You and Me

Yes, you and me.

May I tell a musical story?

Okay. Thanks!

The Moody Blues wrote and recorded a song entitled “You and Me” way back in 1972, before Hopper even graced the doors of a government school. Is it a song protesting the Vietnam War? Probably. Is it a song that mentions God the Father and God the Son? Maybe. All I knows for sure is that it’s a hippie song, and as far as hippie songs go, it ain’t all that bad.

In fact, it’s pretty damn awesome.

Young Hopper first heard it sometime circa 1989, when he had his little Peavey practice amp set up amongst the old furniture in the basement before it was taken over and converted into a motorcycle repair shop by his brother and stepfather. Heard it on the headphones, he did. Couldn’t get those fast strummed twelve-string major chords out of his head, and that lead guitar prowling among the pentatonics of the low E and A strings.

Awesome! Did I mention that?

What he recalled most of all, now that he re-found the tune nearly 30 years later, was the ending, that gradually fading outro, those heavy lead runs over those fast strummed chords. For years and years that ending reverberated in his mind. He imagined those riffs in his ethosphere, and even managed to somewhat duplicate them, to a very amateurish extent, on his four-track Tascam recorder, sometime in the early, early 90s.

The tune has just, this night, been rediscovered, to his immense pleasure. And now, to yours.

Check out the intro, the first minute or so (though that first minute is more aggressive than the outro which imprinted and endeared itself upon my fragile psyche, O so many years ago).

Listen to but do not put too much faith in the hippie lyrics.

Then contrast the intro to the outro, at around the 3 minute mark, the outro being that majestic bravado that raised goose bumps off my arms for decades.

I’ve played the tune at least twenty times writing this, since rediscovering it by chance earlier in the day.

One word: Awesome!

You and Me, © 1972, by the Moody Blues …

There’s a leafless tree in Asia
Under the sun there’s a homeless man
There’s a forest fire in the valley
Where the story all began

What will be our last thought?
Do you think it’s coming soon?
Will it be a comfort
Or the pain of a burning wound?

All we are trying to say
Is we are all we’ve got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never, never stop

You’re an ocean full of faces
And you know that we believe
We’re just a wave that drifts around you
Singing all our hopes and dreams

We look around in wonder
At the work that has been done
By the visions of our father
Touched by his loving son

All we are trying to say
Is we are all we’ve got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never, never stop

All we are trying to say

Is we are all we’ve got
You and me just cannot fail
If we never, never stop
You and me just cannot fail
If we never, ever, never, ever stop...