May 1973: ALBERT HAMMOND - It Never Rains in California

My parent’s divorce became final, and the only reaction from my Mother that I registered was her trading in her 1967 Plymouth Fury for a 1971 Mercury Cougar. It was bright blue and the perfect car for a divorcee, but it also turned out to be a piece of crap nicknamed “The Blue Bomb” by every mechanic who worked on it.

My Father’s reaction to the divorce was introducing me to his girlfriend, Joy. She was way younger than my Dad, which was confusing, and I didn’t like all the Aqua Net blonde hair piled atop her head and the thick black eyeliner. When she offered me a stick of Juicy Fruit in that high, sweet tone women use when talking to other women they dislike, I knew it was a bribe, and my distrust of her was immediate and enduring.

Incapable of making sense of all these changes, I focused – as usual - on the radio and my new favorite song, “It Never Rains in California.” I was hooked by what I considered the second chorus of the song – the repeating flute refrain, and I considered it a companion piece to “Do You Know the Way To San Jose”: this is what became of our heroine after show biz chewed her up and spit her out.

After learning the truth about the weather in California, I lumped it in with “A Horse With No Name,” wherein songs pass off inaccurate information as facts. After telling my Mother about the “lies” of “in the desert you can’t remember your name” and “it never rains California,” she explained the concept of poetic license. After mulling this over, I determined that America’s poetic license was just plain silly, while Albert’s was touching. In retrospect, I probably let up on Albert because he wrote a perfect, melancholy pop tune while America was just plain crap.

Here's Albert doing "It Never Rains in California."

.

April 1973: ELTON JOHN - Daniel

A pale and tiny blonde girl named Danielle lived across the court from me, and she decided this was her song, since it was so close to her name. I took issue with this because, #1: it was about a boy, and #2: she was so weepy and whiney that she didn’t deserve an Elton John song.

Shortly after this moment, I was cursed by two embarrassing moments at school:

#1: I wet my pants while sitting in the school chair during a reading lesson. I’d raised my hand to ask Miss Kelly if I could go to the bathroom, and she said no, since we were going for a bathroom break in just a bit. But I couldn’t hold it, and out it came. After my bladder was empty, Miss Kelly takes me to the bathroom, and then baffled me by asking why I did that. Adults are very confusing!

#2: I got chewed out by the art teacher over my painting. I was trying to depict a nature scene with tempra paint: a blue slash at the top of the paper, and a green slash at the bottom. The teacher – Mr. Kurd – took me to the window to point out that there was no white space between the earth and the sky – they meet, so my painting should reflect this. But back at my seat, I decided I wanted that white space between the earth and sky so I could paint some people in. Mr. Kurd swung back by, saw that I’d ignored his lesson, and said my painting would not get a passing grade.

Both of these incidents left me just as weepy and whiney as Danielle, and it taught me a lesson: if someone says it’s “my song,” leave it to them.

See Elton doing "Daniel."
.

March 1973: VICKI LAWRENCE - The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

Alongside the radio, variety show television was how we heard new songs, and the power of a TV star singing a song (hello, Cher!) could not be ignored.

The Carol Burnett Show was like a religious service in our home, so when one of its stars – Vicki Lawrence – put out the single “The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia,” it was mandatory that I own it. Plus, the single was on the Bell label, so this was a no-brainer.

Luckily, I loved the song, playing it over and over again, trying to figure out the story line. No matter how hard I concentrated, I’d get confused by the plot: murder, multiple infidelities, and corrupt judges… hard for a 7-year old to keep it straight. But all this confusion and misunderstanding just added to the allure, and that chorus was undeniable!

Things got even more intriguing when two teenagers in the apartment complex overheard me singing the song while out riding my bike. Jackie and Janel stopped me to ask if I knew “what that song means.” I was too thrilled to have junior high kids purposely talking to me to give an intelligible response, but it didn’t matter, because they started talking animatedly between themselves about plot points, and “pot” and getting in trouble for sneaking off with boys.

I asked a question about this last point, and they came back to the reality of talking in front of a dumb grade schooler and went silent, staring at me. Finally, Janel said, “This song has real deep meaning for me, and I can’t tell you why. It’s a secret. And you wouldn’t even understand if I told you.”

With that, Jackie and Janel looked at each other and began laughing uproariously as they walked away from me. This sent me back home for a few more listens to the song, trying to unlock Janel’s secret… did she kill someone? From then on, I stayed far away from those two, but watched Janel with a cautious eye because, well, what if she was a murderer?

Hear the song.
.

February 1973: THE O'JAYS - Love Train

Bell bottoms. Flares. Elephant flares. All the older kids in the apartment complex wore them, as did so many of the dancers on American Bandstand and Soul Train. I wanted a pair, real bad, and I finally got a pair!

They were elephant flares, of a dark blue, light weight denim. They made the most satisfying thwap thwap sound when I walked, and they swayed magnificently when (figuratively) joining hands with the kids on Soul Train to form a “Love Train.”

I loved those “dancing pants,” they made me feel as cool as those kids on TV. I started asking for platforms and an afro. I was told no, and “don’t let your father hear you say that.”

I understood what my Mother meant – my Dad didn’t like blacks, and he wouldn’t dig my burgeoning Black Pride. But everything he’d say about them didn’t seem to apply to the black kids I knew from school. This marked the first time I knew my Dad was wrong about something, and my elephant flare dancing pants became a symbol for “Father Does Not Know Best.”

Watch a Soul Train line dance to "Love Train."
.

January 1973: CARLY SIMON - You're So Vain

Mom needed to find a place for me to go before and after school, so she got me hooked up with some of the other mother’s in the apartment complex. This was basically how I made my first new pals, and it wasn’t optimal conditions because it was borne of car pooling to school during bad weather and babysitting, rather than genuine friendship.

I genuinely loved the sound and feel of “You’re So Vain;” it had both a tense and languid tone and the chorus was undeniably great to sing along to... if you could carry a tune.

During the school day, it had begun to snow, getting heavier as the day went on. When school let out, the mother of an apartment kid was standing at the entrance to gather us all up and drive us back home, because the weather was too bad for all of us to be walking.

I saw all the kids piling into this little Chevy Vega, and decided I’d rather walk home in the snow, but the mother made me get in. So now, we’re all packed in tight, with the heater blasting and the windows fogging, while we sat forever in the parking lot, waiting for the buses to clear out so we could move.

And in this physically uncomfortable situation, “You’re So Vain” comes over the car radio, and the mother starts singing along during the chorus, because – really - how can you resist? Problem was, this lady gave “off key” a new meaning; I swear nearby dogs were howling.

After what seemed forever, the mother’s own kid finally yelled out, “Mommy, stop singing!” To which Mommy halts the yowling only long enough to say, “But I love this song!” and quickly jumps back in just in time to bray “Don’t you? Don’t you? Don’t you now!”

For the next year or so, just the sound of Carly Simon’s voice made me wince because it instantly conjured this horrific moment.

"You're So Vain" by Carly Simon.
.

December 1972: NEIL DIAMOND - Moods

Even though my parents were now leading separate lives, they decided to band together one last time for the family Christmas gathering at my Uncle Art & Aunt Marie’s house in Whitney Chase, a subdivision close to our apartment complex. Maybe they were trying to keep up appearances in front of the family (like they didn’t know, or something?), or maybe trying to let me briefly revisit the sense of being a family again, but whatever the reason, it failed. Everyone was uncomfortable, and I didn’t have near as much fun as I normally did at these events because too many family members wound up stroking my hair and looking at me sadly. Pity and Santa just don’t mix.

The first Christmas morning with just me and Mom was much better. It was a relief that Santa was able to find me inside this apartment complex, and didn’t mix up my gifts with any of the other kids in the building (a valid worry for a 7 year old). I knew “he” got it right because I got a long, gold necklace with a large round medallion with a cursive “P” in the middle (I still have it to this day), a way to acknowledge my new name.

And from a co-worker, Mom got a copy of the latest Neil Diamond album, Moods. “Song Sung Blue” was a huge hit, and Mom sung along with it on the radio with a fervor I didn’t quite understand. But there was a song on the album that made us both really happy, “Gitchy Goomy.”

It was upbeat and relentlessly tuneful, causing both of us to play the song over and over, singing along and doing a little jitterbug in the living room. Plus, the guy on the album cover was really, really cute; we both agreed on this important point. So, Neil Diamond forever owns a warm spot in my heart for providing us moments of pure joy in an otherwise bleak holiday season.

"Gitchy Goomy" by Neil Diamond.
.

December 1972: HELEN REDDY - I Am Woman

From the get go, this was a polarizing song. I only knew that I didn’t like the sound of the singer’s voice, like she had something stuck in her throat and she didn’t bother to clear it before singing. But in the context of what was happening to my Mom, Barb, it must have really annoyed her for other reasons.

Barb had always paid her own way until she got married at age 30. She’d had her own credit cards (her first one coming from the Libson’s in Mid-Town St. Louis in the late 1950s ) and checking account up until she got married, when everything changed over to joint accounts. But now that she was newly single, she had to start all over again, and while the checking account was easy, credit cards were not.

It seems that going from Miss to Mrs. had wiped her previous financial slate clean, and now that she was returning to Miss, Mastercard considered her a blank slate with no credit history and refused to issue her a card. Even though they could see the excellent credit record attached to her Social Security number, being a divorcee made her an untested, financial risk in their eyes and they shut her out.

Atop the pain of a busted marriage and the fear of a strange new future as a divorced, single mom, she had to fight for her financial independence against institutions that were, basically, punishing women for no longer being a Mrs.

This was not an “I Am Woman” Women’s Liberation situation, this was “yes, I’ve paid the price…” but not with a credit card? You bastards! She fought Mastercard, and she won, and thankfully, she was now able to feed and clothe us. “I am strong, I am invincible,” I am credit worthy once again.

Here's more about Barb being an Accidental Feminist.

"I Am Woman" by Helen Reddy.
.