I was sitting in the car listening to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 I was not moving, the engine was off, I was at my destination.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice’s house.<\/p>\n
We spent the evening in Pacific Palisades at the Relay For Life, a cancer walkathon.\u00c2\u00a0 For ten dollars a white bag was emblazoned with my father’s name and took its place at the perimeter of the makeshift track.\u00c2\u00a0 Filling out the form I thought how long he’d been gone.\u00c2\u00a0 And when writing my name, I thought of the day of my birth, how he must have been elated.\u00c2\u00a0 But now he’s gone.\u00c2\u00a0 And someday I will be too.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s the way of life, and death.<\/p>\n
And after stopping by my house in Santa Monica to pick up some laundry and get my car, I found myself driving up the 405 listening to satellite radio.\u00c2\u00a0 First Sirius, the country channel.\u00c2\u00a0 But I can’t listen to country after an absence from the radio, I need to hear something I know, so I switched to XM’s Deep Tracks.\u00c2\u00a0 But Indigenous didn’t ring my bell.\u00c2\u00a0 So I went back to Sirius and dialed up NIN’s "Closer", which I could barely hear over the din of the freeway.\u00c2\u00a0 But when I stopped in front of Felice’s abode, the XM readout switched to "She’s Not There" and I pushed the button to hear it.<\/p>\n
The Zombies were lumped in with the British Invasion, but in retrospect, "She’s Not There" doesn’t sound like the Beatles, the Stones, almost none of the midsixties English acts.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like you’re sitting at home in the dark by the glow of the dial and a sound begins that pulls you right through the radio into another world.\u00c2\u00a0 At the time, "She’s Not There" was just another song on the radio, one I didn’t even buy, but forty years later, it’s clear, it’s a masterpiece.<\/p>\n
Or maybe that’s "Time Of The Season".\u00c2\u00a0 From "Odessey And Oracle", released after the act had broken up.<\/p>\n
Where do we give the credit.\u00c2\u00a0 Colin Blunstone or Rod Argent?\u00c2\u00a0 Mr. Blunstone never had another hit in the U.S., but as much as I loved "Hold Your Head Up" and "God Gave Rock And Roll To You", they were period pieces, forgettable.\u00c2\u00a0 Whereas those Zombies gems are akin to the Renaissance, timeless.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, Argent’s "Liar" has got a modicum of the same magic.<\/p>\n
I guess, like any great band, all the members are indispensable.<\/p>\n
The mood of "She’s Not There" was set instantly.\u00c2\u00a0 That haunting bass line, reminding you of every disappointment ever in life.\u00c2\u00a0 And Colin singing like a member of the undead, returned to life, speaking of his experiences on the other side. This is the first moment of magic, when you realize this is not just another confection.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like the music has stopped, and Colin is singing just to you, standing on the side of the stage.\u00c2\u00a0 The intimacy gives you goosebumps.<\/p>\n But Colin’s vocal is matched by Rod Argent’s keyboard work in the break.\u00c2\u00a0 This was no amateurish guitar solo, but more akin to jazz.\u00c2\u00a0 This was not someone who learned to play yesterday, but had been taking lessons for his entire life.\u00c2\u00a0 This break is like the montage in a movie, setting up the final act.<\/p>\n Well, let me tell you ’bout the way she looked <\/span> They say that women pine, but no one goes through the bends like a man scorned.\u00c2\u00a0 He was on top of the world with her by his side, at the top of his game.\u00c2\u00a0 Without her, he’s busted back to private, he’s afraid to show up in public, and if he does, all he can do is tell his story.\u00c2\u00a0 How he had an angel.\u00c2\u00a0 Who made his life complete.\u00c2\u00a0 And then she disappeared.<\/p>\n You wonder why people gave up trying to write the Great American Novel.\u00c2\u00a0 Because these cats from the U.K. did a better job of delineating life in two and a half minute pop confections.\u00c2\u00a0 Which hold up today.\u00c2\u00a0 These records baked in wax are as universal as ever.\u00c2\u00a0 And the more time that goes by, the less dated the sound, the more immediate they seem.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like stumbling upon a time capsule that reveals the truth of generations.<\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I was sitting in the car listening to the radio.\u00c2\u00a0 I was not moving, the engine was off, I was at my destination.\u00c2\u00a0 Felice’s house. We spent the evening in Pacific Palisades at the Relay For Life, a cancer walkathon.\u00c2\u00a0 For ten dollars a white bag was emblazoned with my father’s name and took its […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-iP","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1167\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
How would I know, why should I care<\/span><\/p>\n
The way she acted, the color of her hair <\/span>
Her voice was soft and cool <\/span>
Her eyes were clear and bright <\/span>
But she’s not there<\/span><\/p>\n