Fair warning.  I am going to be writing a lot about Benjamin Orr.  It’s not even a choice.  There is a gut-level deep force that is compelling me. I don’t know where it’s coming from or why.  Believe me, I know it sounds ridiculous.  But it’s with me constantly and if I don’t get it out I kind of feel restless.

Six months ago I happened upon that reel of Benjamin Orr singing Just What I Needed on Instagram and I am still enthralled, trying to figure out what has captivated me and won’t let go.  Still listening to The Cars almost exclusively.  Found some amazingly fantastic demos on-line of songs that for some reason never made it to their albums, most sung by Ben, like When You Gonna Lay Me Down? and You Just Can’t Push Me. They are fantastic. Wake Me Up just undoes me.

I kind of feel foolish too.  What is there to possibly add to everything that is already out there?  I don’t have anything new or different to contribute. Blogger sweetpurplejune ( I sincerely hope she doesn’t mind me referencing her) has done exhaustive research on her site, like eight years worth.  She’s a complete expert on the subject of Ben Orr and the Cars. I keep wondering if I should post my blather or not, but  figure that it’s ok to add to the conversation. I just regret that I couldn’t have been the groundbreaker, or the instigator of the conversation. But I have to learn that I don’t have to be the first or the loudest or the engine that makes things happen.  I can contribute in my own way, whatever way that is

I had planned to take a break and write about something else today, and I’ll get to that in a bit.  But I’ve been watching video footage for about three hours now.  The Cars live set from the 1979  Legend Valley Rock and Roll Show in Thornville Ohio;  their set from the US Festival in ‘82;  Ben’s set from  South Street Station in Boston in 1995;  and now their show from the German television show Musikladen when they were on tour in 1978 in support of their first album.

Observations-

1.  In the live shows pre the Heartbeat City era it feels like the band had a completely different energy- a different aura, a funkier, more rockin’ feeling.  I think, and other people have also conjectured, that the entire process of making HC broke something in the band. It altered the spirit and the bonds of the band.

2. No matter where Ben is standing on stage, and no matter if he’s singing lead or not, you simply cannot take your eyes off of him. 

3. Ben’s voice in 1995 still sounded absolutely supreme.  Not a wrong note.  Not an off lyric.  Just fucking phenomenal.  

It really is a fucking tragedy that The Cars couldn’t get past whatever hurts and discord developed between the members so they could get back to recording together.  I can’t understand why Ben and Elliot and maybe David and Greg didn’t record together without Ric if Ric wanted to move on.  From the interplay on stage it appeared that there was real affection between Ben and Elliot. What a damn shame they never made music together again. 

Maybe I’m so hung up on Ben simply because as I’m watching the story of The Cars, I already know the end and it’s a sad one.  

Anyway, here is what I was originally planning on writing.  And it is related to all this stuff about Ben’s life as well as universal human feelings of loss, self-worth, life changes and dealing with sadness and depression.

 Lately I find myself moving in a different direction.  My almost always present sense of mild- and sometimes more than mild- depression lifting.  I can feel- not necessarily burdens- but things I was carrying- drift away, receding if you will.  It feels like a relief.  And it makes me realize how much I was carrying and how much I internalized and how everyone is better without me trying to make that shit work for me.  It wasn’t working for me.  It was stopping me from finding my path, myself…whatever. And I am doing things I’ve always wanted to do but just never did.  Writing for one thing.  And writing a lot.  And playing my guitar.  Or at least fumbling around on it trying to learn it.  Ha ha! And thinking about traveling and doing things by myself without having to rely on other people.

(OK, now I’m listening to a fifth show- this one is The Cars- Live at the Universal Amphitheater, LA,  September 4, 1979.)

I find myself listening to music differently. Listening to old music differently.  Hearing new things in it. Hearing with a different ear. 

I’m trying to let go of people and situations that I’m finding are not for me in the sense that they drained me.  They might have temporarily given me the illusion of inclusion, but not necessarily energy that made me feel good. Not energy that sustained me in a positive way.  And I don’t mean to be unkind or hurtful to anyone.  I just need to find my own energy and not absorb theirs.  I have a tendency to do that…absorb other people’s energy and that makes me untrue to myself and my purpose. 

The last seven or so years have been challenging. Lots of major life changes in my family, the place I was employed and my career there. And in my social life.  And in saying that, I have to acknowledge that my difficulties were certainly less difficult than other people’s difficulties.  Many people deal with pain and hurt and devastation way more than I ever have.  But it’s still been a rough-ish challenging better-part of a decade.  But I have learned. I am not one of those people who believe pain makes you grow or makes you stronger.  That’s bullshit.  But I have learned. I guess you could say my eyes were opened.  I got some clarification.  And this is where I feel a kinship with a rock and roll star who I never saw in person, who was 19 years older than I, and who died twenty four years ago.  

I think about how Ben Orr physically looked different the last decade of his life. He was still a beautiful human but he seems to have lost something.  I feel like sadness literally changed him physically after The Cars broke up and his relationship with his long time girlfriend disintegrated. And how he never was able to reclaim his recording career.  And then cruel fate intervened just when things looked like he was getting his mojo back, and had met someone who was obviously very good for him and he had another band of brothers.  I certainly don’t presume to have any actual idea what was going on in his personal life, but after reading Joe Milliken’s book four times now, and reading so much on-line that wasn’t in the book to sort of fill in the blanks, I am left with so many questions. So many gaps.  

And then I think maybe it’s not for me to know.  It’s none of my business. Just because one is famous does not entitle us to invade their privacy and know everything about them.  And can you ever really know everything about anyone?  At some point doesn’t it become voyeurism?  Maybe that’s why the biography is structured the way is, to allow for some privacy?  By all accounts Ben Orr was a private person to begin with so who are we to try to invade that?

Damn, listening to this concert makes me wish I had seen The Cars in concert.  Why the hell didn’t I?  Funny story.  I was in eighth grade when Candy-O came out and The Cars performed at The Aud in Buffalo on their tour. One of the radio stations, 97 Rock probably, had a contest.  All you had to do was call in and be the whatever number caller and you’d win tickets to the show.  I begged my parents to please let me call in and they relented.  Well, when thousands of people are also on the line, an actual line, a landline, your chances of winning free tickets are pretty slim.  I did not win, lol. 

I guess this is ultimately leading me to other, bigger questions about life, existence and purpose.  When do you know what your life’s purpose is?  How do you know when and where to go? How does your purpose get derailed- go sideways? And how do you move forward when it does?   Benjamin Orr knew his passion and began working toward it when he was just a kid.  It was his sole purpose.  His guide. Music was who he was.  What happens when you realize your dreams, and then you experience a disruption, for lack of a better word, with the person you had been on the journey with? How do you reconcile that? How do you get over that? How do you replace that?

And this leads to other questions about the universal human experience of aging and who you were when you were young.  Was that the real you? The restless energy pushing you along. The hopes, the dreams, the excitement about literally EVERYTHING! About the weekend.  About the future! About the potential. About what the world was going to do for you. And what happens to that vibrancy, that energy, that longing and dreaming? Is the person you grew into  the real you?  Are we really several different people? Do we have different versions or chapters of ourselves?  In some cases wildly different.  Others mildly so. 

Maybe I just feel introspective about what happens after you’ve devoted yourself for decades to a singular purpose and then all of a sudden it’s over.  How do you move on? Where do you go? What do you do?  Especially when you are older and forging paths and finding good friends is harder than when you are young. At least for some people.  But Benjamin  Orr was famous, with money and connections.  Why didn’t something happen for him before it was too late? Would Big People have become really, really big? I wonder if he hadn’t gotten sick would The Cars have reunited sooner? Would he and Elliot have joined forces and done something cool?  Would a younger producer have discovered him and given him new life? Did he want that?  It seems to me that someone who has performed and played music basically his whole life couldn’t be content not to.  It was his driving force. 

The world changes you.  Your choices change you. I guess this takes me full circle back to my initial blog post.  Maybe this rabbit-hole, internet trolling, image searching IS filling the void I feel at having very few people in my life that share similar interests.  Maybe this obsession is filling the space that’s looking for someone or something to make me feel a purpose.  Does that sound ridiculous? I don’t want to simply be a person who likes every post but I guess I am, right? I mean here I am gushing like a 13 year old. Everyone needs something to make them happy.  But I feel deep down in my soul that this is leading me to a new purpose, a different way of doing things, and a new focus.  Which I really need.  So, maybe a thanks is in order to the universe for putting this in front of me for some, as yet to be determined reason.  

This one has been exhausting for me to write. I’m gonna go try to play my guitar now.