#641: C is for Carmen, Eric

His first solo album after
The Raspberries’ mega-success,
Eric Carmen rocks this Beach Boys-esque,
super-ballad, prog-pop, show tune-laden
debut record. His was my first rock concert,
but when I got those tickets, I hardly knew
who he was. Sweet was on this bill, and I was
absolutely gaga for Sweet, so by proxy,
somehow I acquired this album right
along side of Desolation Boulevard. At 11,
my tastes were not yet very discerning;
I had not developed any kind of cheese detector
and his pop ballads, “Never Gonna Fall
in Love Again,” and the seven and a half
minute “All By Myself,” were ubiquitous.
I liked him, and liked him even more when
I listened to The Raspberries. I wasn’t bothered
by that nasal quality when he’d hit the high notes
and those tunes made me feel things
in the same way Swift makes the teenagers
feel things today, forlorn and heartbroken.
I lost this album in the great vinyl purge
of 1988, but recently found it used at my
local shop. My memories of it were fond
enough to plunk down six dollars for another
copy. I mean, these are objectively good
songs and Carmen was an extremely skilled
writer and performer who wasn’t afraid
to try out wacky stuff. Stylistically, this record
is all over the map; it lacks the cohesion
of his second album, Boats Against The Current,
but that record was too sleepy for me as a kid.
Carmen died at 72 under some mysterious
circumstances within the last year or so.
At a certain age, we become reflective
listening to the musicians
of our childhoods who were no more
than a decade older than we were
when they became stars. Their deaths
are like bells ringing into our awareness
the inexorable passage of time and
the inevitable and finite limits of our own.

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Notes on the vinyl edition: Eric Carmen, Arista Records, 1975. Used copy, decent condition, maybe a first pressing. I don’t know how to tell. There’s an app for that.

If you are just joining me for the first time, I am attempting to listen to all of my records in alphabetical order and then writing a poem-like-thing for each artist represented there.