Don't Want No More

When my brother went off to college, I made my parents a care package of a few new CDs (since my mother listens obsessively to the exact same four CDs over and over and over again) and a couple of DVDs that I thought they'd like. They were completely flabbergasted; my mom told me repeatedly that she never thought I was listening when she talked about movies from the seventies she'd love to see again. It was, undoubtedly, the best gift-giving experience I've ever had.

I made two CDs for my dad; one a reproduction of the CD I made for him for my graduation party (long story there) and another full of happy, poppy country music, since that's what we both like. The final song on this CD was the original Dave Loggins "Please Come to Boston," although I think I prefer Kenny Chesney's cover. Dad expressed great surprise that I even knew about this song, much less liked it enough for it to end up on his CD. I expressed great surprise that I wouldn't know and love this song, since in my opinion it's one of the best country songs ever recorded.

Dad's other CD is the best driving CD I've ever made, and I wish I could take credit for it, but it's all him. There's the Doobie Brothers. There's the Edgar Winter Group. There's Bachman Turner Overdrive. There's Styx. (Shut up. I love Styx.) There are so many songs about driving, about sports in small towns, about leaving places you don't want to be in, about trying to get to places you want to be in more than anything...it's the absolute best CD for tearing down a straight country road with all the windows down. What's not on the CD, oddly enough, is Boston.

Boston is where my dad and I really, really mesh. Somehow Dad's love of this band transmitted itself completely to both my brother and I, leaving us about thirty years behind the times. My brother's grown out of it, a bit. I haven't. Boston fucking rocks. They were the first band I ever saw live, at a concert I attended with my parents. They wrote the first song I ever really had with a boyfriend. (Livin' for You) They provide the soundtrack to workouts, to cleaning rampages, to walking to class when I really need to feel like dancing.

They aren't particularly lyrically profound. They're good musicians, but many of their songs sound similar, and they seem to have been incapable of editing themselves down under five or six minutes, and it really hurts on some of their songs. (See: Kalodner edit of Higher Power. Fucking great song. Higher Power in its original released form? Too long, which makes it sound pretentious.) But they are the band of my teenage years, of my family, and of my past, and I love them. And their harmonies are kickass.

It's been such a long time
I think I should be going
And time doesn't wait for me, it keeps on rolling
Sail on, on a distant highway
I've got to keep on chasing a dream
I've gotta be on my way
Wish there was something I could say.

Well I'm takin my time, I'm just moving on
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.

Well I get so lonely when I am without you
But in my mind, deep in my mind,
I can't forget about you
Good times, and faces that remind me
I'm trying to forget your name and leave it all behind me
You're coming back to find me.

Well I'm takin my time, I'm just moving on
You'll forget about me after I've been gone
And I take what I find, I don't want no more
It's just outside of your front door.