Holding Back the Years (BOTB)

         When time seems to pass slowly, later we often wonder how quick it was after that time has passed.  No matter how hard we might try, we cannot cling to the moments other than in memory, which often is unreliable.  Did things really happen the way we remember?  If indeed we remember at all...

Blue alarm clock (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

You Can't Stop Time

         In some ways, looking back on it all, this year seems to have been an accumulation of many years.  The illusion of the expanse of time is a deception in so many ways.  When I look back at the plans I had I can only shake my head in a certain dismay for those things that didn't happen as I had hoped they would.  And yet the miles and the minutes and hours and days came and passed, slipping elusively from my grasp.

         Traveling will do that for me.  Though it may seem like I was just sitting the daylong watching the miles pass by from behind the wheel or dozing in the passenger seat while my wife drove, in reality there were the myriad of sights, mini-dramas in passing cars, music on the car stereo, or often the news.

         There was plenty of news in this past year.  Big changes in the world as well as within many of us.  Friendships were broken; perceptions were altered.  Like having watched an often baffling magic show, I ponder how did this all happen the way it did.

         Now I stand on a precipice of more change.  New dreams.  Unsure hopes.  Waiting and wishing that time could stand still for a year, a week, or even a day.  I can wait and wish as much as I like, but I cannot hold back time from its frantic procession toward tomorrow.
     
Holding Back the Years

         This iconic song from 1985 is probably familiar to most of you.   It's become a classic of 80's rock/pop music after reaching hit status for the band Simply Red.  This is a great song in my opinion--and I'm not alone in that reckoning--and it might even be a favorite of some of you reading this.  Below for the purpose of jarring memories for those who might not have heard it in a while or for those of you who might have never heard the song, here is the most known version of the song as performed by Mick Hucknall and Simply Red.    

DON'T VOTE ON THIS VERSION--FOR REFERENCE ONLY!!!



Here are your considerations for voting

Frantic Elevators "Holding Back the Years"  (1982)

       Before Mick Hucknall became Simpy Red's front man, he was the force behind the punk rock band Frantic Elevators.  "Holding Back the Years" was the last of four singles released by the band.  Hucknall initially began writing this song when he was 17 years old in response to a somewhat tumultuous and painful childhood.  Not exactly punk rock, but still that spare instrumental style can be heard in a mournful almost jazzy setting.





Gretchen Parlato "Holding Back the Years"  (2011)

       Singer/songwriter Gretchen Parlato descends from a family with a strong musical heritage.  Her grandfather and father alike played with some music legends of their times and Gretchen has continued to carry the torch as she wins awards and sings with today's jazz giants.  Here is her mellow take on the now classic "Holding Back the Years".





Time To Vote!

        The song versions in this Battle were recorded nearly 30 years apart providing different musical takes on the same song.  Which version do you like the best?   

        Please vote on your favorite by letting us know your choice in the comment section and tell us why you prefer the version you chose. Then after you've finished here, please visit the other blogs listed below who may or may not be participating this time around. And if you've put up your own BOTB contest let us know that as well so we can vote on yours.

Here are some other places where you might find BOTB posts:


 StMcC Presents Battle of the Bands

 ‘YOUR DAILY DOSE’ 

  'MIKE'S RAMBLINGS'

'Curious as a Cathy'

Sound of One Hand Typing

The Doglady's Den 

Angel's Bark  

Cherdo on the Flipside  

Jingle, Jangle, Jungle 
  
J. A. Scott  



Winner Announced on Monday January 9th

       I'm going to give you plenty of time to vote on this one since the current contest falls on a Sunday during holiday season.   I'll be offering my thoughts on the sexism charges regarding Donald Trump coming this Friday January 6th as I attempt to continue on with my (unpopular with some) President Trump Acclimation Series.  I've been postponing my posts on this series due to the holidays and having company, but now I have no excuses.  Hopefully, I won't come up with anymore excuses either unless it's something really really good.

        Did you meet all of your goals for this past year?   What had you hoped to accomplish that you still did not?    What are your goals in the upcoming year?
 

The Costume Party

         When I was in my twenties and into my thirties, I hung around with a crowd that liked to party.  I say hung around, but not so much after I hit twenty-five and was usually not home most of the time because I was traveling with road shows.   I would be traveling most of the year, but whenever I did stop back home there were always parties to go to.

          As the years passed, my friends converged into ever growing circles of new friends who were people that I didn't know. That was fine.  I was still invited to their parties if I was in town.  Standing around the beer keg shooting the bull with strangers and maybe a few old familiar faces became the norm.  There were always new faces that I encountered and everyone was just plain congenial and welcoming.  At the end of the evening I felt like I had made a ton of friends whose names I didn't remember and who I probably wouldn't have recognized the next day if I had run into them somewhere.  Yeah, they were those kinds of parties.

          Then, there was this New Year's Eve party in the mid 1980s at the home of a housing contractor who I had come to know through some of the parties of the previous few years.  I had run into a friend from high school a few days before the party and he invited me to come to it.   He told me it was going to be a costume party.

           Now, I'm not sure why I knew, but somehow I knew that it was not really going to be a costume party and he was trying to play a joke on me.  And I could somehow tell that he could tell that I knew he was trying to trick me but was letting on that I seriously believed that it was going to be a costume party.  It's kind of hard to explain the layers of deception in this but we both just knew about the deceptions of the other and played along with it all.  I decided that I would go to the party in costume.

          On the night of the party I found an out-dated over-sized suit in my father's closet and then had my wife apply some garish pasty looking make-up to my face and touch it all up with lipstick, rouge, and eye make-up giving me a somewhat androgynous appearance.  I guess I was going for a David Bowie look but ended up looking like a cross-dressing floozy in a second-hand suit.  Whatever it was I looked like, I was not what one would normally see at an East Tennessee keg party.

          Upon my arrival at the party, thinking I had gone for the shock effect, I was perplexed to find that no one seemed to notice.  Here I was, the only one in costume and a ridiculous one at that, and I might as well have been there in overalls and a t-shirt.  Most of the party-goers were people I didn't know and they acted as though I were as normal as any of them.  There were only a few people in attendance that I recognized and none of them gave me a surprised look.  For them I was apparently just another casualty of the eighties.  

          This was not like the rowdy parties we used to have.  The crowd was down home Tennessee suburbia on the brink of middle age with kids, nice houses, and two later model cars in the garage.  I nursed a plastic cup of beer as I made my rounds of the house trying to find some of my old friends.  There were only a few of the old faces there.  The folks that I remembered were probably at home with the kids, at other parties, or maybe even at church.   An era had passed and in my silly costume I felt totally out of place at a party where I was politely accepted.

         We left before midnight so my wife and I could be at my parents house to ring in the new year.  Our kids were there with the rest of my family.   My parents and my brother and sisters and their families were all there happily celebrating.   They were surprised to see us come back so early, but happy that we would be there to see in the New Year with them.

          That was the last time I dressed up for a costume party.  Over twenty New Years Eves have passed since that night.  Many things have changed.  Since moving to California I rarely see those Tennessee friends.  Many of our kids have grown and married and have kids of their own.  I've been fortunate to spend many a New Years Eve with my family in Tennessee, but we don't have the parties like we had ten or even five years ago.

           Perhaps one day I'll go back to one of those Tennessee parties with some of my friends--if any of them still have parties.   Maybe I could even go in costume.  I could dress up like myself when I was younger. Of course, I don't have hair like I used to back then.   I guess I should buy a wig, but I think I'll skip the make-up and the over-sized suit.

..