"Get out of my Head" / Rolling Stones Week 1/5

For all the talk of Morrissey and the Beatles and Sister and "Making Groovy Movies" and the National Trust and the New Association and all of that, Virgil Hilts owes an especially steep and deep debt to The Rolling Stones. When it became time for me to cross the Rubicon and officially declare to the world that I identify'd part of my self in that strain of art called music, it was the Rolling Stones who were the ones that gave me the strenght to say "This is me".

But before this happened- and especially the final and official stampp in Feb. 1980 - there is a bit of a back story. It involved a song, a concert, and lots of reading material.

There was lots of music @ home. Mom had tonnes of Irish folk stuff, so I had a fair appreciation of Irish folk and IRA ballads, like my self declared favourite song "The Men behind the Wire"*. And then there was my older sisters. They listened to WLS and pop stuff, so I had - and do, to this day- a real weakness for pop. So, my liking of the Spice Girls I blame on my sisters. It was around Summer of 1977 that I started to search for songs and stuff as well.

Along with the title song of this post (corrupted spelling, I know), the other "fabled song" was Eddie Moneys's "Baby hold on." I heard it a couple of times, knew that i loved it, and even went to one of the mom and pop's in the hood and was transfixed @ an LP- wait- THE EDDIE MONEY LP WITH "BABY HOLD ON"- on the wall up above the counter. Magic, but the other side of the world to a penniless 11 y.o. True, it was that song that had me declaring that I loved a rock song- but it was another song that had me declaring myself a rocker.

Growing up, I knew and liked this song ("Get off of my Cloud", y'all) even though it was unfamiliar enough with it for me not to be sure of its exact title. Now I'm talking about 9 , 10, 11 year old me who was hearing this song once a year from someones car radio in Marquette Park or an open window= that's how fucking exotic music was to me back then (I really did hear : "Baby hold on" coming out of a window one day walking back from little league baseball and stood outside this persons window- in full, baseball uni.- until it was over). But there was this song.....sounded kool.....

Yes, yes, yes: such a big classic rock hit then and now, but I was a child that took a long time to put two and two to-gether. Sometime only in the late Seventies and connected the Stones with this song. I can't remember exactelty when, but there was a time where I can remember thinking "Is that one 'Look at that stupid girl song''- is it the Stones? It sure sounds like that 'get out of my Head' song I like so much".

I have a guess as to when it was. It was the Summer of 1978, "Some Girls" had been released, and the concert tour that stopped in Soldiers Field that summer was the real turning point. “Some Girls” was beyond hot: and it was such a hit radio played every song endlessly that summer. Remember the disco version of "Miss You"? "Shattered", "Beast of Burden", "Before they make me Run", "When the whip comes down"- collosale LP. And it was GREAT. I wasn't hip enough to realise it @ that point, but it really was a return to excellence by the band after the shitty post Exile LPs of the mid 70's.

But the biggest deal mita been the tour. The Stones stopped in Soldiers Field. I didn't go- what, me? I was 11 or 12, and would have to wait another year or two before my first show. But as important as the tour and the LP, it was that the Trib and Sun Times had special separate newspaper editions about the band and the tour which I saved and cherished. Anything w/ reading, especially @ that age, hooked me into things I still love to-day. With these sections, I could read about the bands history and be a fan-albeit in a casual way @ this point.

So, summer of '78, I was aware a bit of the history of the group, had a song I loved by them, and knew their contemporary work as it was on the radio and Staurday nite live and Kenny Everett-- but I hadn't made the leap yet where when people around thought of the Rolling Stones, they thought of me. That's coming.

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*= "armoured cars and tanks and guns/ came to take away our sons/ but every man must stand behind / the men behind the wire" - I realise that only one of the readers will know the song- maybe more- but I have no recourse to youtube in CPS, so...)