give us this day all that you showed me

I do a lot of autobiographical and personal anniversary posts on Armagideon Time. For one thing, they’re a convenient frame to cobble some relevant tracks together when I’m feeling lazy. Plus, it has become clear to me that this site has turned out to be more Laurence Sterne than Greil Marcus in tone -- an unending stream of digressions and observations set to music. Based on the traffic logs and user feedback, I guess it works well enough.

Fifteen years ago, on December 7, 1991, Maura (my lovely wife and co-conspirator) and I went on our first date. We saw Beauty and the Beast at the Copley Plaza cinema, and ate greasy pizza at Quincy Market afterwards. (I remember Maura telling a Margaret Dumont-like matron at the next table over that her fur coat looked like a dead dog carcass.)

We parted ways at the Orange Line entrance across from North Station. She gave me a goodnight peck on the cheek, and I crossed Causeway Street to wait for the commuter train back to Woburn. I spent the next half hour on a cold wooden bench trying to concentrate on reading the King Solomon’s Mines paperback I had brought with me, but my mind wouldn’t stop replaying the night events and analyzing them in minute detail.

The Partisans – White Flag (from The Time Was Right, 1984) – The tracks on the studio side of this exceptional LP deal with themes of betrayal, compromise, futility, and frustration. Fitting, considering the album was released while the once vibrant 80’s Britpunk scene began to collapse in on itself. “White Flag” is the sole exception, a love song couched entirely in military terminology.

Ultravox – Hymn (from Quartet, 1982) – One of Maura’s favorites, this track has a strong anime feel to it, evoking images of azure-haired, big-eyed mecha jockeys scrambling to face down the planet-killing dreadnoughts of a sinister alien empire. The song shares its melody with the Zones’ 1979 powerpop song, “Mourning Star.” The Zones evolved out of Silk, a Scottish 70’s teen pop outfit that Ultravox frontman Midge Ure had been also been a member of before joining the Rich Kids and, later, Ultravox.