A songstory
The Soundtrack to an Epic Ride
Follow You, Follow Me by Genesis
Summer, 1978. We were eight teenage girls, cruising the boardwalk at Seaside Heights down the Jersey Shore, jumping on and off rides, playing skee-ball and games of chance with frozen custards melting in our hands, and checking out the throngs of boys who were also cruising the boards. We were hot, so they were checkin’ us out too.
We had driven up from Long Beach Island (aka LBI ) on this night, where the eight of us were renting a beachfront house for a week right after high school graduation. Earlier that week my boyfriend had puked on the dune between our house and the surf after pounding down one too many Buds. But that’s another story.
Back then the Seaside boardwalk was mostly teenagers, or so it seemed to us. Hordes of kids, walking in packs, wearing as little possible. There was something about its tattered edges, the pinball racket ricocheting out of the arcade, the gulls’ melancholy cries, the waves crashing, game wheels spinning, our heads spinning from one too many Buds, that was all so perfect. It was shabby without the chic, and we loved it.
We headed down the Casino Pier toward the Wave Swinger, a giant carousel with seats suspended on chains. Maybe not the coolest, most daring ride. Maybe not the Jet Star, the rollercoaster on the end of the pier that took you up-up-up and out over the ocean. (We’d get to that one.) But still…FUN.
My best friend Cindy and I picked swings next to one another and locked ourselves in. The carousel started to rotate, slowly at first, and elevate at the same time till we could see all the way down the pier and out to the ocean. As the centrifugal force increased, the swings swung out to the edge, to the point that we were practically on our side, spinning.
As we rose higher, “Follow You, Follow Me” by Genesis, which had been released earlier that year, started to play. The song has a very ethereal feel and dreamy, romantic lyrics. The perfect vibe for whirling and floating through the warm, salty night air.
I will follow you, will you follow me
All the days and nights that we know will be
I will stay with you, will you stay with me
Just one single tear in each passing year there will be
Cindy and I still talk about the song playing during that ride. The magic of it. The impact was so huge for me that I chose it as my wedding song when I got married 9 years later. Unfortunately there were many more tears over the following 12 years and ultimately the marriage ended in divorce.
So when I listen to the song now, I don’t think about my marriage or divorce. I think about that summer night on the boardwalk with my high school friends. I think about flying through the salty sea air with frozen-custard fingers, of walking the worn-out boards in a halter top and short-shorts, of breathing in the aromas of ocean and cheesesteaks and cotton candy and beer and pizza. I think about the carefree, cellphone-less days of youth, and of being on the heady brink of adulthood.
And I think…just one single tear in each passing year.
