Have you been half asleep and have you heard voices?
I’ve heard them calling my name.
Is this the sweet sound that called the young sailors?
The voice might be one and the same.
I’ve heard it too many times to ignore it.
It’s something that I’m supposed to be.
Someday we’ll find it, the rainbow connection.
The lovers, the dreamers and me.

It’s not the first song I can remember. I’d like to say it’s “Puff the Magic Dragon,” but, sadly, it’s probably Twisted Sister’s “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” (We had MTV from the outset, and so, as you might guess, I actually got to see a video or two before they switched over to the “All Real World, All the Time” format.) And, while this isn’t about Dee Snider and company, I do have an odd anecdote about that song. Until I was five years old, we lived in an apartment building near Fort Hill in Lowell. For reasons too ancient to be remembered, I found myself four years old and mad as Hell. I believe this had something to do with the landlord and his policy of keeping pets from entering the building. Or, it may have been the loss of my favorite Looney Tunes plate to a cruel microwave. In any event, having studied my television well, I decided that the only sensible thing to do was to take my cassette single of “We’re Not Gonna Take It” outside, along with my mother’s tape deck, and to play it at full volume from on top of a nearby hill. I was so sure that the Man would crumble, and that pets would be let in. (Or, perhaps, the plate would be magically restored.) This was, actually, the first day that I got a bee sting, as I chose a poor hill, and I ended up with a sore forehead and still no cats or plates. I think that might be as close as I’ll ever get to a “down on his luck rocker” story. Ah well. Continue reading →