Still not Toto

Things were pretty strict around our house in my teen years. (Owing to my father going into the ministry. Hello? Shout out for a celibate clergy!) There were some things about all that which were really just fine and for which I'm grateful. Many of the same principles are being applied around here. Save this: I wasn't allowed to dance and I wasn't allowed to listen to "rock" music. So my high school album collection ran to Carly Simon, James Taylor, a little Chicago...like that. Not that there's anything wrong with that. Oh, Cat Stevens. I was big into Cat Stevens. Elton John came to town on his "Yellow Brick Road" tour and I wasn't allowed to go. And yeah, it still bugs me. ("Years from now it won't matter", said Sean and Dame Judi. Just about the only thing they were ever wrong about).

Anyhoo, my musical education got a good shaking up in college. I guess it started, oh so subtly, with Heart. But in 1979 my then boyfriend met a guy name John, who we nick named Johnny Rotten (yeah, 'cause we were original like that). And John had spent some time in Europe and on the East Coast. And John knew stuff that none of the rest of us knew. And one night he came over and played a record called "London Calling" by The Clash and everything changed for me in that instant. Everyone else was listening to it going, "eew" and "not sure" and "is that music?". I sat on the floor in front of one of the speakers and I looked at Johnny and I'm guessing my eyes must have been glowing or something because he looked at me and nodded and said, "This is the future".

Well, it certainly was a seminal and important record and I'm very glad that I was living on my own so that I could go see The Clash in concert.

This is pretty much their big hit from the 80s and frankly, I don't know if it is prophetic or naive or what, watching all these years hence in this post-9/11, post-Saddam world of ours.