I had zero idea how to become a “professional” songwriter.
I was freshly back in town from a sadly ineffectual trip to California. We meant to go to LA and become stars at the Troubadour but we hit Santa Cruz and, like the siren whore she was, this seaside town sucked us in and we stayed for two and a half years. Just long enough to get on each other’s nerves and break up.
I find myself back in Connecticut working in an auto parts store. Do I know one thing about auto parts? I do not. Someone would come in and ask for a rocker arm for a ’72 Impala and I would nod my head like that was NOT the silliest sentence I ever heard… and run to find the old guy in the back who would assure me that “yes, rocker arms are a real ‘thing’ ” and I could find them in aisle three on the third shelf. I would bring it back up to the counter and, when the customer asked if he would need a gasket for this rocker arm… I would say “yes,” and hope I would not be working the day he came back.
Eddie, our steel guitar player, said my original songs were good enough to be on the radio. He had never lied to me before. He said I should record them and send them “somewhere.” That all sounded awesome and doable if not a little cryptic.
I borrowed $600 from my brother. I promised him, if I got famous, I would buy him a Corvette. (Luckily we had differing ideas of what “famous” was so every time over the last thirty years when he would ask me where his Corvette was… I have been able to point to the fact that I do not live in a mansion in Malibu with solid gold toilets… so he don’t get nuthin’).
I went down to our local record store and wrote down the addresses of twelve record companies. I recorded two songs and sent them off in the mail on huge reel to reel tapes. I got eleven rejection letters and one “Call me” from a guy at CBS records.
He mentored me and told me what kind of songs I had to write for my brother to get his car.
I bring all this up because I am currently in my hometown playing a couple of shows. Stirs up the memory fountain. I drove by my old houses.
The first house was where I grew up and had my first band. Georgia and I snuck in and walked around the basement where Eddie told me to go for it. The House is derelict and gross but still cool to see.
We drove by and took pictures of the next house where, years ago, I sat out on a swing set in the front yard (the front yard of a house that literally was the size of this hotel room) and wrote the kind of song that Harold Kleiner told me would be my ticket to success and bad feelings between me and my brother. (I kid. My brother and I are fine. He worked for Kodak for thirty years and bought himself his own damn Corvette.)
We drove by the house Juice Newton bought us. Juice recorded and released that song and it made its way to the radio and allowed us to move across the line to the ritzier East side of town.
The weekend has been 99% fantastic. Old friends. Good shows.
The 1% that sucks is Les’ Ice Cream is closing for good. This place has been a fixture in town for 36 years and when the owner retires…..it’s gone. We took the kids there every summer. When it opened we knew it was summer. When it closed we knew the season was over. It was more accurate than leaves turning gold or school starting and the kids turning sullen.
I had a blueberry shake. Amazing. When I first hit town I had a pineapple/hot fudge sundae. Those were my “go to confections” all my life.
Next time I come to this old town there will probably be a Walgreens in this spot. I can foretell this because there is already a Walgreens a hundred yards away and that’s just the sort of saturation the head office shoots for.
That will be a sad moment. My original house is still there. My next house where my first son was born is still there. My Juice House is still there.
If those three precious landmarks in Meriden are worth preserving…..shouldn’t my favorite ice cream purveyor be accorded equal Landmark Status?
I need my blueberry shakes. Gotta have em.