Today’s song is by the Washington, DC band The Dismemberment Plan and it’s about a magical invitation that gets one into any event, but doesn’t necessarily bring happiness:
You are Invited
This story starts in fall of 1991, during my first weeks at the College of William & Mary. Somehow I ended up going with a guy from my dorm to an off campus house where his friends lived. Turns out the guys in the house were in a band, called Muchas Smooches. Gen Xers may recognize the band’s name from Calvin & Hobbes when Hobbes accuses Calvin of having “Muchas smocches with Susie Derkin.”
Turns out that hanging out with a band at their off-campus house was NOT typical of my college experience after that, but I did see some of the band members around campus from time to time. One of them, Travis, was the host of the popular Quiz Kid show on our college radio station that for one semester was the lead-in to my not-so-popular late night world music show.
Fast forward to the early 2000s and by some means I no longer recall, I became aware of the band The Dismemberment Plan and their legendary album Emergency & I. I put two & two together and discovered that the Travis I sort of knew at college was in this great band. I don’t often get to do the hipster thing, but I guess in this case, I can say “yeah, I remember him back when he was in Muchas Smooches.”
2019 Blogging A to Z Challenge – A Song and a Story
A: Always on My Mind
B: Baby Come Back and Baker Street
C: Cheek to Cheek
D: Don’t Worry, Be Happy and Doctor Jones
E: Everyday Sunshine
F: Fly Me to the Moon
G: Ghost Town
H: Hobo Humpin’ Slobo Babe
I: If I Were John Carpenter
J: Jungle Strut and Justified & Ancient
K: Kiss
L: Loaded
M: Marble Halls and My Moon, My Man
N: New York, New York
O: Oliver’s Army
P: The Parting Glass
Q: Qué Onda Guero
R: Rave On
S: The Servant Song
T: Thing of Beauty
U: Unworthy
V: The Voyage
W: Working My Way Back to You Babe and Walk of Life
X: 1999 and Ol’ 55
If you want to read more, check out my previous Blogging A to Z Challenges:
- 2016: A journey through my neighborhood of Jamaica Plain in Boston.
- 2017: A spontaneous photograph each day.
- 2018: Watched and reviewed documentary movies.
And dig deep into Panorama of the Mountains, by checking out my:
- Book Reviews
- Movie Reviews
- Beer Reviews
- Music Reviews and Writing
- City Stories, expository writing about my experiences in various cities
And, if you like Doctor Who, I have a whole ‘nother blog where I review Doctor Who stories across media: Epic Mandates.
