Serious, Moonlight

Album: Los Lobos, By the Light of the Moon, 1987

Best Tracks: "One Time One Night" and "The Hardest Time"

Lasting Memory: My freshman year was the first time that Virginia Tech offered every dorm resident access to cable television. My roommate Barry's parents were kind enough to buy him a television a few weeks after the fall semester began, and we immediately signed up to have all 20 channels pumped into our 12 x 14 foot castle.

One of the very first shows I watched in the dorm was a half-hour special that a group of (I think) University of Oklahoma students had cobbled together to hip their peers around the country to the joys of Americana music and what would soon become known as alt-country. I can't remember the name of the show, but I distinctly remember that the host was a rather large, bearded gentlemen who wore denim overalls but no shirt. I also remember that one of the videos was the Bodeans' "Fade Away." Another video was Los Lobos' "One Time One Night."

I love those songs, but especially the Los Lobos one because it so perfectly portrays how sadness and tragedy lurk right around every corner while never becoming resigned or fatalistic. The last full verse of the song, which also serves as the bridge, kills me just about every time I hear it:

The sunlight plays upon my windowpane
I wake up to a world that's still the same
My father said to be strong
And that a good man could never do wrong
In a dream I had last night in America

Plus, dig that accordion coda.

The entirety of By the Light of the Moon teeters on the edge of melancholy without ever taking that plunge. Even the rockingest tracks, "Shakin' Shakin' Shakes" and "Set Me Free (Rosa Lee)," are all about two things: being scared of and scarred by romance and pursuing romance anyway. (Plus, for family members, who else thinks Cesar Rosas, the lead singer here, looks like Dad when he was younger?)

There are a couple of outright sad songs on the album, as titles like "Is This All There Is?" and "River of Fools" would suggest, but then "Tears of God" actually delivers the message that even

When your only escape
Is a cheap neck of wine
And the peace you need in your heart
Is so very hard to find

....

You find out true
What mother said to you
The tears of God will show you the way
The way to turn

For my money, and for whatever that's worth, By the Light of the Moon is Los Lobos' strongest album. Undoubtedly, its year of release, 1987, was the most successful for the band, as it was then when they had their ultra megahit cover of "La Bamba." So even if all the actual music critics concur that Kiko is Los Lobos' masterpiece, I can at least rest easy at night knowing that the band got their due a couple of decades ago. No reason to be down in the dumps about that.

Up Next: Lowen & Novarro, Walking on a Wire, 1990