Music of the Day, 5 December 2024

ain't nobody like me

Yesterday’s MotD surely played a role in triggering today’s, as I’d not thought of it nor its creator for decades. Even though I was on the cusp of becoming a teenager and not very experienced in the mysteries of romantic love when it came out, the push and pull of the story affected me deeply. Looking back now, that seems like foreshadowing, even though I know that’s a big stretch.

“Please Come to Boston” is Dave Loggins’ biggest single, and was off his second studio album, Apprentice (In a Musical Workshop), which came out in 1974. He had more success as a songwriter, penning hits for Three Dog Night, Kenny Rogers, and Juice Newton, among others.

I chose to feature this live performance because I didn’t know that Loggins was left-handed; being one myself, I like seeing a guitar played in the orientation I’d use.¹ It’s a lovely performance of a gentle, wistful song.

“Please” was a romantic song I could grok back then, although I didn’t fully appreciate it until years later. I’ve long had wanderlust—to the degree that I’d often accompany my father on sales calls,² just to see new areas barely beyond my familiarity. It was a mystery to me that so many of my friends seemed content in our small town, when so many interesting things lay not too far away—Kentucky was just beyond Cincinnati, and Indiana not much farther away to the west. In my youthful naïveté, I thought the imaginary boundaries signified meaningful differences.

My wanderlust became a significant point of contention in my marriage, as I discovered when it came time for us to seek jobs after completing our respective educations. Even contemplating a vacation trip of any distance seemed to be asking too much of my partner, and I simply couldn’t fathom that thinking. About a year after it ended, I left Ohio and haven’t looked back; he at some point moved to a house even closer to his parents than the one we’d bought.³

Even though our situation didn’t mirror the story in “Please,” I still relate to the differing values the fictional couple has. The one thing I don’t comprehend, though, is how someone who claims to be “the number-one fan” of another person can expect them to deny such a fundamental aspect of their way of being. But that cuts both ways—painfully.

1. yeah, it’s weird that that looks more natural to me, even though I’ve seen way more righty guitarists because lefties are such a small minority to start with

2. at that time, he was a vacuum-cleaner salesman for Sears, and I guess customers could request in-home demos or summat. He didn’t like to be alone and I didn’t like to stay at home, so we’d set off together, even though I invariably got bored waiting in the car

3. which was less than 10 miles away