Rod Stewart's Gonna Break My Heart

Friends,

Tonight, I'm trying to read and understand the poetry of Pablo Neruda for the purposes of eventually writing a brief paper and attempting to lead a mini-discussion. I'm not a dumb man, but poetry sure has a way of making me feel slobberingly ignorant because I lack the proper set of voodoo tools to divine meaning out of fifty-seven oblique words about salt. Gimme 250 words in a format resembling sentences, then I stand a fighting chance, but enjambment screws with my head. But that's not why I'm writing this. While I was trying to read Neruda, I had my headphones on, listening to my iTunes library, when Rod Stewart's Maggie May started up. I closed Neruda right as the opening mandolin riff that sounds like a Greensleeves takeoff began, and listened to that song for probably the 10,000th time in my life. I had my eyes clothes, mouthed the words, and hit my computer table right along with those two thumps towards the start of the song. I can't help myself when I hear Maggie May. I just love that song, and I will always love that song, because it will always remind me of my mom.

Hang on, not in that way. I am aware what Maggie May is about, and this is not about that at all. My mother was, and probably is, a big Rod Stewart fan. She thought he was a good looking man, who could blame her from Rod's heyday with Faces and his solo work in the Seventies, but she love him even in the eighties when he was, well, less musically talented, and singing songs like Forever Young. My dad said Rod Stewart was a gay, because he had an earring, and therefore didn't like him but he would still sing along with Infatuation with KSHE95 played it(and get the words wrong). But Rod's sexuality aside, my elementary years consisted of hearing a lot of Rod Stewart. And each time I hear Maggie May I'm reminded of so much from my childhood.

The Saturday morning house cleanings with Rod Stewart pumping from the living room stereo while I was in my room playing with my GI Joes on our mottled carpet, and watching dust float through the sunlight. The smell of Marlboro cigarettes, and the snap of a lighter. Our small house, with brown wood paneling everywhere. The green crayon I melted on a vent in my room by accident. Car rides to the Dairy Bar for crunch-and-dip cones. How she always turned up the radio when she heard him on the radio. Finishing my dinner while she did the dishes. The way she danced around to his music while dusting, her permed hair barely moving. And the one time my parents dressed up in their absolute best and went to see Rod Stewart in concert when he rolled through St. Louis. I wish I remember more about that night, but I can only imagine how happy she was.

I love this song for all that sentimentality it gives me, and I know that in 25 or 30 years, once my mom eventually passes away, I'll have this song to remind me of all those Saturdays and so much more. Knowing this now, makes this song complicated for me to listen to. I smile at the memories, and get an empty dizziness with what it will eventually mean to me. Though, I will have it, and those memories just the same, and when the time comes, I'll probably cry when I hear it. But I'll still listen, and turn the song up, every time.


Viva El Mustache.