Shiny Happy Caitlar: Emaline

I, too, am a huge Ben Folds nerd. And I was trying to think of a way to not write about Ben Folds, but rather something interestingly tangential. But I can't do it, because every time I sat down to think about this post, all I could think about were all of the memories I have in which Ben Folds is somehow involved.

So bear with me because this could get a little sappy.

I started listening to Ben Folds when I was in the seventh grade. I distinctly remember everything about buying Whatever and Ever Amen, which had just been released that year. I had heard "Brick" on the radio and, being a sucker for piano ballads, immediately fell in love with the song from this little band called Ben Folds Five that only had three members. I received a gift certificate from one of my cousins for Christmas to The Wall (now FYE) and spent hours in that store looking for the perfect CD to on which to wisely spend the whole $15. I think I had the Mighty Mighty Bosstones cd in my hand ("The Impression That I Get" was also very big on the radio at that time), but then I saw this gritty little purple cd with hand drawn illustrations and thought, oh yeah, I love this song, maybe I'll check out this band instead. So I bought Whatever and Ever Amen instead and never looked back.

The purchase of that album will always be significant to me because I bought it right around that time in my life when I started to become my own person. In seventh grade I really started to break away and decided what I liked and wanted, apart from the rest of the kids I went to school with. Whatever and Ever Amen was the first cd that I bought that no one else I knew had. It was my first indie rock love and I spend hours listening to that cd, trying to get some of my friends to, who refused because they thought the whole album would be one long depressing ballad like "Brick." My mom wasn't too happy that "Brick" was about abortion. I just liked screaming the F-word during "Song for the Dumped." It all just felt so real and raw and music that I felt, in a way, was mine.

At that point I became kind of obsessed. I joined some fan mailing list and got daily--sometimes more than daily--emails from these people who were obsessed like me. This was in 1998 when blogs were scarce and this horridly long email chains were the way to spread the news. After a while it got kind of old, but I was really excited the day they informed us that Ben and his wife had twins, Louie and Gracie, because they were born very close to my own birthday. I'm a dork like that.

As middle school wore on I succeeded in getting more friends to like Ben Folds Five. The cool radio station in Philadelphia at the time Y100 (they've since been shut down by the man) had an annual outdoor music festival with really hot bands of the time. It was the first real concert I had ever gone to and my mom let me skip school to go--one of the best times I have ever had. The lineup included big names like Green Day and the Red Hot Chili Peppers and then some smaller names at the time like Cherry Poppin Daddys and Fastball. But smack-dab in the middle was the little three-man band Ben Folds Five. And I screamed every lyric of every song to them from way way way back at my lawn seat, hanging over a railing. It was awesome.

Around the same time I had a huge crush on this guy that was 2 years older than me who I sang with at church. He played the piano (and every other instrument you can think of) and I was just in awe of his talent. And he was so cool and played in a band and was so nice and dreamy. And I wanted him to like me, so I wanted to play the piano, too. So he agreed to start giving me lessons. Every Tuesday afternoon I'd go over and he'd teach me piano in his basement. Most of his other students were little kids, so he asked me to pick out some music that I would like to play. So I went out and bought Whatever and Ever Amen. He taught me how to play "Brick." Things didn't work out with lessons (scheduling conflicts), nor did they work out with him (he's married now). But to this day, the one and only song I know how to play on the piano is "Brick."

In high school I saw Ben Folds by himself, right after The Unauthorized Biography... and he left the band. It was at a small venue in Philly and another boy I had a crush on took me (you may start seeing a theme here). We had started a habit of trading mixed tapes and I made him his first Ben Folds cd, Rockin the Suburbs, which he immediately loved and repaid me by taking me to the concert. It was a really great show, one of the first where he started involving the audience in the horn sections of "Army" and "Not the Same." These shows were what eventually became Ben Folds Live, although, unfortunately, I don't think our specific show made it onto the disc. Things didn't work out with me and this boy either, although we're still friends.

In college I fell in love with a boy from my high school who went to a different college. We didn't get to see each other very often. One summer said boyfriend got to go to a Ben Folds concert and met him. I was very jealous. But luckily, I was able to see Ben during that same leg of his tour (the one he did with Guster and Rufus Wainwright) with my best girl friends. We made our own Ben Folds shirts with markers and iron-ons and stickers (mine). Unfortunately, it rained the night of the concert and our shirts got ruined, but I didn't care because I was with my girls and my Ben.

And throughout all this time that I've loved Ben Folds and his music, how it's been a part of my life and some very very happy memories of mine, my favorite Ben Story is the simplest. Aforementioned boyfriend came home one weekend to see me after a long stretch. And he picked me up from my parents' house in his car and we drove off somewhere, I don't know. But as we're speeding past the back of my house, "Emaline" is blasting from the stereo and we're both singing at the top of our lungs, looking over at each other after not being together for so long, smiling the biggest smiles and just being happy.

 

Comments

[KELLYq]

AWwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww :)

[Caitlar]

Actually, I just noticed that in my Bathtub photo, I am wearing my Ben Folds sweatshirt that I got when we went to see him last fall at American University. Kellyq has the same one!