Lunar Obverse

While Tracy and I were at lunch, chowing down on our taco salads, this song came up. She and I both started singing along, closing our eyes and bopping our heads.

People talking and they’re saying that you’re leaving. So unhappy with the way that you’ve been living.

We always wish for money; we always wish for fame. We think we have the answers.

Some things ain’t never gonna change.

John was singing right to me. And I mean 1982 me: an awkward chubby high schooler, geeky in the days long before it was cool, a broiling overflowing mass of hormones and heartbreak. Not strong enough to speak up; and sensitive enough to feel the sting of even imagined rejection.

I didn’t wish for money or fame then. I wished for love. Or its nearest equivalent; I was far too inexperienced to know, or care, about the difference.

In 1982 when this song came out, I was a year away from my first real girlfriend. My best friend (hi, Terry!) was nearly my exact opposite in every way; he was skinny, social, outgoing, and brave (or foolhardy). Opposite in every way save one: he, too was a geek. We shared a love of Star Wars, Star Trek and Dungeons and Dragons. But he’d kissed a girl - several, in fact - and done more. I admired and envied him at the same time in that mixed-up way we can only seem to achieve when we’re young.

Ah, yes, this song takes me back. And the video! He’s trying to save her from her hasty decision, and he’s willing to even lie and disguise himself to do it. Nowadays, we call that stalking or controlling; but that passed for romantic to a naive 17 year old who led a rich inner life and had no idea what he was feeling or doing.