The first to go were born in the forties. Now, just like in that Police song, those born in the fifties are dropping dead.
That was the first thought that occurred to me when I heard that Eric Carmen had died. Sure, he was a few years older than me, but he was my contemporary.
The Beatles were not my contemporaries. Nor the Dave Cark Five.
We can argue whether rock and roll started with Ike Turner or Bill Haley. We can talk about the impact of Elvis Presley. But the true dividing line, the moment when rock truly blew up, when it became not only America's, but the world's sound, was the advent of the Beatles... First in the U.K. in '62, and then in the U.S. in '64. Hell, let's stick with '64, that's when "A Hard Day's Night" hit the theatres.
Sure, the Beatles were only in their early twenties, but that seemed ages from most of their fans. The Beatles were older, wiser and more experienced. Believe me, we knew exactly how old each Beatle was. All were born in the early forties.
And the San Francisco groups had a different upbringing and inspiration, folk and blues, and they were parallel to the Beatles, and also born in the forties.
And by time we hit the seventies, our generation took over, those born in the fifties. Not exclusively, we had Keith Emerson and James Taylor born in the forties, but the base age ticked up, our brethren were making the hit music.
And there was a victory lap in the eighties with MTV. Boomers were flush.
Then the internet came along and took the focus off of music, and it has never fully returned. Elon Musk is more of a rock star than anybody making music today, and this didn't used to be the case. If you wanted to know which way the wind blew, you listened to a record, not anymore.
This bothers me, how the MTV paradigm of a worldwide hit single now dominates. That there's no parallel alternative music and culture, of any significance, but they call it the music "business," and everybody follows the money. Starving artists don't pay fealty to the work, they just complain that they don't get paid.
The Raspberries were on a terrible label. Capitol might have had the Beach Boys and the Beatles and eventually the Band, but it was the last choice. You could tell by the album covers if nothing else. They were cheap in an era where the acts on Warner Brothers' were extensive gatefold manifestations.
And the Raspberries were an anomaly. Breaking on AM radio when all the action was on FM. Capitol didn't bother positioning the act as credible. The album covers made the band look like sixties boy band relics.
But the single hits were undeniable.
And then came "Overnight Sensation"...
"Well I know it sounds funny
But I'm not in it for the money"
I read about it in "Rolling Stone." Other music magazines. I couldn't hear it, because it was a complete stiff. To this day I've never heard "Overnight Sensation" on the radio.
But I took a risk, I dove in and bought it, at Sam Goody in Westport.
And I was positively stunned.
That would happen in the old days. You'd buy a record you'd read about, that had no hits, and you'd drop the needle and be positively overwhelmed. Like with Stories' "About Us." Sure, they ultimately tacked on the cover of "Brother Louie," but that was an anomaly, the rest of the album was Left Banke modernized for the seventies and I still sing the songs to myself regularly. "What comes after, the laughter..."
So I bought every Eric Carmen album thereafter.
My favorite is "Boats Against the Current." The final track, which Eric just wrote me should have been the opener, "Run Away," is majestic in a way today's records are not. Back then it was all about the record, the penumbra was secondary. Forget endorsements, personal hype, the music was a statement of your identity, it revealed your interior, not your exterior.
And then Eric faded from the scene but he returned with "Hungry Eyes" from the "Dirty Dancing" soundtrack.
Talk about a phenomenon. "Dirty Dancing" was seen as a B-movie. Not to be taken seriously. And over time it built and built to the point it became a cultural icon. Everybody saw it, more than once. And sure, it was about Baby and Johnny, but also about having the time of your life... It just made you feel good. Fully alive.
Two days ago I was riding the lift with this bearded guy who started a conversation because the four who were supposed to make six couldn't sidle up in time to make it, or chose not to.
This guy told me he was from Michigan. But he used to live in Vail in the winter. And I asked him about what he did for a living and he said he was retired. That he'd planned to spend the winter in Vail but he'd had a heart incident over the summer, he needed a valve replacement.
He was only 71.
If you can find a boomer sans health problems... I don't believe it. Everybody's got something. It's like we're automobiles, and not Toyotas or Hondas. We're Chevrolets, Fords, GM machines. All shiny and new but not made to last. Eventually we fall apart. We don't stop running completely, but pieces start to fail. And unlike with cars you can't cashier them and get a new one, your body is the only one you get.
And in fact, I never spoke with Eric Carmen, but we e-mailed plenty. I went to see the Raspberries reunion twenty years ago at the House of Blues. It was fantastic.
And now the House of Blues is gone too.
And he e-mailed me... I'm checking, the last e-mail I got from Eric was on January 7th. Two months ago. Fully alive, and now he's dead.
As for the Raspberries reunion...
Most people don't understand how the road works. You get offers, or you don't. And if you get offered enough cash you go on the road, assuming you want to, and if you don't, you don't. In other words, many of your old time favorites would love to tour, but no promoter will put up the money.
And if they didn't have that name, and if they were properly marketed by Capitol, the Raspberries would have been able to tour every year, like Styx and the rest, they had hits and they were that good, but the band ended up living in no-man's land.
But once they went all the way.
Very few records are perfect, but Eric Carmen made a few of them.
And I can't feel nostalgic about them, because they're in my head constantly. Really, the "Boats Against the Current" LP... It plays more in my brain than it does in Spotify, and I listen in Spotify on a regular basis.
Do I think others have the same experience?
No. Because I'm more passionate than most.
But I'm not the only one. Music was the most important thing to us. Which is why we knew the Beatles' ages. Quick, how old is Ariana Grande? Or the Weeknd? Or Drake?
That's not what they're selling. It's not about their true identities, it's about the exterior, the flash. Whereas on "Boats Against the Current"...
I relate to it because it speaks to my insides. I don't need anybody else to agree with me. It's just one on one with the record.
Will Eric Carmen's music have legs, past the death of the baby boomers?
I don't think so. Almost none of our music, other than the Beatles, will sustain, will travel. The Beatles, yes. The Stones, no. Never mind Seatrain and a bunch of albums I played incessantly in the seventies.
Hell, most of it is already gone.
And Glenn Frey too.
And David Bowie.
But now it's our contemporaries. Hell, Karl Wallinger was only 66. Even younger than me. Come on, you remember hearing "Ship of Fools" on KROQ, right?
That kind of music has been excised from today's hit parade. We don't want people who think, we don't want you to make a statement, we want you to be shiny and new...it's all about image, and your personal life lives online, not in your music.
In other words, the landscape has changed. And after all these decades, I don't expect it to change back. Today it's all about the hit. We live in a narrow Top 40 world, although we now call it the Spotify Top 50.
And sure, those records evidence success. And I know people love them. But they just don't represent what used to be. And if you dig beneath the surface, go deep into the catalogs of these acts, oftentimes you find nothing at all, only dreck.
So what I'm saying is it's your time. Time to focus on yourself. To be the hero of your own movie. You're not going to be here for long, but if you still see these aged musicians, alive or dead, as heroes, you're missing the point. Enjoy their music, but focus on yourself, because odds are you're not going to be here for that long.
I know you don't believe it. But soon it won't only be Eric Carmen and Karl Wallinger, but your high school and college buddies. You'll chalk it up to luck, they got the Big C and you didn't. But then something will happen to you.
Maybe you'll just fall. Happens all the time. Your balance fades as you age. You may think you're twenty one, but you're not.
And it's hard to ignore politics, but it's even harder not to become somnambulant, to say yes instead of no.
It's never too late to try new things. If you're afraid of being injured, you're afraid of living.
New friends are around the corner. But you have to make an effort. And at our age, everybody has the same status. If you're a boomer and you're bragging about your house or your car you haven't grown up and are missing the point. You're just a person. Part of society. In an overwhelming world that will move on without you.
So it is about experiences and people and...
No one is keeping a record. He with the most toys when they die does not win.
And I've met a lot of these hitmakers, my heroes of yore. And I'm not saying their work is not worthy of adulation, but in truth they are people, just like you and me.
You are not going to live forever, no one ever has. Biohack all you want but you'd be better off just living in the now.
This is it, this is your life.
Eric Carmen and Karl Wallinger may have enriched it, but they had their lives and you need to have yours.
Because the Grim Reaper is just around the corner. Believe me.
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