So

Week 26 - Peter Gabriel - So

When I was a kid, I felt like the Buffalo Bills were the team; actually, let me go back further. The first memory that I have of football was Superbowl XX, between the Patriots and the Bears. I don't remember anything about the actual game, but I do remember that these were Walter Payton's Bears, Refrigerator Perry's Bears. I believe Steve Grogan was the Pats' QB, because I'm pretty sure I got his football card from a McDonald's happy meal somewhere in central Mass (oh, Eason started the game, but Grogan was brought in for the second quarter). We lived in Dracut at the time and our tv was the size of a heavy duty washing machine, had textured speaker curtains just for show, and there was no remote control. We had a rotary attached to the antenna on the roof, so if you wanted to watch candlepin bowling on Saturday, you had to dial channel 50 and the entire array would shift with these loud clunks. There were 8 channels total. I remember sitting on the floor, watching the end of the game, after the Patriots had lost 46-10, and seeing some of the players crying. I don’t know why that’s in my head, or if it’s even accurate, but there is a weird faded technicolor moment floating in my brain, one player with an arm around another, guiding him off the field, both with tears in their eyes. A few years later, we all became Bills fans, as they were the AFC contender for four years straight, though I honestly thought that they played the Cowboys all four years. They lost every time, and Jim Kelly’s eyes got sadder and sadder as time went on, and as I grew up, I always thought of Buffalo as kind of a bummer place to be. I did get there eventually though and it turns out that Buffalo is pretty rad, and except for the time that Rex Ryan was their head coach, I’ve always been happy to see them win. I think all of upstate New York, along with smaller pockets throughout the country, would release decades of tension if the Bills could one day raise the Superbowl trophy. But I’ve gotten off track, which I’m sure is no surprise. I did intend to talk about the Bills, but then in providing context through my own memories, I got to 1986, which was the year that Peter Gabriel released his seminal album, So, which I had just gotten reacquainted with for the first time in years. I pay attention to coincidences, and even if I don’t believe in fate, it’s hard to argue with two disparate things emerging together, details that seem weirdly connected; maybe it’s just happenstance, but if it rings that bell for you, then I say: pay attention. 

MTV was a tricky thing when we were younger; our parents loved it in the early 80s, when music videos were becoming more than just a novelty. As we got older though, things got more and more strange, the dawn of reality television (“true storyyyy…”), Beavis and Butthead, and the Grind, ensured that it wasn’t just something that could be left on all day anymore. I’d say though that the most mindbending, brain-changing moment that I can remember from MTV was seeing the video for “Sledgehammer” (again, I need to also add that for years when I saw “Thriller”, I would “have to go to the bathroom” whenever Michael turned into the werecat, coming out as soon as that part was over; also, seeing Captain Lou Albano showing up in the video for “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” had an odd dissonance). But that Peter Gabriel video fried me in such a good way. Watching it now, I’m still blown away by the sheer joy of it all; the song is the British approximation of funk, and that could be something to ridicule, were it not so goddamn funky. The horns are as thick as a shag carpet, and the whole thing sort of feels like a glimpse into what the solo output of David Byrne would become: a library of textured studies of sound and emotion, steeped in a deep, contrapuntal understanding of soul. I needed this album right now as a break from the constant stream of trauma and tragedy that we are all collectively experiencing. So is a person that you intellectually know exists out there in the world, but when you see them again, it feels like they were never not there, and that can be the best kind of comfort. We’re all flying around in a tornado, the only center being our own insistence that we exist, that we love and create and heal. 

So what can heal the Buffalo Bills? Ask any Bills fan, and they’ll tell you that they’re sick and tired of Bellichick’s Patriots dominating the AFC East, and that the Pats always seem to have the easiest schedule, old man Brady being helped across the street by every referee. Well things are looking a whole lot different these days, with the Bills at the top of their division, and sure it’s only been two weeks, but it’s feeling good out there in Buffalo I would wager. It’s not exactly analogous to the film “Say Anything”, but I still like to picture Bellichick standing outside Bills Stadium, holding a boombox aloft and blasting “In Your Eyes”. I’m sure that Peter Gabriel never thought about American Football while recording this album, instead rolling all of the treble to eleven on the guitars and finding the perfect mix of live and electronic snare to keep the people dancing, even if they were only swaying their hips and fists in that purely eighties manner. And now, I’ve got that song on and I have to admit that I never realized how much I missed it. I know it’s a hit, and maybe some people have no need to ever hear it again after living through its heyday, but it strikes me as a very pure and true love song. Reading about this album is reassuring if only in that it shows that no matter where you are in history, people are dissatisfied with the government and enraged by crass human rights violations. Our current anger shouldn’t be dampened by this fact, and actually possibly increased, as the evidence of the endless stream of pain is made clear with every realization of that dissatisfaction. And maybe you didn’t think that I could get there from the Buffalo Bills, but here we are; it’s possible to experience grieving and rage while also watching the game. It’s possible for a British weirdo to make a soulful entry into popular music, and it’s possible for us to do hard things, like turn the capitol upside down and shake out all the rats. Rest in Power RBG.

Peter Gabriel - So

Saturday September 26th 2020, 7pm

Just put it on at your house using a stereo or the internet or whatever you want.