A Top Ten Memoir: 1994 - "We all want to be big stars but we don't know why and we don't know how..."
I was growing restless at North Central College in my job as Transfer Coordinator. While I was becoming quite successful at my work by helping the college to bring in record numbers of transfer students, I needed more. While most of the group I worked with were young and pleasant enough to be with, there was a disturbing sense of conservatism that I just couldn’t relate to in the office and on the campus. One colleague played Christian music at her desk while another got married in a near west suburban religiously affiliated African American makeshift church. I wasn’t vocal about it, but I loved the contrast to all of this in Tori Amos’s irreverent song God: “God sometimes you just don’t come through. Do you need a woman to look after you?” Provocative, yes! These types of “alternative” lyrics were proving more and more relevant to me. Amos was expressing something that I felt but wasn’t seeing at my job or my neighborhood in Wheaton – part of a previously VERY church focused town!
Still, I had some fun at North Central, particularly with my colleague Cathy.
I attempted to explore my differing interests by taking a Feminist Film Theory course at Northern Illinois University (NIU.) Being the only guy in the class, it was a bit intimidating but I muddled through and saw some very interesting films from a new perspective. Unfortunately, I was finding that NIU didn’t have enough film courses to satisfy my interest so I decided to suspend my studies there indefinitely following the course.
New York though was becoming an increasingly exciting and alluring world to me. Frank’s former student Tom, who had become a member of the Top Ten group in ’92, had moved to the Big Apple to break into the theater scene and attend the famed Actor’s Studio where everyone from Marlon Brando to Paul Newman studied and changed the face of acting. Visiting Tom and watching his climb proved quite interesting and inspiring to me. He had become good friends with another up and coming actor named Brian. The two of them talked about theater and their goals while I marveled at their dedication and ambition.
The Counting Crows’ released their song Mr. Jones that year. Sounding at first much like Van Morrison, this highly charged alternative rock song explored the pursuit of women and fame. Whenever I heard this song I thought about Tom and Brian. They both seemed to “want to be big stars.” I was pretty jealous of their ambition. Somewhere deep inside me I felt the same. As the song goes, “we all want to be big stars, but we don’t know why and we don’t know how.” It wasn’t happening for me at North Central. Yes, I was becoming a bit of a “star” when it came to the recruiting of transfer students, but I wanted to be focused on something more than numbers. The Crows sang lines like “I want to be Bob Dylan. Mr Jones wishes he was just a little more funky… When everybody loves you, you can never be lonely.” Since I wasn’t sure what I believed in at the time, lines like “Help me believe in anything ‘cause I want to be someone who believes,” also really resonated with me. And, of course, because Tom and Brian were so good looking I couldn’t help but cling to the line, “Man, I wish I was beautiful.”
My Top Ten of 1994:
1. Mr. Jones – Counting Crows
2. Prayer for the Dying – Seal
3. Possession – Sarah McLachlan
4. Bring It On – Seal
5. All I Wanna Do – Sheryl Crow
6. God – Tori Amos
7. I’m Alive – Seal
8. Round Here – Counting Crows
9. Pretty Good Year – Tori Amos
10. Laid – James
I guess my identity was continuing to evolve. I saw people going after their true passions but I once again didn’t quite know what mine was yet. All I knew was that I was dazzled by New York (and Hollywood) and needed to be a part of that world in some greater way than just as an observer or audience member. It didn’t hurt that when spending time in New York it felt like I was in it, even if just for a few days. We’d drink and cavort until all hours of the night. As the Crows sang in their other alt hit of the year, Round Here, “round here we stay up very, very late. I can’t see nothing round here.” I didn’t see much in Wheaton, but I saw a lot in New York and in my other travels that year.
Frank and I did our first major trip overseas with a week in London and a week in Paris. It was eye opening and moving.
I was entranced by the history and architecture. I became more appreciative of Europe in a way I never had been before. My knowledge of its arts and history was pretty limited having studied primarily the social sciences as an undergrad. I needed more of it. As Seal would express in I’m Alive, I was “alive” during these adventures:
“The future is my friend.
It hurts, but it treats me well.
Take hold and be its master.
Gold as the sun,
As you turn me on.
And bathe in its sun red,
I'm alive, older and strong.
Let me be someone”
And then,
“Won't you let me...
Won't you hear me cry...
Got my feet on the ground,
...feet on the ground.
Your hand's falling'...
Saw my blood on the ground,
And it changed my life...
Your face in the crowd,
You're my future.”
Frank, my travels, some new directions – these were all I hoped to be part of my future.
Seal’s self-titled 1994 album produced two other songs which would make my Top Ten that year. Bring it On seemed to be a call for bigger and brighter things for me while Prayer for the Dying was a bit more elusive. Yet many of its lyrics resonated with me as I continued to contemplate where my life could go next: “It's time to move on. Crossing that bridge, with lessons I've learned, playing with fire and not getting burned.” The fire was my reaching out and doing things I couldn’t even imagine doing just a few years earlier. Regardless of my anxiety and occasional bouts of depression, I was amazing myself at what I was able to experience.
Overall it was, as Tori Amos sang, a Pretty Good Year. I even got to meet her in an elevator at the airport in London. I had been playing a cassette with her music on the plane from Paris when I saw her bright red hair. I was floored. She couldn’t have been sweeter, signing my cassette and giving me access to great seats at her upcoming concert in Chicago.
My only regret was not taking a photo or video with her. Regardless, meeting her not only cemented my love for her music but also made me realize that the world of entertainment was getting closer and more tangible to me.
One of Amos’s contemporaries, Sarah McLachlan, rather poetically explored going “into the sea of waking dreams” in her song Possession. My mind could fantasize even more than ever now:
“my body aches to breathe your breath, your words keep me alive. And I would be the one to hold you down kiss you so hard I'll take your breath away and after, I'd wipe away the tears just close your eyes dear.”
Of course, back on the ground in reality at home sometimes I just wanted to have fun as Sheryl Crow so deliciously sang about in her first big hit All I Wanna Do. Frank and I had regular parties, whether it be focused on the Oscars or chili, our rather large, growing set of friends were always included in our celebrations. My high school friend Paula got married and we grooved to our song Super Freak on the dance floor at her wedding. Christmas at mom Ray’s house was also filled with lots of laughter and music as my brothers Jeff, & Mike, Frank, Ray, mom and I took advantage of a new karaoke machine. Top Ten songs from the past and present were all over these events. This video is (often pretty hilarious!) taken from some of these events.
Those that didn’t quite fit into our world were left out as James sang in the song Laid, “my therapist says not to see you no more. She says you’re like a disease without any cure. She says I’m so obsessed that I’m becoming a bore.” While my therapist Judy didn’t quite say these words, I enjoyed the message and could connect to it in my head every now and then, if for nothing else than for a good laugh.
Links to my Top Ten of 1994:
Other favorites from 1994:
The More You Ignore Me, The Closer I Get - Morrissey, You Made Me the Thief of Your Heart - Sinead O’Connor, About a Girl - Nirvana, I Love Saturday - Erasure, Sweets For My Sweet - C.J. Lewis, Don’t Stop - Madonna, John I Love You - Sinead O’Connor, Cornflake Girl - Tori Amos, Take Me Back - Erasure, Closer - Nine Inch Nails, Big Time Sensuality - Bjork, Strong Enough - Sheryl Crow
What are some of your favorites from ‘94? Any stories go along with them?
ALL CAUGHT UP! Until Saturday when I don't have my 1996 list finalized yet
* Only Happy When It Rains (Garbage)
* Rain King (Counting Crows)
* All I Wanna Do (Sheryl Crow)
**** Hmmmm ... if The Black Crowes had had a song out this year, it probably would have made the list, too 😉 )
* Crazy (Aerosmith)
* Insensitive (Jane Arden)
* Blue Denim (Stevie Nicks)
* Wildflowers (Tom Petty)
* I Take My Chances (Mary-Chapin Carpenter)
* Girls With Guitars (Wynonna)
* Let Her Cry (Hootie & The Blowfish)
* Take A Bow (Madonna)
* You Don't Know How It Feels (Tom Petty)
Oops! That's twelve. But I'm allowed a few extra since my 1995 list was way under ten. 😉
Sheryl Crow’s fame skyrocketed when she played Woodstock ‘94, supporting her Tuesday Night Music Club Album. After opening for the Eagles in stadiums, Crow was hitting the major club circuit, which she had outgrown but was committed to finishing.
Lucky for me, my boyfriend at the time was a big fan and bought us tickets. It was at the old 9:30 Club in DC, on a Tuesday night (coincidentally), two days after Woodstock.
I wasn’t a huge fan because her album sounded too poppy for my tastes at the time. But I firmly believe that a live show can change your mind about an artist. And Sheryl did NOT disappoint.
A crew member came out and handed me earplugs, “If you stand next to the stage, you’re gonna need these.” My curiosity was piqued.
It turned out to be one of the most memorable shows of my life.
Crow’s music was straight up rock and roll. It was hard, loud, guitar-driven and shitloads of fun. Her voice a bit scratchy, but always on key, completed the package.
Crow was a rockstar whose album was simply produced to be pop radio-station friendly. I called it “over produced” at the time because her raw live sound was so rock and roll. But I’m sure it was intentional. And wildly successful.
Like many other bands (including the Grateful Dead), I just didn’t get the allure until seeing a live show. Sheryl is in the top echelon of songwriters and performers in my book thanks to my ex buying those tickets. I will always be grateful.