ARTIST: PAUL REVERE & THE RAIDERS
FORMAT: 7" 45 RPM
TITLE: "HIM OR ME - OR WHAT'S IT GONNA BE?" & "THE LEGEND OF PAUL REVERE"
YEAR: 1967
LABEL: COLUMBIA
I've had a hard time with this record. It's the first in the short run of this project that I just can't stand. There are some Paul Revere & The Raiders songs I like -- "(I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone" for instance -- but these two feel lifeless. They're a calculated kind of pop meant to invoke the British Invasion sound and look, but lacking the hooks and edges.
The feeling I get from this song is only amplified by this bizarre video I found on YouTube. The title claims it's footage of teens dancing to the "Him or Me" performance that's been superimposed picture-in-picture style. I'm not so sure. Either way, the dancing does sync up well to the song, and it's of the same era.
I find myself drawn to images of people that would've been my parents' age at the time of these songs, and this certainly fits the bill. But what's particularly striking to me about the video is the dancing.
The video starts with the kids seated in rows in the studio. The music starts and they file onto the dance floor like they're leaving an assembly. On the floor, they begin dancing, some immediately, others after a few seconds. The moves are upright and jerky with little attention to rhythm or fluidity. There's little attention to the beat, and instead movement in time with any sounds as they hear it. Basically, it's very, very white.
Many of the kids look stone-faced and intense. It's as if they're letting slip bursts of pent up expression. The feeling I get from this is most akin to watching the flailing of struggling improv comedy. I get some of this from Paul Revere & The Raiders, a band that didn't have the effortless cool of the better rock acts they emulated. Admittedly, they were trying to balance cool and camp, hence the tights, knee-high boots, and 18th century pony tails.
They're one of those bands my mom just never mentioned, and I imagine this'll be a running theme of this project. Inevitably, I'm going to be responding to these things that my mom may never have cared about. Who knows how she came to own this single, or how much she even listened to it? We all have those bands that mean something to us in isolated moments -- maybe a few days, months, or a year -- then they either fall out of your awareness or out-of-step with your tastes.
For me, these temporal bands or albums often align with friendships or relationships, syncing up with a place and time, exerting some influence, then drifting away as a new course is set. It can be tough to pull some of these albums out of the sleeve. I find my finger hovering over their spines in the shelf, but never pulling them out.
My mom only had one close friend. She had a lot of acquaintances, often anchored to work or the neighborhood. When comfortable with others she could be likable and interesting with a good sense of humor, but when I'd see her in these situations it seemed hard for her to maintain. At the rare parties she'd host, particularly holidays with family, she'd be social in short, contrived bursts then occupy herself in the kitchen or just sit on the couch staring at the TV. We'd all stare at the TV, actually -- awkwardly struggling to find something to say. People would arrive at 1pm and be gone by 5pm. It was nothing like the large, loud families in the B-tier holiday movies my mom would watch on tape or cable.
I can remember asking her why our family holidays were so small, quiet, and brief. She was disappointed by it too, but couldn't explain. It was just the way it was. Families, I guess, are like any kind of relationship: there's either chemistry or not, and my mom's family was a bad mix -- a group of people forced together by the cosmos and loosely bound by obligation. Well, obligation and my grandfather. He looked just like my mom but lankier and bald. He was in the Navy during WWII and later worked on the docks of Lake St. Clair. He was shy, quiet, kindly, and just generally likable and comforting. There was something about it him that made you want to be around him, like the glow of a fireplace.
His funeral in 2001, just days before 9/11, was a dissolution point for my family. That following Christmas was the last one that my mom's older brother attended. Holidays from then on were me, my mom, and my sister (and any significant others). It was still awkward, but a little less so. The fact we started drinking a little helped. Sometimes my mom's friend and her family would show. My mom's younger brother would come here and there too. Mostly, though, it was just us three, at holidays and at the hospital.