Duran Duran — “The Reflex” (from Greatest
I had seen it coming on the calendar earlier in the week but then lost track of it (probably for the best, that), and it didn’t dawn on me until around mid-afternoon that yesterday was actually the sixth anniversary of my father’s passing. I was rather an oddball child, so, at least outwardly, I never really had so much in common with my dad. That he seemed to be perfectly fine with that fact — and by that, I mean that he gave both of his children the space to fully be themselves — might be the single greatest gift he ever gave me, and I promise that I recognize and appreciate it more with each passing year. The second greatest gift he gave me, without question, was simple yet achingly profound: he taught his son how to really feel the music that surrounds us, how to let it scrape against your soul and leave its mark. Like a broken record, I always and often say that 1984 — my eighth full year hanging onto this mortal coil for dear life — was the greatest year for music in the history of recorded sound, and I keep coming to realize that I feel that way as much for the fact that its songs were inescapably, incontrovertibly fabulous as for the fact that it was the first year I was paying attention — ergo, the year that I play all other years off against — and that I was paying attention because he taught me how to. This, believe it or not, was our favorite song that year — we used to love trying our best (and loudest) to imitate Simon LeBon’s irresistibly batshit vocal performance whenever this came on the radio of my dad’s puke-green, tore-up-from-the-floor-up Ford pickup truck, which back then I thought was every last iota as cool as Rocky’s gold and black Trans Am — and even though it’s still hard to listen to much of the time, because of the memories it conjures with every passing note, it’s the tune that I couldn’t help but hum to myself all evening yesterday. And I have the funniest feeling — or, maybe, just the funniest hope — that, wherever he may now be, he was doing the exact same thing. (So much love to you, Dad, still and always.)
