Throw Momma from the Train — Papa’s Basement Show #435
An icy tumble has left my mom infirm, meaning I’ve become her 24/7 caretaker until she’s healed up. Hear all about mother’s descent into old ladyhood, my co-host Howard debating […]
First of all, kudos to me on keeping the material on this site timely: Dissecting a soft-rock hit from 1982 is something the Tinder generation is going to eat up with a spoon.
I listen to a weird swath of music. That wasn’t said in a hipster, “they’re bands you probably haven’t heard of” manner, either: They’re all bands you’ve heard of and would be ashamed to listen to. You know what I’ve been rocking on my phone lately? Rick James and Peter Cetera. Anyone who stole my phone and went through my tracks would guess I look something like this.
Which brings me to a song that Cetera sang: Chicago’s “Hard to Say I’m Sorry.” You know it, or at least you’ve heard it when your third DUI conviction forced your mom to drive you to work in her car, meaning she got to pick the radio station. It’s a beautiful song. I’m not afraid to admit that. This is one of those “it’s so unmasculine that it’s masculine to admit you enjoy it” paradoxes, like confessing to a love of Grease or being pegged.
What most people don’t know about “Hard to Say I’m Sorry”, though, is that it has a coda of sorts that is cropped from the version played on the radio. A bit of a jazzy jam by the name of “Get Away” that was tagged on to the end of the song by the rest of Chicago to reaffirm its horn-laden history even as Peter Cetera dragged them into an easy listening-limbo from which they were never to emerge again.
Why do I mention it? Because it’s maybe the most out-of-place, mood-spoiling monstrosity I’ve ever seen grafted onto a creation. A woman opening this man’s shirt moments before having sex with him would think to herself, “Oh, he just has a baby mutant spurting from his chest. Thank god it’s nothing jarring, like that horrible horn enema Chicago staple-gunned onto ‘Hard to Say I’m Sorry,’ because that really would have spoiled the mood.”
Go ahead, listen to the song. That’s a song you get a slow, deep, unironic fuck on to. Those reverb-laden drums that kick in at 1:30? They say, “ball her to our tempo. Go ahead. She’s gonna recognize what you’re doing and she’s going to LOVE IT.” The electric guitar that kicks in at 3:00? A song’s subtle way of saying “no time for love, Dr. Jones! Time to cum so we can catch Letterman’s monologue!”
And then it all goes horribly wrong. Suddenly, a wall of horns assaults the listener alongside what sounds like a cat running back and forth across the keys of a piano. If “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” is an elegant swan of a lovemaking session, “Get Away” is farting while inside your partner as you pump your fist in the air and repeatedly scream your mother’s first name in her face.
So the next time you’re out for the evening with a woman and “Hard to Say I’m Sorry” comes on the radio, you can turn to her and knowledgeably declare, “Did you know that there is a whole other part to this song that they never play on the radio?” And she’ll reply, “Whatever you want to talk about, man: It’s your hour.”
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Ronnie Peace on January 27, 2015
I hear you, man. Well, maybe that’s those voices again, but I definitely read what you’re saying.
And agree.
Though, one part confuses me – it seems to me you’re saying that farting while in your partner (assumedly thrusting and not looking for maltesers) and pumping your fist in the air is NOT cool?!?
Please advise ASAP as I am currently in my partner at the time of typing this.
Well written, &/or typed, by the way. Australian rockers INXS do a similar thing with ‘Mediate’ segues from the hit single “Need You Tonight”. Guns’n’Roses were too lazy and did it in the one song “November Rain” thus saving themselves from coming up with another song name for the better part of that song that always gets cut off on radio.