your second or third spouse who fits you like a glove comes with two adolescents you come to know and love as your own.
Life’s a mystery.
And then it ends.
It most certainly will.
This is what I admire in the young, their belief that they’re gonna live forever, healthily. But when the first person around you passes away you experience a loss so deep you could not previously fathom it. And then you get older and realize you’re gonna go too, and except for those around you, no one’s gonna care, that so much of what you’ve spent your time achieving is a waste.
TELL ME WHY
You can’t break up. You know you should, but you can’t.
So won’t you tell me why
I can’t say goodbye
Won’t you tell me why
And then something happens. They two-time you, you find out something so horrifying you’re stopped in your tracks.
I’m walking on a real thin line
A fool in love with a fool that never cared
This is a hard lesson to learn, that you’re best off with people in love with you. You might be attracted to him or her, but if it’s not mutual, you’re headed for a plethora of pain.
Certain people are not relationship material, others just don’t want you. The sooner you find out, the sooner you can escape and find someone who’s right.
OH MARY
The rush is incredible.
But it fades.
Some become addicted to the high and jump from person to person.
Oh Mary he takes my hand
He tells me that he understands
Oh I wanna know
Did that happen to you
You don’t broadcast it, yet some people can see it in your countenance, but you’re eager to share the information, like the cat that ate the canary, you’ve fallen in love. Is yours unique, is this what everybody’s been talking about, is it real?
Love, or is it just a passing thing
Does time take away the gift it brings
Oh no Mary tell me will this love be true
What they don’t tell you is time pays dividends, the longer you stay together the better it gets. The rush is long gone, but the interconnectedness and the dependency endure. You can count on this person, and nothing feels so good.
WAY OF THE HEART
We just fight all day
Not meaning anything we say
And now we’re frozen
Afraid to let go
I’ve been there, have you? It started out good, you dreamily looked into each other’s eyes, and then…you never saw eye to eye again. Oh, you’d have a good night, but then it’d devolve into arguing and hard stares. You can’t live with ’em and you can’t live without ’em. How do you cope, what do you do?
When you find out, let me know.
HOW LONG
You say you need someone to love
But when will you learn?
Whatever’s done in this world
It’s still gonna turn
This is what we depend on our artists for, truth. Honest insight, delivered with emotion.
It’s why music’s in the crapper. Whatever truth is revealed is delivered with bluster. Most times the words are either tossed off indiscriminately or written by cynical old men who know more about craft than art.
But in the heyday of yore, when music blew up because the same people who wrote it performed it, we looked for something more, beneath the sheen we were looking for those nuggets of truth.
Yet “How Long” is a cover, it was written by David and Andrew Williams. Proving there are no rules, that a great song is a great song, if it’s delivered well it will reach you.
How long til you see that we’re in this together?
How long?
How long?
That’s the key. An understanding that you’re more than a couple, you’re a team. That you look out for each other, that you can be counted on.
Which reminds me of my favorite movie of the twenty first century, “You Can Count On Me.”
No one could count on Mark Ruffalo, which is why his life was so hard. The more you’re there for people, the richer your life becomes.
But how are you gonna learn how to behave, who’s gonna help you through?
Hopefully your parents gave you a good start. After that… My generation looked to records.
I’d like to tell you that we’re in this together. But even though we can communicate with the push of a button, I still feel alone so much of the time, while my brethren post about their fabulous lives on Instagram. But I know they’re lying, it’s the nature of being human, you’ve got ups and downs. How do you cope?
For my generation it’s music. It not only crowded out the noise, it spoke to us, personally.
I’m thinking about all this on a Friday afternoon, which feels so much just as it did in the decades of yore, because as much as I’ve changed, I really haven’t, I’m still the same person. I loved the thrill of not only buying the records, but the listening.
I’m listening to one now.
