When I was a little kid - barely nine - my parents sent me off to boarding school in England. It was every bit as bad as I'd imagined, and I wouldn't trade the experience for the world.
The school was truly Dickensian; corporal punishment had not yet been abolished, and was meted out generously. The food was plain toast and tea for breakfast, boiled cabbage and tea for lunch, and boiled cabbage and tea for dinner (they grew cabbage on the school grounds), every day. Well, on Sundays we got a candy bar at dinner as well - a really gross, cheap kind called "Penguin Bars." The French teacher had a pronounced speech impediment; the Latin teacher was unmistakably senile, and drooled continuously. We were allowed to take a bath every other week, and would take turns, by grade (or "form"), in the same bathwater. The oldest kids got clean, hot water to bathe in; by the time my turn came, it would be brown. Unsurprisingly, contagious diseases would sweep through the school frequently, some quite ghastly, and the infirmary treated everything - everything - with a strange yellow drink called Lucozade, which was little more than sugar water.
But if you got good grades, if you stayed out of trouble, if you accumulated enough favor over the course of a week, you'd be allowed to stay up past the usual lights-out, and watch Top of the Pops on Friday night. I didn't realize what I was missing until, basically by accident, I made it into the privileged group one week - and saw Roxy Music play "The Thrill of It All." From that night on, my behavior was exemplary. My penmanship improved abruptly and dramatically. I made my bed with military precision. I tried out for sports (and discovered I was surprisingly good at cricket). I shamelessly sucked up to teachers. Whatever it took. I never missed a single Top of the Pops the rest of my time there, and Roxy Music played on it a good three or four more times, as well as Bryan Ferry solo once or twice (and a lot of other good bands as well). Boiled cabbage wasn't so intolerable anymore.
As I look back on it now, I'm a little surprised Roxy Music grabbed me with such immediacy. It didn't dawn on me till years later that Bryan Ferry has a - well, a weird voice, and that he might be nigh impossibly suave and charismatic on a stage with a crowd of people watching him rapt, but if he were, say, an employee in a restaurant kitchen somewhere singing like that, he'd probably get a lot of irritated coworkers telling him to shut up. Maybe his voice gave the enterprise an endearing touch of the human - you know; he's cooler than you, he's better looking than you, he dresses better than you, he knows how to pronounce "cognoscenti" correctly (unlike you), but hey - you can probably sing about as well. In any event, like I said; I'm surprised the nine-year-old me saw past that. I expected perfection from artists in whatever field, and the slightest discernible weakness or imprecision was normally the death knell. But I recognized Roxy Music as the future of rock. You couldn't miss it.
When I got back to the states four years later, I had a lot of catching up to do. I'd missed Star Wars. I'd never heard "Hotel California." I had absorbed the belief, then widespread among Europeans (especially children), that Americans are, without exception, foulmouthed, gun-toting maniacs. I couldn't shake my English accent, and was trying to speak in a southern drawl to correct for it. But I was miles ahead of the kids musically. I knew about The Sex Pistols and The Clash; I knew T. Rex backwards and forwards, I knew about Stiff Records and Gary Numan and The Ramones (who were heroes in England, nobodies in America), and had learned, albeit slowly, that the punks were not going to come to my school and vomit on me. But the brightest gem I returned with - the true Promethean fire - was Roxy Music.
The propulsive stomp of "Street Life," the cinematic sneer of "Love Is the Drug," the contagious joy of "Prairie Rose," the sprawling weirdness of "Sea Breezes" - even the most militant Kiss Army footsoldiers in my 8th grade class had to lay down their arms. They saw the same thing I'd seen, and you can't fight the future.
Roxy Music, I hereby decree you the seventh greatest rock band of all time. Now cast a puzzled look at me and return to your champagne.
My Trusted MOGs
Brava. Loved reading about your experiences in the British school -- almost reminds me of Dahl as well as Dickens. I must hear more of Roxy Music in light of your transformation from ill behaved to lovely.
My Trusted MOGs
This essay is so good, so rich in humor and detail, that if I knew Bryan Ferry, I would forward it to him immediately. I think he'd be immensely amused and flattered; who wouldn't be? (The fact that his band was such a boon to your education alone would soften the most jaded heart.)
I am fully in agreement that it is almost impossible to overstate the greatness of this band. My personal factoid in re the band (perhaps I can spin it out some time into an anecdote), is that certain events of September 2001 for some time sapped my ability to enjoy life's simple pleasures, like a good rock song. I finally broke the ice when I pulled out an old tape I had of Stranded, popped it in, heard "Serenade", and realized that while I wasn't ready to sink into the comforts of just any song, I wanted to listen to Roxy - lots of Roxy - and bought their first five albums on CD in one go.
My Trusted MOGs
Helen, you never fail to display good cheer, kindness, and exemplary powers of observation and discernment. Roald Dahl's portrayal of poverty (I think here of the Bucket family's circumstances in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory) and cruelty towards children (here I think of Aunt Sponge and Aunt Spike in James and the Giant Peach) surpass Dickens' in several important respects - realism probably isn't one of them, but relevance to reality is. For all the injustice of it, however, "Dickensian" is a great word, and "Dahlian" just wouldn't take off. I must also reluctantly point out that "brava" is used to applaud women; for men, one calls out "bravo." But your meaning was clear, and I'm extremely grateful.
asrati, your remarks put me in the embarrassing position of feeling honored. I thank you. I'm glad to see you knew exactly the right records to get, too, and shudder inwardly to think of all the people who know Roxy Music only through Avalon. By the way; I try not to let things get to me, but I too was affected deeply by the events you speak of - I had my first migraine headache the evening of September 11, 2001, and they've been revisiting me intermittently ever since.