Clinton Endorsement

This article first appeared in the Sandpoint Reader on 11.20.08

John McLellan-The Clintons

Single in Sandpoint: Scarlette keeps on rockin’ in the free world

I remember when I bought my first cassette tape in fifth grade. It was Starship’s Knee Deep in Hoopla. I bought it because “We Built This City (on Rock n’ Roll)” was my fifth grade graduation song.
I loved that song so much. I played it over and over, until the cassette warped. I daydreamed, sang along and invented every kind of scenario you could imagine. My main fantasy was where I got to be the lead singer of Starship, and all those assholes in my grade would see me not as a kid with a mild weight issue whose boobs hadn’t came in, but the star I really was.
The problem with this scenario was (and still is) that I adore music, but suck at it. I got sent to the principal’s office three times in band – I’m convinced it wasn’t because my behavior was any worse than any one else’s, I truly believe that Mr. Dickinson couldn’t bear to hear me play the trumpet. My trumpet playing was like the mating cry of an endangered pachyderm: loud, frantic, earsplitting and completely out of sync with anything else found in nature.
He detested me. In my mind though, I was the sh*t, and he’d eat his words one day when I called out his unfair behavior, on stage, during half-time at the Super Bowl.
Band didn’t work out for me, but fantasies of star-worthy musicality have never ceased. I decided sometime in high school that I could probably work as a backup dancer (or at least a groupie).
I’ve never met a sad song or dance anthem I didn’t love. And for the record, when I fall in love with a song I fall hard. I eat drink and breathe that song. (Much to the annoyance of every single person who knows me.) I’ve been know to play Elton John’s “Tiny Dancer” for eight hours straight. For others it might seem to be obsessive and annoying, but for me it’s just eight hours that I get to dance around being Penny Lane.
Send me to the principal, go ahead, I just don’t care.
People grow up, they get busy, they become fancy. Somewhere during that time we forget who we really are. We start caring about jobs, and cars, and houses and pay cuts. We don’t save up our money to buy music anymore; we buy toasters and carpet cleaners instead. We get annoyed with our kids when they blast the same Hannah Montana song from their bedrooms for the 18th time since dinner. For the average adult there is no time to fantasize, pretend or fall in love with songs.
We pay no respect to the songs that got us through our tough break ups, or the dance moves we perfected to ensnare the opposite sex. It’s true: Adult Contemporary really means “music for adults that are too boring to care anymore.” It’s a shame.
I started thinking about this travesty a few weekends ago, during one of my side jobs as a wedding photographer.
This was not the regular wedding experience for me. The bride informed me that she and her betrothed were really excited because they got their “favorite band from college” to play their wedding. “They’re kind of famous,” she added.
I was bummed out, I won’t lie. I don’t like bands at weddings usually – in my mind wedding singers are always the same, kind of sloppily covering the same music you hear at every wedding. Feigning interest – it’s what you always do as a wedding vendor – I asked her for the name of the band. She said “The Clintons.” “Like Chelsea and Hillary?” I asked. The bride glared back. “No, they’re from Montana.”
“Well this should be interesting,” I thought, “some hippies from Montana singing ‘White Wedding’ for four hours.”
Needless to say, my expectations weren’t real high. Not because I’m a total wench, it’s just that for me it’s work, and it’s hard to get excited over. (And to be honest, music hasn’t been exciting me a whole lot these days.)
I was wrong. I admit it here and now. The Clintons were several things: hippies? No. Boring? No. Poorly groomed wedding singers? Not at all. In fact, the lead singer, John McLellan was absolutely adorable with moppy hair and dipples. He knew how to work a crowd of ferocious 35-year-old sorority girls and a grip of frat boys, too.
They did original music, as well as some cover tunes, and I was mesmerized, I’m not going to lie. I had the same feeling once before at a Dave Mathews concert; I went with a few of my hippie friends to the Horde Tour in Portland, and I saw Dave Mathews for the first time.
It was life changing – I was in a rap phase at the time and Dave turned me out. I was suddenly overcome with the desire to date a balding, brooding, cigarette smoking rocker who knew his way around the ladies.
I fell in love hard with his music. Again, I’m not going to lie, I still listen to the same two Dave songs every day to this day. I told you earlier, I have a problem.
Anyway, I went straight to my computer when I got home and looked up The Clintons. They’re from Montana, they play in the Bozeman and Billings area quite frequently. They’ve got a lot of CDs you can buy from iTunes.
Since I’m a stalker – and have obvious issues – I checked out their Web site and downloaded a few of their songs.
I used a scientific method: If I liked the name of the song I downloaded it. And then I realized what was happening: The fifth-grader who was the lead singer for Starship was back. She was excited, she needed a song that spoke to her soul and she was pretty sure she could find it in The Clintons’ heap of witty music.
At first listen it was the twangy sort of country sounding song, “Jesus, If You Get Me Outta This (One I’ll never drink again),” that really spoke to me (since that’s a prayer that I regularly use.) But I wasn’t in love with the song, I liked it, I had feelings for it, but I wasn’t going to put it on my play-every-day playlist.
It was a new experience going through these songs because usually I hear a song on the radio and then I think: “I might be in love with that song,” so I go and find it and make it mine. This was different because I’d seen and heard the band live first, so I was in new territory. Could I fall in love with a song without the aid of suggestion?
Well, just so you know, it can be done. I’ve been playing their music on repeat for two weeks, and my rock star fantasy life is rich. After listening to it once I wanted to take up the guitar, and, after my fourth or fifth listen, I wanted to take the day off work, have daytime sex, then float naked down a river.
I don’t know; you just have to listen to their music to understand.
I can tell you this though: You’ll definitely get a little bit happier after checking out their music. Listening to The Clintons at work feels like July in the middle of November.
Anyway, my suggestion is that you go and have a listen to their music now. I have no reason to plug them whatsoever (for the record), so trust me: Go to your computer and listen to something you won’t hear on the radio (but you should).
Check out “Time of Day” (if you’re into that sex during the daytime thing) and “Long Time Leavin’” (my personal favorite).
I won’t go on because I’m starting to sound like a lunatic, but seriously: Just have a baby-listen for me, okay?
There was a point to this column and it wasn’t just to say that The Clintons rock, it was to say that you can’t lose who you are as you get older – music is so important to us when we’re young, and then, eventually for so many, it just becomes something you do in the car to pass the time. And like so many things that sag with age your imagination requires regular exercise too!
My fifth-grade self was awesome. I think I’ll keep her around with me this winter when I drive over to Montana to see a concert. Anybody want to join me?