So I’m cruising down the San Diego Freeway just before four, a.m., battling
the liquid fog on my windshield, listening to XM.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait any longer, like last
week, around five, and it’s a whole new day.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s scary.\u00c2\u00a0 But, last night, it
was still nighttime.\u00c2\u00a0 And I heard "Be Nice To Me".<\/p>\n
Todd Rundgren might be famous for "Something\/Anything?", and that album is
great, but the masterpiece came just before, "The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren".\u00c2\u00a0 My
favorite cut off that album is "A Long Time, A Long Way To Go", but just to
hear ANYTHING from that record warmed my heart.\u00c2\u00a0 Especially this personal track
so deep into the evening.<\/p>\n
And then I heard "Do What You Want, Be Who You Are".<\/p>\n
There used to be something called album cuts.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, with the state of
Hall & Oates’ career at that time, totally in the dumper, it’s hard to
characterize any of the tracks on "Bigger Than Both Of Us" as hits.\u00c2\u00a0 At least before
the record was released.\u00c2\u00a0 Nobody was paying attention to Hall & Oates and then
came "Rich Girl".<\/p>\n
By this time everybody had an FM radio in their car, AM was transitioning out
of music completely, but this one song, which was too catchy for FM, it
provided a last hurrah for the amplitude modulated format.<\/p>\n
Oh, today you can hear "Rich Girl" as part of the act’s canon.\u00c2\u00a0 But, in the
fall of ’76, Hall and Oates had NO profile.\u00c2\u00a0 This was like a blast across the
transom in "Master and Commander".\u00c2\u00a0 It was beyond infectious, it was PURE JOY!\u00c2\u00a0
And hearing pure joy back in ’76, you bought the album.\u00c2\u00a0 And that’s when I
became a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 For "Bigger Than Both Of Us" was rich and textured, "Rich Girl"
was just the frosting.<\/p>\n
Sure, "Crazy Eyes" was an exquisite amalgam of Philly soul and rock, but the
song that I couldn’t shake, that got under my skin, was "Do What You Want, Be
What You Are".<\/p>\n
It started off like the kind of music we hated.\u00c2\u00a0 Something from the late
fifties, with a jazzy guitar, a LAZY jazzy guitar, no fuzztone, not in your face,
and then in came Daryl Hall…<\/p>\n
Do what you want girl, be what you are Today music is a dance floor soundtrack.<\/p>\n Back then it was about setting your mind free, taking you on a journey, I mean I’m racing the sun back to my house.\u00c2\u00a0 Any later and dawn will creep up It ain’t a sign of weakness girl, to give yourself away Ain’t that the truth.\u00c2\u00a0 The icons, the ones the magazines tell us to fall in And I’m pulling up to my garage.\u00c2\u00a0 Fearful I’m going to wake up my landlady, Do you believe in hot cars, leather bars, or movie stars I had Earth Shoes.\u00c2\u00a0 They had negative heels.\u00c2\u00a0 The ball of your foot was Still…<\/p>\n That’s L.A.\u00c2\u00a0 Everybody believes in the phony.\u00c2\u00a0 Actually, that’s why I like it Or can you…<\/p>\n You can change, but you can’t conceal That’s the question.\u00c2\u00a0 Can we be who we are.<\/p>\n Listening to today’s pop music…the question never comes up.\u00c2\u00a0 In a culture So, play.\u00c2\u00a0 Don’t limit yourself.\u00c2\u00a0 Experience everything.\u00c2\u00a0 Take risks.<\/p>\n But whatever you do, don’t ever forget, be what you are. <\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" So I’m cruising down the San Diego Freeway just before four, a.m., battling the liquid fog on my windshield, listening to XM.\u00c2\u00a0 Wait any longer, like last week, around five, and it’s a whole new day.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s scary.\u00c2\u00a0 But, last night, it was still nighttime.\u00c2\u00a0 And I heard "Be Nice To Me". Todd Rundgren might […]<\/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-33","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-the-music"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-x","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33","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=33"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
There ain’t no right or wrong way
Just a play from the heart<\/em><\/p>\n
visiting emotions you lost touch with, others that were too familiar.\u00c2\u00a0 It was an
aural Disneyland.<\/p>\n
on me.\u00c2\u00a0 And, like the last tune in a late night jam session, out of the
speakers is coming this stylized, lazy track that not only reminds me of thirty
years back, but cuts straight to my heart, still sounds fresh today.<\/p>\n
Because the strong give up and move on
While the weak, the weak give up and stay<\/em><\/p>\n
love with, they don’t really want to play, they’re constantly scanning the
landscape, looking for something better.\u00c2\u00a0 Then again, the weak ones are afraid to
be on their own, afraid to take chances, afraid to lose what they now have.\u00c2\u00a0
The only choice you really have is to play from the heart.\u00c2\u00a0 And this song, it’s
like the coach your parents and friends are not.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s your one true friend,
instructing you, pushing you to be all you can be, yourself.<\/p>\n
after all my garage is under her building.\u00c2\u00a0 But I’ve got to hear that one
verse, the one I can never forget.<\/p>\n
Is that what’s real
Payin’ dues, in Earth Shoes, Chicago blues
Is that how you feel?<\/em><\/p>\n
higher than your heel.\u00c2\u00a0 I broke my leg.\u00c2\u00a0 I asked the orthopedist if I could still
wear them.\u00c2\u00a0 I was a slave to fashion.\u00c2\u00a0 But only in this one area.\u00c2\u00a0 Still, to
hear this reference, this hearkening back to a bankrupt company, it made me feel
I was part of something, a continuum of culture.<\/p>\n
here, everybody’s so into their own false trip of acquisition, of making it,
that they’re not paying attention to you, you can be who you are.<\/p>\n
What’s deep inside you
It’s your game, it’s your deal
Do what you want to do
But be what you are…<\/em><\/p>\n
where the musicians themselves have sold out to the corporations, how could it?
\u00c2\u00a0But in the seventies, the only thing that mattered was the art.\u00c2\u00a0 Could you
make a record that penetrated people’s consciousness?\u00c2\u00a0 That they had to buy not
because they needed to look cool, be part of a group, but because they needed
to be FULFILLED?<\/p>\n