I awoke with a knee in my back and a song in my head. Crammed into a bed with Julie and Jacob, I teetered on the edge hanging over a gap between the mattress and the wall. I never expected to have Roger Daltrey screaming in my skull at 9:00 on a Saturday morning. Alas, there he was and there he has stayed all week singing “Rebel,” the Bryan Adams/Jim Vallance-penned tune from his 1985 album, Under a Raging Moon.

Each trip back to Ohio conjures up new old memories. This summer the thoughts of the past have been thicker than ever as I continue to experiment with writing a book. The story I hope to tell deals with my formative years in North Olmsted, the people I was involved with, and the music I listened to the most at the time. Daltrey’s solo record occupied a great deal of time on the turntable. While other songs on Under a Raging Moon received radio airplay and the title track gained attention for its tribute to Keith Moon, this one track, which Adams and Vallance wrote specifically for the Who frontman, was my favorite. It’s raw, emotional, and reflective about returning to your hometown after leaving on your own terms, and I don’t think anyone can inhabit the number like Daltrey did.

Back in the ’80s, while I toiled away my free time in my parents’ basement, I longed for fame and fortune, hoping to become a famous movie director, someone who could change the world with powerful stories only I could tell. My hometown in the Cleveland suburbs felt constrictive, as if I would never achieve my dreams there. It wasn’t just the walls of the basement that were closing in; it was the whole damn city. The world seemed bigger outside the city limits; I felt like I was bigger than North Olmsted. Once I left I never wanted to come back. (more…)