During band practices, there’s a little game I like to play.  Well, it’s not a game as much as just something that happens, something that I do because it’s very fun.  Between songs, it ends up occurring to me that I can immediately figure out how to play some such song very easily.  Or maybe I just recall some old song I used to know how to play.  You know - most songs use the same subset of chords, and you can kind of sound them out as you go.  Pretty easily, actually.  Some songs you need to figure out ahead of time, but many you can just figure out.

For instance, “Tom Sawyer” by Rush - Rush is a great one to do, since band-mates always need to kind of play along because it kind of does rock, but it’s also totally, totally annoying.  In fact, one finds that band-mates always sort of have to play along.  Because the songs that you play in this little game kind of kick ass.  Or “Back in Black,” by AC/DC.  Or “Footloose.”  And so on; there’s tons and tons of them that are wonderful to try.  But that’s not all - from Queensryche’s “Silent Lucidity” to any number of Spin Doctors songs, and even “One” by Metallica - it can be a big, big party.  Oh, and of course “Careless Whisper” by Wham!

So we finished playing some song that ended on a minor chord or something and it made me think of this song - “Close My Eyes Forever,” by Ozzy Osbourne and Lita Ford.  So I was getting into it and Logan and Jon are giving me these, “What is this song?” looks.  I eventually stop after I get far enough into it that they should be able to tell, and I realize: They don’t know this song at all.

How is this possible, I wonder to myself?  They’ve never heard this song!  Where were they when this song was freaking everywhere!  It’s like having lived through the early 90’s without having heard “Under the Bridge” (no, I will not link that).  Just seems impossible.

But no, they did not know this song.  This shocked me.  It was one of those instances where one person knows something very, very well but another has never heard of it; a cultural missed connection, if you will.  I ask you, dear reader, how could a just God let this happen?

David out.

Tags: close my eyes forever, crap, lita ford, ozzy, ozzy osbourne