i was in the club

I was in high school when I joined the Columbia House Music Club. That was the one that advertised on TV and in magazine? They sent you, what was it? Eight? Twelve? records or tapes or 8-tracks for a penny. But you committed to buying eight more (I don't remember the exact number) at regular club prices. Oh, and when you bought your first album at club prices they sent you another eight. And to make sure you really thought you were getting away with something, the TV adds let you in on the secret -- that you could writte the numbers of additional items you wanted in those extra unmarked blank boxes. So, all in all, you got like twenty-zillion albums for the price of one. Or so it seemed.

My purpose here isn't to look at how the club worked or how it made money. I'll let Mental Floss do that.

I was in high school, with a growing interest in music, and a Walkman (technically, a Toshiba portable stereo). So I joined Columbia House, and chose to get music on cassette tape. Yeah, choosing cassette was stupid -- the sound quality on prerecorded cassettes was pretty awful. But what did I know?

I remember having all sorts of fantasies of joining under a fake name, then (after getting the free tapes) claiming that I never signed up. It must have been some prank. And, no, I'm not sending you back these tapes. Thank you very much. But I didn't do that. What I did do was cancel my membership after my obligations had been met and freebies had been received. Then I rejoined to start the process over again. I bthink I only once ended up buying something I didn't want (because I forgot to return the monthly featured album on time).

I remember a lot of the albums that I got, though I don't recall much about the order.

I got a bunch of Barry Manillow tapes -- my sister liked him, and so I, worshipful little brother, felt that I had to as well. Don't get me wrong. I still kind of like a few of his songs -- "Mandy" (hey -- she came and she gave without taking, but I sent her away) "Copacabana (Disco)" and "I Write The Songs." But my tastes have gone elsewhere. Now, I'd be satisfied with a greatest hits package.

I got three Supertramp albums (because I liked "The Logical Song"), Being With You by Smokey Robinson (because I'd heard the title track on radio a bunch of times), The Captain and Tennille's Greatest Hits (remember "Love Will Keep Us Together"? Apparently it did, since they're still married), something by Dionne Warwick (I must have recognized a song title or something), and a compilation of The Lettermen (I have no idea why). No, that'snot the complete list. But it gives you an idea of what I was interested in.

So I listened to these tapes on my Walkman, and brought them with me on shabbatons (weekend trips with Jewish youth groups) with Young Judea. I still remember one of them. While the cool kids were listening to AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" on a huge boombox, I was hanging out with my friends and a small Radio Shack tape recorder (that usually stayed with my TRS-80 computer), playing "Rainbow Connection" from the soundtrack to The Muppets Movie. I still remember Miriam going through my box of tapes, and then asking dissapointedly if I didn't have any Billy Joel? Years later, we were hanging out and I told her I had Billy Joel. She just kind of looked at me funny. The moment was gone.

I still had those tapes years later, long after I had lost all interest in most of them, bought vinyl versions of the ones that still interested me, and bought CD versions of most of those. Those old cassettes, with their hissing background noise and their cracked and broken cases still sat on my shelf, mocking me. With my wife's encouragement, I eventually threw them out. She knows that I have Billy Joel.

music no one else can hear: history of a song

It started back in high school with a stray comment from a friend. Melinda was listening to my Walkman (I believe it was a tape I had made of Dave Edmunds’s album, D. E. 7th. She paused at one point and said she’d better stop dancing to music no one else can hear. That phrase, “music no one can hear” struck me as a great song title. Then, as now, my songwriting usually started with a phrase that I thought was catchy. That night I wrote a song with that title. I thought it was great. I know it was crap. I can’t remember any of the words (except the title), and I don’t want to. That was in 1982 or 1983.

Fast forward to 1988. I was a grad student at the University of Michigan, dating Anne. I spent the summer in New York. Missing her, I picked up my guitar and tried to write a song. By this time I knew that the song I had originally written was garbage, and decided to recycle the title. I had been listening to a lot of Air Supply, and wrote a verse to the tune of their song, "All Out of Love," which begins:

I'm lying alone
With my head on the phone
Thinking of you 'til it hurts.
I know you hurt too
But what else can we do,
Tormented and torn apart?

For those unfamiliar, here's the video:

My verse went:

I'm lying in bed
With you in my head
Wondering where you are now.
Tell me, can it be?
Are you thinking of me
Even though I'm not around?

A chorus followed. Here the melody departed from the Air Supply song. It went:

Your song is with me wherever I am
Even when you're not here.
And all around me there's music,
Music no one else can hear.

More verses followed, but I was never as pleased with them as I was with that first verse or the chorus. I don’t remember them though I wish I did.

A few years later, a work buddy, Matthew, invited me over to his house to work on some songwriting. He and his wife were, like me, amateur songwriters with day jobs. We spent New Year’s Eve 1992 hanging out, talking music, and working on some songs. One of the things we did was revisit the song I wrote in 1988. We created a chorus by combining the first verse and chorus, with a few minor word changes (e.g., we removed the words “tell me” from the third line). We wrote a couple of verses and a bridge that together turned it into a story song about a broken marriage. We also completely reworked the melody. So I entered 1993 with a new song, and promptly did nothing with it.

About ten years later, married and with one child, I went camping with my family and a couple – Scott and Miriam -- we were friendly with. I should point out here that Scott is an accomplished multi-instrumentalist and singer, and a PhD in musicology. He and I both brought guitars on that camping trip and spent a lot of time playing songs for each other. He enjoyed “Music No One Else Can Hear,” and so we played it over and over again until he knew it inside and out, frontwards, backwards, and in Texas. Ultimately, he and his brothers wanted to record it on an album they were doing.

That was great news for me, except for the fact that I had never registered the copyright. If it was going to be out in the world on a CD, even if by three unknown brothers selling it on CDBaby, I really wanted to have the copyright registered. This was complicated by the fact that Matthew and I had fallen out of touch and he had moved. In order to register the copyright in both of our names I needed his information. I also wanted to get his blessing before registering it and letting Scott and his brothers record it. Ultimately, I found Matthew and got his information and blessing. He had an, at best, vague recollection of writing the song with me, and seemed amused by this unexpected turn of events.

So, “Music No One Else Can Hear” was the first (of three, to date) copyrights I registered. The Milner Brothers recorded it on their album, Haven’t Lost a Thing, which was enough for me to get into ASCAP. I really should get around to registering the song within ASCAP. Just in case, on some off chance, a radio station in Montana (home to Scott and his brothers) plays the song, I'll get my half a penny of royalties. Scott still plays the song during his shows sometimes. Following is a video of him performing it at a fundraiser in Missoula (be warned, the video is dark and of poor quality):

Scott is singing and playing guitar, accompanied by Edie Smith (vocals) and William Haffey (clarinet). The arrangement differs greatly from the album version which features guitars and a bass as the only instruments. The clarinet makes it sound almost klezmer, even though I think of it as a country song.

Oh, and another musician friend has expressed interest in recording his own version. I’m not holding my breath, but I am crossing my fingers.