Just twice in my life have I been frozen in my tracks because of music — music so unlike anything I had heard before that it was stunning.
Later in this column, I’ll get to the first time it happened. But I’m starting with the second.
That occurred on a Friday (Saturday?) night in 1975, and I was getting ready to go out. (I ended up being late for the party.)
WNEW-FM was broadcasting a live performance from the Bottom Line in N.Y.C. — some group that was new to me (and a lot of other people, as it turned out).
In 2004, Rolling Stone magazine would cite the show as one of the “50 Moments That Changed Rock and Roll.”
When the music started, I stopped — standing in the middle of the room, mesmerized. Who was performing? Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
I have been a fan ever since — although not nearly as big as Chris Christie.
I love Springsteen’s music, but I do not always agree with his political stance. To everything, though, there is an exception, and I am still laughing at the Springsteen- Jimmy Fallon duet on the latter’s show last month. If you missed it, just go to Google or YouTube; the video is all over the web.
Fallon and The Boss took the spotlight about a week after the governor’s two-hour Bridgegate press conference, with a rewrite of “Born to Run.” Below are the lyrics, so you can sing along. Enjoy!
In the day,
we sweat it out on
the streets,
stuck in traffic
on the GWB
They shut down
the tollbooths of glory
‘cause we didn’t endorse Christie.
Sprung from cages
on Highway 9,
we got 3 lanes closed,
so, Jersey,
get your ass in line
Whoa!
Maybe this Bridgegate
was just payback,
it’s a bitchslap
to the state Democrats,
We gotta get out,
but we can’t.
We’re stuck in
Gov. Chris Christie’s
Fort Lee, New Jersey,
traffic jam.
Governor, let me in,
I wanna be your friend,
there’ll be no
partisan divisions.
Let me wrap my legs
round your mighty rims
and relieve your
stressful condition
You’ve got Wall St. masters
stuck cheek-to-cheek with
blue-collar truckers,
and, man, I really
gotta take a leak
But I can’t.
I’m stuck in Gov. Chris Christie’s
Fort Lee, New Jersey
traffic jam.
Highways jammed
with pissed-off drivers
with no place left to go
And the press conference
went on and on,
it was longer than
one of my own
damn shows.
Someday, governor,
I don’t know when,
this will all end,
but till then
you’re killing
the working man
Who’s stuck in the
Gov. Chris Christie
Fort Lee, New Jersey traffic jam
Whoa, oh oh oh
Whoa, oh oh oh (etc.)
Down in Jerseyland.
Now, to the first time music stopped me dead. That was on a Sunday afternoon in January 1964. Again, it was something on the radio. The Beatles. Looking back, I am challenged to recall exactly what sounded so different. I just know it did. But the next day at school, still excited, I could find just one other classmate who had heard the same broadcast and was also enthralled.
The rest thought we were both exaggerating the impact.
Within days, all that would change. Soon everything else would, too.
In a marvelous OpEd piece in the Star-Ledger this week, Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. wrote, “The Beatles rode the forefront of a wave that would reshape everything — music, fashion, culture, politics –and neither America or the world would ever be the same.”
I’d like to thank Pitts for his prose, and also for reminding us that January marked the 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ debut this side of the pond. But it was disconcerting to realize that Beatlemania began just two short months after America was traumatized by the Kennedy assassination. Or maybe it was actually part of the recovery process.
Anyway, when you’re young, two months is an eternity. When you’re older, 50 years is yesterday.
–Karen Zautyk
