A shimmering light pierces through the gloom at the end of what has been what some folk might refer to as a ‘difficult’ and ‘challenging’ week. And of course in my little world the light so often comes from music.
It’s Saturday morning and Saturday mornings are music mornings, specifically the music on – yes, I know – BBC 6 Music, in particular the brilliant Radcliffe and Maconie (The Clash, the Manics, Teenage Fanclub, Sault et al), followed by The Huey (Morgan) show. I am still in mourning, in a state of mild shock, at the unexpected death of my best friend, Nick, and worn down by the weight of a million other things going on that I can’t seem to control. Then, Huey Morgan does something to make my day. He plays a Donald Fagen song I’ve never heard before.
Donald Fagen is a music hero to me. With the late Walter Becker, he founded Steely Dan, my favourite band of all time and the favourite band of my best friend. Recent days have seen their music wash all over me, providing me with a smidgeon of comfort, taking me back to a happier time.
True Companion, for that is the song, comes from the soundtrack of a movie called Heavy Metal, which was released in 1981. It somehow passed me by at the time and ever since. Heavy Metal, it says on wikipedia (so it must be true), ‘is a 1981 Canadian adult animated science fantasy anthology film’. That will explain why and how I missed it. But just look at that soundtrack, featuring Black Sabbath, Blue Öyster Cult, Sammy Hagar, Don Felder, Devo, Cheap Trick, Journey, Grand Funk Railroad and Nazareth. Oh, and Donald Fagen, whose music could never be described as heavy metal. Deep, complex, jazzy, for sure, but Black Sabbath? I don’t think so.
44 years old, True Companion sounded so fresh, as if it was brand new music from the great man. My spirit soared as I dreamed of a new Fagen record. He’s 77 now. How good would it be to have just one more album from the man who gave us Reelin’ In The Years, Do It Again and, the best album ever made, Aja? Instead, it’s something I’ve never heard before and it’s fantastic.
My first thought? Message Nick. Maybe he hasn’t heard it, either? He’s been in Canada for a long time but we message every day, at least until last Sunday, we did. But as with so many ideas since his passing, I soon remember the messages have stopped forever now. I hope he heard it and maybe forgot to tell me about it. I know he’d have loved it, those incredible jazz chords, from major to minor and back again, soaring harmonies and Steve Kahn’s incredible guitar work. After Huey played it, I listened again on YouTube and then went to Apple Music/iTunes, whatever it’s called, and bought it for 99p. I want Donald to get paid for making me so happy.
It was the nearest I have come to tears since I learned of Nick’s death. Although we were very different people, we had a lot of things in common, particularly our music tastes in the 1970s and our enduring love of Steely Dan. As we drifted apart physically – he to Canada, me to South Gloucestershire – so our music tastes went off in different directions, but there was always the Dan.
Music can do this. That’s why we play music at funerals because it can take us back to a time and a place in an instant. A happier, better time and place and when we believed that tomorrow would be better than today. The passage of time blunts that positivity, that optimism, that sense of permanence.
When I was young, I knew I would live forever. Maybe only me, but I would always be here. I genuinely believed that one day I might be able to fly, to literally fly, if only I worked hard enough. Perhaps, I should have worked harder in my school’s physics classes? The road would go on forever. Now, I know better.
There’s no sun today. The skies are grey and heavy, winter grinds on inexorably and head feels heavy, my sight dim, as it is at the Hotel California.
Nick, of course, was a true companion and now he exists only in my memory. That’s how life goes, I know. I love this description of the lyrics of True Companion from a website called movingthe river.com. “(Its a)‘Dark Star’-esque meditation on the spiritually-bereft inhabitants of a spaceship, possibly narrated by God, or at least some kind of omniscient being…” Nick would have loved it. I certainly do.
Crewmen of the True Companion
I can see you’re tired of action
In this everlasting twilight
Home is just a sad abstraction
Just beyond the troubled skyways
Young men dream of fire and starshine
I’ve been dreaming of my own green world
Far across the reach of space time
See you there, mate.
