. . .Something in the experience of putting the songs together got inside me. It’s the feeling of setting right a twenty-year-old injustice. A feeling I’d made an album that was not just better, it was more correct, closer to some kind of absolute truth.
I’ve rewritten rock ‘n’ roll history using my own tape deck. Really, I have. I’m not too fond of Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA album. Many of the lyrics are trite and obvious, while musically a lot of the songs are simplistic to the point of tedium. The LP represented the first time Bruce had let me down. And to add insult to injury, by collecting bootleg tapes, I was able to hear the songs Springsteen chose to leave off the album, and in many cases they turned out to be much better than those released. A couple of these eventually turned up as b-sides of singles, but the knowledge of all this great material left unused when the official album was so weak frustrated me no end. Since Bruce hadn’t called me to produce the record originally, I did the next best thing. I made my own tape of how I thought the album should have been sequenced using mostly unreleased material, along with a handful of released songs. I then got rid of my official Born in the USA album and never looked back. (Well, hardly ever. I’m looking back now, aren’t I?) The preparation and completion of the tape was strangely satisfying. It was almost as if I had righted an historical wrong single-handedly.
Lewis Shiner’s novel Glimpses takes this idea of rewriting rock ‘n’ roll events one step further. Ray Shackleford is a 37-year-old stereo repairman who loves music with a passion, especially the music of the sixties. One day, he puts his scratchy, old copy of the Beatles’ Let It Be album on his turntable and starts wondering how the album would have turned out if the Beatles had not been bickering at the time. What if the tapes hadn’t been turned over to Phil Spector, and their long-time producer George Martin really worked on the album, rather than simply watching the band disintegrate before his eyes? Ray even imagines that John Lennon added a characteristically edgy new middle eight to “The Long and Winding Road” to offset Paul McCartney’s syrupy romanticism. Suddenly, Ray realizes the version of the song that he has been hearing in his head is coming out of his stereo speakers. To prove to himself that he is not going crazy, he records the song on his tape deck and plays the tape for others, including the president of a maverick record company. Graham Hudson, a no-bullshitting paraplegic who loves to take risks, agrees to release Ray’s tape and convinces him to imagine other great unreleased albums from the past. Once Ray starts to work on these projects however, he finds he may actually be changing past events and transforming the present as well.
I found Shiner’s book a magical experience. This is my Field of Dreams. And the funny thing is, I’m not particularly close much of the music used for Ray’s magical mystery tour. The Doors mean nothing to me, but enough background information was provided about the group’s work and a fan’s perspective presented so eloquently, that I followed Ray willingly into the Lizard King’s lair. I like some of Jimi Hendrix’s music, although I wouldn’t call myself a fan, yet the climax of the story involving Jimi was fascinating and heartbreaking.
Before I became a recent convert to the Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album, I never cared much for their music. Glimpses offers the best case that I’ve encountered, other than the LP itself, for why the Beach Boys should not be dismissed and why Brian Wilson is most likely a musical genius. Ray’s encounter with Wilson is extremely moving and may present a fairly accurate portrait of the troubled artist. Music journalist Paul Williams has described a 1966 visit he had with Brian and Ray’s visit seems to be modeled after it. [Author’s note: Williams later told me Shiner wasn’t familiar with the visit when he wrote the book.] Williams found his way to Brian’s house after Pet Sounds had been released, Wilson was then in the process of working on what he himself called his crowning achievement, an album titled simply Smile. Everyone, including Williams, who had the privilege of hearing the test pressings of some of the tracks agreed that it could possibly be Wilson’s finest work. But Smile was never finished. Brian’s increasing drug use and deteriorating mental state prevented it from being completed. It gets finished and released in Shiner’s book. And in a nice twist of fate, it also has been released in real life last year. Well, kind of. Thirty-five minutes of the Smile sessions is included on the Beach Boys box set. I have not heard it yet, but by all accounts it’s a classic, albeit in an unfinished form. I’m actually considering buying the set.
I never thought I’d purchase a Beach Boys box but the magic of Glimpses has rubbed off on me. Glimpses affected me the way great music has done. Its enthusiasm and love of music is contagious. If music is in your soul, you will find a lot of yourself in this book. If you’ve had to come to terms with your own broken dreams and wonder what could have been, you’ll find that here too. I know I did.
Music is easy. It isn’t even important what the words say. The real meaning is in the guitars and drums, the way a record sounds. It’s a feeling bigger than the words could ever be. A guy named Paul Williams said that, or something close to it, and I believe it’s true.
JANUARY 1994
Letter to the Vatican 