There were two artists whose work I was completely familiar with by age 16 or 17. One was Bruce Springsteen and the other was John Hiatt. Never mind that both of them had just finished their adolescent angsty periods of songwriting and were settling down to marriage and kids. I poured through their back catalogs and lined their cassettes up in my cases in chronological order of release date. All the Springsteen tapes had his name in bright red letters since they were all on Columbia. John, having bounce around a little bit more, had a variety of artwork associated with his name.
Twenty years and several shifts in technology later, I can still remember nuances of those songs, well hit beats or well turned phrases. I also remember the hope and release they gave me — because you know how life in the suburbs can get. It’s possible, however, that I might have missed some of the finer points or misjudged whole songs.
Of all of the work of John Hiatt from the mid-to-late eighties, I keep coming back to one song. Given everything he did in that period, it’s a bold thing to say. There was an album, “Bring The Family,” that, in my humble opinion, did as much to create space in popular music for bands like REM as the success of U2’s “Joshua Tree” did. That’s another story for another time, but my point is that Johnny did a lot of good work in that period. Still my favorite song, the one I keep coming back to, is “Feels Like Rain.” Forget the cheesy slide show and just listen to the song:
Damn.