#183) "When October Goes" by Barry Manilow - Once again, Barry Manilow proves that he is capable of being soulful, performing something that engenders looking the audience in the eye as he sings, rather than gazing vapidly out at the exit signs while cheesy-love-lines-set-to-music dribble out of his mouth.
Manilow had a hand in writing this one too. So the story goes, he was given lyrics written by Johnny Mercer shortly before Mercer's death. He put those lyrics to a solemn melody well-suited to the subject matter, and aptly created a potent musical cocktail. For my money, "When October Goes" is Manilow's most durable - if not memorable - song.
Of course, the first time you hear it, it immediately becomes memorable...far more memorable, in my opinion, than any of the songs that made him famous. It's not music to party to (or drive to, really), but haunting and insightful, it is, for better or worse, where you find yourself going as the years pass and there's less partying, more time for thinking about things, after you start to realize (and have to accept) that you're not going to live forever.
"It doesn't matter much, how old I grow / I hate to see October go..."
#184) "The End of the Innocence" by Don Henley - An inconvenient truth, but undeniable: rarely do artists, of any genre of music, improve with age. The lucky and/or talented ones start out strong, drawing from the vitality of their own youthfulness, and tapping into something coursing through the collective vein of the times they were born to. But time passes and times change, passions cool, and the luminosity of nearly all star power - even the greats, even the game changers - transforms with age. It doesn't flash out, necessarily, but it changes hue, and surely dims.
There have been exceptions: the Beatles just kept getting better and better throughout their short span of years (of course, they were pretty killer from day one); Johnny Cash did the best work of his career right around the time he reached retirement age. Tom Waits has changed course musically over the years in the interest of staying innovative, and in doing so, also created his most notable work in the back nine. Aerosmith were rock gods in the 70s, fell apart, then were completely revitalized by Run DMC in 1986, after which they carried out a second act of stardom some would say eclipsed their first. Sometimes an untimely death makes a difference: Elvis was a bonafide has-been in the years leading up to his passing in 1977 at age 42. Post-mortem was when he became truly larger than life, the "ELVIS!" we know today.
But those are exceptions. Popular music is driven primarily by youth and vitality. It's about having the energy to anticipate and seek out the best and beautiful in life, and eventually we all cross a point at which much of that energy is behind us. When you're a celebrity, you not only have to deal with your own changes, but changes in your audience as well. So you really have just two choices, to paraphrase Neil Young: burn out early, or just fade away.
Don Henley is on the short list of artists who forged an impressive second act. He was a major player in a major band in the 1970s, and then in the 80s established himself, for a while, as a valid and relevant solo artist.
That impressive second act culminated with 1989's The End of the Innocence, an album in which he brought all of it home, all of his stuff (so to speak), as an artist, a man, and a baby boomer.
This is not hip or stylish music...even way back then, standing on that precipice between hair metal and grunge, "The End of the Innocence" seemed "old" to this 17-year-old. It was "adult" music, and lacked the energy to get me keyed up. But now, I get it...I sooo get it...potently nostalgic without ever becoming overly-sentimental, and with help from Bruce Hornsby's stalwart piano riff and a chilling horn solo, "The End of the Innocence" is just plain gorgeous, not a song, so much, as a type of warm musical bathwater to be slipped into, in moments when we take stock of our lives.
"I need to remember this, so baby give me just one kiss / And let me take a long last look, before we say goodbye..."
