Just Walk Away Renée

There’s my daughter Layla watching our friends Hugh Pool and John Ragusa of Mulebone play at The Bitter End. She’s 24. Same age as I was when I first stepped onto that stage — fresh out of the Miss America Pageant. (I know I know I keep promising to explain that…and I will). 

Those days I played for free. 20 minutes. Wednesday nights open mic. Sometimes there were only 6 people listening — the singer-songwriters waiting to go on after me. I fell in love-at-first-sight with the guy doing sound in that elevated booth against the back wall. He was older. 28! Lol. 

We started hanging out. He ran a recording studio on 31st street and produced some demos for me. We took midnight rides in my Sunbird through Central Park stopping under the trees to neck (did I say neck?) He gave up dibs on his Upper West Side brownstone to move in with me into my tiny studio in Queens 😳only to accuse me a few days later of screwing around on him which I didn’t do. He wouldn’t believe me. (That’s because he smoked too much weed!) 

So I kicked him out. And that lead me to write a song called “Never Anybody Else” which got me a ticket into the ASCAP workshop hosted that year by Rupert (Pina Colada) Holmes where it was critiqued by a panel of mentors including Jobete’s Holly Greene. (She would later pitch “Walk Like An Egyptian” —quite successfully I might add — to The Bangles.) Holly Greene knew what she was doing and if she saw potential in me that was an encouraging sign. She suggested I make some changes in my hook and I did. Song got tighter. Thank you Holly. 

I sent “Never Anybody Else” to George Tobin — Tiffany’s manager. He wanted Tiffany to record it but he wanted all the Pub. I said no. What an idiot I was. I mean he didn’t deserve the publishing but I was still an idiot. She went on to sell a Gazillion records.

That sound guy broke my heart continuously. He came back after I kicked him out. I missed him so much that I took him back thinking I could convince him he’d gone mad — that he was paranoid BECAUSE HE SMOKED TOO MUCH WEED. But I couldn’t. Convince him that is. I kept kicking him out of my life and taking him back again until one New Years Eve I woke up in the wee hours with him sleeping soundly by my side and realized I didn’t love him anymore. It was the first time I wished he wasn’t in my bed and I didn’t care about trying to make him stay. That was it. 

BUT>>>>I got a bunch of songs out of having fallen in love with the sound guy at The Bitter End. You can imagine what feels I was feeling tonight sitting next to my 24-year-old daughter at a table right next to the same sound booth up against the back wall. Same one. Still there. Ghosts I tell you. I’m sure his name and mine are still inside a heart upon the wall in the “green room.” Cue to last verse of “Walk Away Renée.”*

24 was a good year not just because I was young but because I was fresh, fearless and pride-free. That’s what young is supposed to be. Open to falling in love with fools, not seeing the forest for the trees. It was absolutely wonderful. But ‘now’ is good too. For different reasons. I’m wiser. Confident. I wouldn’t return. (But I wouldn’t mind visiting for a couple of nights) ☺️  

Since those open mics I stood on that stage over and over again…with Alex Forbes — my first songwriting partner-in-crime and in various songwriter rounds. Just 5 years ago I performed to a room full of decades-long community for my book release. In every stage of life (no pun intend) hearts are broken in different ways. It’s not always by a fool. Sometimes it’s by a friend (James Blake). Sometimes you break your own heart. There’s always a song waiting for you if you’re willing to roll up your sleeves and tell the story. 

Te original owner of the nightclub Paul Colby and Friend-To-All-Musicians Kenny Gorka aren’t with us any more but the delightful Paul Rizzo, who’s booked the room for years now is, and tonight he invited me to come play sometime. That makes me want to roll up those sleeves. You gotta go where the love is. Allow me to check my calendar. 

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(Rumor has it The Left Banke gave up publishing to the cab driver who got them to the studio the night they wrote the song.)