I suppose there’s no graceful way of phrasing this—especially to music aficionados, many of whom I’ve interviewed and written about and will likely never take me seriously again[1].
So I’ll just say it bluntly with my shoulders back and my chin up.
I love Billy Squier’s music.
Before I even really understood what I was listening to in the ’80s—as a pre-adolescent trying to seem cool to the older kids in my neighborhood—I was enchanted by his simple riffs and almost-feminine vocals[2].
And it didn’t hurt that Billy Squier—who grew up in Wellesley, Mass.—was also a southern-New England success story[3].
In his prime, after his 1981 album “Don’t Say No” broke out then the follow-up “Emotions in Motion” charted as well, Squier was packing stadiums, a veritable rock star.
Then the ill-advised MTV music video for “Rock Me Tonite” was released in 1984 and torpedoed the Squier’s career.
Objectively, the video was a nonsensical four-minute blast of pastel colors, satin sheets, finger-snapping, exuberant skipping and strange gyrations on his elbows[4] across the floor of a flat in low-key lighting.
But the real reason so many fans turned on Billy Squier was far more pernicious.
In 1984, anything perceived as slightly homoerotic by a performer whose target demographic was largely white male adolescents was PR suicide, and Squier never recovered.
However, loyal fans like me—at 9 years old, I’m sure I didn’t quite understand the sexual innuendos—never gave up on Billy Squier. Throughout adulthood, I’ve never lost my hankering to hear “She’s a Runner” on those certain nights when the moon is right and the mood strikes.
During a recent “Billy Squier Saturday™[5]” at Chelby’s Pizza—where I received no shortage of cross glances—I made the executive decision[6] to seek out a vintage vinyl copy of “Don’t Say No” to hang proudly in my Man Cave[7], despite not owning a record player.
So on an innocuous summer Friday afternoon, my wife and I journeyed to The Music Connection on South Willow Street after reading what one Google reviewer wrote: “This is the greatest record shop in the world. If they don’t have it, no one does.”
The store is nestled in a strip mall near a Japanese restaurant, a computer repair shop and the Girls Inc. headquarters for Manchester. Expansive and yet cloistered, The Music Connection has the vibe of an old bookstore with that old-book scent of nostalgia. There were rows upon rows, stacks upon stacks of vinyl records, cassette tapes and CD’s, as if we stepped back in time to a Strawberries Records without pretensions.
I immediately moved toward the vinyl records but couldn’t find the “Billy Squier” tab buried somewhere between “Carly Simon” and “Bruce Springsteen.” Per my tendency[8], I told my wife that I was slaying windmills as I flipped through the record titles.
Then I saw it. The tab. Billy Squier. “Honey, he’s here,” I screamed to my wife across the store.
Feverishly, I sifted through the titles. There were vinyl copies of “Signs of Life[9],” “Enough is Enough[10]” and “Emotions in Motion.”
But no “Don’t Say No.”
Listless, my wife—likely, at this point, regretting ever procreating with me—suggested I buy an album so we could leave.
So I did.[11] I snatched up the only copy of “Emotions in Motions,” which happens to be my second favorite Billy Squier album, and while purchasing it, the man working the counter[12] told me that “Don’t Say No” typically sells quickly when they get a copy.
I asked him if he’d let me know if one comes in. He nodded and shook my hand, and I left, exuberant, with my new-used Billy Squier record.
But I’m still hunting for “Don’t Say No,” and this story is to be continued.
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[1] I’m assuming most of these musicians are far above music-shaming, and I’m saying this largely for its histrionic effect.
[2] Imagine my surprise when I finally understood the double-entendre in “The Stroke.”
[3] I grew up in Rhode Island, less than an hour from Squier’s hometown.
[4] It’s not a terrible song outside of the inane video.
[5] This is an event where I usurp the TouchTunes jukebox at Chelby’s and play consecutive Billy Squier songs on Saturday afternoons.
[6] This was absolutely not related to the consumption of Bud Light drafts.
[7] Much like the magnificent print I purchased on eBay of Leroy Neiman’s painting of Rocky and Apollo at the end “Rocky III,” my wife declined the opportunity to hang it in our living room.
[8] I typically have the patience of a gerbil, and if something doesn’t immediately pan out, I quit.
[9] The album including “Rock Me Tonite” that ruined his career.
[10] The 1986 follow-up after the “Rock Me Tonite” apocalypse.
[11] Honestly, “She’s a Runner” is my favorite Billy Squier song.
[12] We are about the same age, and he was also a Squier fan.