Once You Believed You Had Something to Say

Album: The Connells, Fun & Games, 1989

Acquired: I bought this at either the Record Exchange or Books, Strings 'n' Things in Blacksburg during the early spring of 1989. I may even have purchased The Connells' Darker Days at the same time. That would be cool because the albums could not possibly be more different in tone.

Best Track: "Motel"

Lasting Memory: In late April 1990, my friend and erstwhile dormmate Barry and I spent a frustrating Saturday trying to see The Connells play in and around Blacksburg. The band was rumored to be playing a surprise set at a block party called Bargerfest before they played a scheduled show at the annual Phi Kappa Alpha spring kegger. The mostly dirt-paved alley where the block party was being held was too crowded for us to get in at first and empty of beer, bands, and non-Barger residents by the time we returned. The fraternity kegger was a Greeks-only affair, and neither Barry nor I were in a frat. We consoled ourselves with a case of Milwaukee's Best and my Connells cassettes back at his apartment.

Associating this not-really-all-that-sad-in-retrospect story with Fun & Games is very appropriate because the album is all about thinking you're a loser and going out of your way to find evidence of your loserness.

The chorus and final verse of Fun & Games' lead track, "Something to Say," run

[Chorus]
So you're left with your thoughts and where do you go
Out the window or an open door
And once you believed they could keep you awake
It's so deceiving
So you talk to yourself and what do you know
You answer back with a "Don't say so"
And once you believed you had something to say
It's so deceiving

So, you never learned the way to hold a crowd
And it turns out now that you were dying
To be everything
To everyone and for all time
Ah, the golden boy
Did you stop trying?

"Sal" tells the same tale as Smokey Robinson's "Tears of a Clown" (as recently interpreted by a reunited General Public), albeit with fewer operatic allusions and tons more boozing :

She left you but you still love her
You thought she was the easy part
She smelled a lie and the luck of the winner
Left you standing in the dark

[Chorus]
You can cry like a loser, like a clown
But it doesn't seem to help at all
Oh, you and I aren't used to what we've found
Love like rain will fall

For a day or two you're feeling dizzy
For a day there's no alcohol
But tonight you're dancing the song of the sinner
Tonight you'll seem to have it all

Another track on Fun & Games, "Uninspired," explains how musical and lyrical acts of creation and performance are sometimes worse than keeping one's thoughts and emotions bottled up. What is an artist supposed to do besides despair when "The words that he screams/ Sift through the smoke and sweat/ While his wandering mind/ Tries to tell .../ To tell him he's uninspired/ In some weary, absent way/ To tell him he's simply tired"?

The artist might just hit the road, literally and spiritually, to find a home and some real meaning. That can be a sucker's bet, The Connells explain in "Motel"

There isn't room in the inn
The keeper wouldn't be my friend
I could tell in his eye
He'd never change his mind

So, I'm left to
walk in the cold
The light of day is growing old
But who's to blame
Neither rain nor shine

[Chorus]
That's why this is the best of me
Giving up
This is the rest of me
And I've had quite enough
This is the best of me
Giving up
You've seen enough of me
To know that it's tough

That is me in a scene
Father, he is tall and so serene
I said I'd believe
I declare a proven sign

Then I'm alone facing the snow
The rain falls hard and is blowing cold
I said I'd believe
When hell had frozen over

[Repeat chorus]

But who's to believe
That what I've seen really isn't true

[Repeat first verse]

Fun & Games is an ironic title for a collection of such grimly introspective songs. Either principal songwriter Michael Connell had gone through a very tough year or had listened to too many Smiths songs when he sat down with his bandmates to hammer out these tunes, which are 180 degrees from the mostly light, happy offerings on Darker Days and Boylan Heights. I'll have to give the band's fourth and fifth albums close listens to determine whether The Connells pulled a full-on Darth Vader or returned to their Anakinesque ways.

On a tenuously related note -- "Motel" references the Nativity story -- I just returned from an excellent family get together in Richmond for Christmas. A merry time was had by all (my sister Peggy and brother-in-law Scott's pics coming soon).

Listen to clip from "Motel"

Up Next: The Connells, One Simple Word, 1990