1982

by Jian Ghomeshi

  “If you’re going to tap along, make sure you do it in time!” Bob was steaming mad. He didn’t even say “shoo-er.”

  I’d never seen him like that. And it didn’t make sense that a normal person would become so bothered by a rhythmic transgression. That’s when I knew he was a real drummer. He was badass about rhythm. That’s when I knew Bob was one of us.

  In November of 1981, I saw a posting outside the music room inviting students to join the Thornlea Vocal Group. The group comprised a small collection of the best singers from different grades at our school who would get together and work on songs to be performed at school assemblies. Bob was the leader of the group and the teacher in charge. I just assumed that no other secondary institution had an official vocal group like ours. We were an arts school, after all. I later learned that in other places such groups were referred to as “glee clubs.” That never really made sense to me. Singers aren’t always filled with glee. They can be quite morose. But joining the morose club probably didn’t have the right ring to it. School board trustees and advisors would likely not want to hear about a morose club. So it was the Thornlea Vocal Group. That seemed like a much more appropriate name. And Vocal Group wasn’t easy to get into. Or rather, it was easy to get into, but it wasn’t easy to build up the guts to ask to be involved.

  By December, I started attending Vocal Group practices in the music room. I’d been tentative about joining for fear I wasn’t good enough and had approached Bob for his advice after school one day. He was as encouraging as ever.

  “Shoo-er … you’ll fit in just fine in Vocal Group … shoo-er,” Bob said. “Oh, you should do it. Shoo-er.”

  I was one of the youngest and skinniest in the group, and I tried to sing quieter on some days so that no one would hear me. That way, I wouldn’t stand out. Most of them likely didn’t know I had been in the Wingnuts and sung “The Jean Genie” the year before. And none of them really knew I was the guy that did the announcements each morning.

  Thornlea Vocal Group assembled for practice in the music room two or three times a week. There were about fifteen core members, and many of them were older blond girls who had perfect noses. Most blond girls with perfect noses want to be pop stars. At least, at some point they do. They assume that because they have blond hair and perfect noses they are more likely to become a star. This assumption is based on the fact that they actually are more likely to achieve stardom with their perfect noses and blond hair. So they decide to focus on becoming celebrities. That was definitely true at Thornlea. Everyone took things quite seriously, and everyone also wanted to be a great singer, like Irene Cara from Fame. This may explain why we ended up doing a lot of songs popularized by Irene Cara from Fame. Fame was a movie that had become a TV show that had become a musical. It was about trying to achieve fame by singing and dancing. The message of Fame was that you had to work hard for fame, and that if you work hard you would get fame. Maybe. And also that working hard meant breaking into song and dance on the desks of your classroom at any random time.

  In Vocal Group, the song “Out Here on My Own” from Fame had become one of the staples of our repertoire. I had taken a descending harmony at the chorus section of that ballad for my contribution in the group. It’s the part that features the lyrics about closing your eyes so you can be with that special someone. I closed my eyes when we sang that part to show I was serious. Serious singers often closed their eyes. I’d seen Bowie closing his eyes in the black-and-white video for the song “Wild Is the Wind.” Sometimes, closing your eyes and looking forlorn made the listener realize you meant what you were singing. So I closed my eyes often.

  In Thornlea Vocal Group, we also did the song “Fame” from the musical Fame. And we regularly worked through a version of a tune called “Higher and Higher” that Rita Coolidge had made popular in the late ’70s. We didn’t do any New Wave songs. I once brought in a song by the Cure, but Bob didn’t seem to think that was appropriate. Real singers didn’t do New Wave. Except for Bowie. But we didn’t do any Bowie.

  Here is a short list of songs we performed in Thornlea Vocal Group in 1982:

  “Fame” (from Fame)

  “Out Here on My Own” (from Fame)

  “What I Did for Love” (from A Chorus Line)

  “Higher and Higher”

  “I Sing the Body Electric” (from Fame)

  As you can see, there was a lot of interest in singing songs from Fame.

  The Thornlea Vocal Group’s gigs were limited to playing on the school grounds, at first. That changed in the spring of 1982. In March, we were told about the biggest show to be booked in Vocal Group history. Bob announced that we would be doing a concert at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre in mid-May. It was huge news. The concert was to be creatively called “The Thornlea Vocal Group in Concert at Toronto’s Harbourfront Centre!”

  The Harbourfront gig was scheduled to last about forty-five minutes and was open to the general public. It wasn’t clear why any member of the Toronto general public would want to make it a priority to see an amateur high school vocal group sing a forty-five-minute concert featuring various selections from Fame, but that didn’t matter. We knew this was a major show for us. And we knew there would be parents and other students in attendance. Bob suggested we would do seven songs from our Thornlea Vocal Group repertoire as an ensemble, plus a version of “Out Here on My Own” that would be led by Debbie Drew singing the Irene Cara solo bit at the front. Debbie Drew was a fine young singer who was only in Grade 9 like me. She had been singing the solo part of the Irene Cara ballad since we’d started practising it. Everyone talked about how the Harbourfront concert was going to be Debbie Drew’s “big break.” No one really explained how performing for a few parents and peers would amount to a big break. But this was a public concert. That’s what was important. And finally, Bob also declared that he wanted the show to end with a co-ed duet as the finale. Bob revealed that he had recruited Kim Richardson to sing with us. This was another major coup.

  Kim Richardson was too good for the Thornlea Vocal Group. I don’t mean she was pretentious. I mean she was really too talented to be wasting time with the rest of us. While she would graciously come and sing with us at some practices, she didn’t need to be there. Kim Richardson was a year or two older than me, and she was the best singer at Thornlea. She may have been the best singer in Canada. She may still be. Her mother is a famous jazz and theatre singer named Jackie Richardson. I would later become very close friends with Kim and know her mom as Auntie Jackie. Kim had a tremendous gift. She could’ve sung any kind of music she wanted. But Kim liked to rock.

  Kim was a fan of Van Halen and had pictures of the band members all over her locker. Van Halen were a rock group that insisted on wearing tight spandex and leather outfits to go with their monster guitar and drum riffs. Van Halen usually looked ridiculous. Sometimes they wore bandanas over random parts of their skin-tight clothing. This never made any sense, but it was high fashion in the ’80s. These sartorial transgressions were balanced by the fact that Eddie Van Halen was a brilliant rock guitarist. And the band undoubtedly had a facility for writing catchy rock-pop songs. Kim loved Van Halen. She dressed in leopard-print clothing and tight pants the way the Van Halen lead singer, David Lee Roth, did. Kim was tall and had really, really big breasts. When she wore her tight Van Halen T-shirts, her breasts were emphasized, and it was hard not to look at them, even though it was not right to be looking at them. Kim started a band with three of the better rock musicians from Grade 12 at Thornlea and they called themselves MARZ. The name consists of the first letter of each member’s last name.

  Here is a tip for you about naming rock bands: Every band in the world thinks about naming themselves using the first letter of each member’s last name. It’s like a reflex. It’s the first thing most bands think of, because most bands are usually a bit stupid. But then very few bands actually do it, because it’s a bit stupid. The band can end up being called “GMALST” or something. That’s
hard to market. But MARZ did it, and it sounded cool. Kim was the R and Paul Zammit was the Z. Paul was a Jewish kid with a giant Afro, and he was a meticulously good drummer. Everyone called him Zammit, which even sounded like the name of a good drummer. MARZ was the best band at Rock Nite at the Thornlea gymnasium. Hussein, the head of Rock Nite, was also a drummer, and he made sure to program MARZ to perform last, because he knew Kim and Zammit were the best.

  In MARZ, Kim Richardson sang all kinds of rock hits by Rush and Van Halen and Heart. You will note that two of those three bands I’ve just mentioned had male singers. Kim Richardson was a girl, but she sang those songs. In the early 1980s, it entirely made sense that a good female singer would need to handle rock songs sung by male stars. That’s because rock men had entered a strange decade where singing with high-pitched voices became the norm. Geddy Lee from Rush was a part of this rock tradition whereby male lead singers needed to sing as high as possible. I was never sure why or how this began. In the 1960s, rock-band guys sounded more like men—like Mick Jagger or Jim Morrison or John Lennon. But by the late 1970s, credible male rock singers needed to wail like sopranos or hyenas. (Maybe it was some kind of throwback to castrato opera singers of earlier centuries, who would sing high because they’d had their testicles cut off. Or maybe the castratos had their testicles cut off in order for them to be able to sing high. I can never remember which came first. But anyway, it was an awkward and curious development in the 1970s and ’80s, especially because I’m quite sure these rock lead vocalists retained their testicles. I think.)

  Here is a short list of male rock singers who sounded more like high-pitched female rock singers in the late 1970s:

  Geddy Lee (Rush)

  Steve Perry (Journey)

  Rik Emmett (Triumph)

  Dennis DeYoung (Styx)

  Nick Gilder

  Roger Hodgson (Supertramp)

  the guy from the band Boston

  As you can see, some of the most popular rock singers of the late ’70s were men who strained their vocal cords to sing in a high-pitched way. This meant Kim Richardson could easily handle the male parts, and she did so with aplomb. But then, Kim’s most captivating turn was performing a song called “I’m Gonna Follow You” by Pat Benatar from her album Crimes of Passion. Pat Benatar was very sexy and wore tight leggings just like the members of Van Halen. She also wore jackets with shoulder pads before most people did. I’m pretty sure Pat Benatar never heard Kim singing her song. That’s probably a good thing. Pat Benatar was one of the best singers in rock. But Kim Richardson was a better singer than Pat Benatar.

  Back in the Thornlea music room, Bob had recruited Kim Richardson to sing the female part in the duet that was scheduled for the Harbourfront finale. In mid-April, Bob began our regular Vocal Group practice by announcing to the whole group that he had chosen me to sing the male part in the duet. Some of the Vocal Group members clapped. It was a great distinction for me. That is, it was a great distinction for me even though there were only four other guys in Vocal Group to choose from. Actually, one of the four was a science teacher named Mr. Sanderson, so I’d really only beaten two others. Still, this was a major accomplishment for a Grade 9 student with a mediocre voice. I was probably the first Middle Eastern kid to get to do a solo in a duet with Thornlea Vocal Group. It felt like I had finally arrived. The only remaining question was what song we were going to sing.

  It wasn’t until three weeks before our big Harbourfront concert that Bob announced the song that I was to sing in the duet finale with Kim Richardson. The duet had not really been a priority at the practices, because it didn’t involve the whole group until the end refrain. Finally, with some fanfare, Bob revealed the song that would close the concert.

  “For the duet finale, I’ve chosen … shoo-er … ‘Ebony and Ivory’! Shoo-er. It’s going to be fantastic!”

  Some of the Vocal Group members clapped to be supportive. Bob had a big grin on his face. It made sense that he had chosen that particular song. It was rising in the charts and was pretty much ubiquitous on the radio. “Ebony and Ivory” was a hit. But it was with the selection of “Ebony and Ivory” that my stunning singing debut started to take a pale turn.

  “Ebony and Ivory” was a duet written and performed by Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder. It had become a number-one pop single after being released in March. It was about a black person and a white person coexisting in perfect harmony. To underscore this harmony, it was a recording of a black person and a white person who coexist throughout the tune. It was all very sweet. And it was also one of the worst songs in history.

  It seems almost inconceivable that Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney could come up with a song as horrible as “Ebony and Ivory.” Both are musical icons that already had rich histories of writing stellar classics. They are two of my heroes. I had always wanted a voice like Stevie’s. His Fulfillingness’ First Finale from 1974 is one of the best albums ever recorded. And as I’ve already told you, McCartney was always an idol of mine. Still is. Long before I truly discovered how revolutionary the Beatles had been, I immersed myself in McCartney and Wings recordings, and some of them were among my all-time favourite songs. I’d learned to play “With a Little Luck” on guitar in Grade 8. But here’s the dose of reality: both of those legends have had unfortunate moments in their careers when they created excessively candy-coated pop. This new duet took things to the next level of saccharine.

  Let me explain “Ebony and Ivory” in scientific terms. Try this experiment at home. Pour a medium-sized coffee and then put seven large sugar cubes in it. Then quickly empty the coffee and keep only the wet sugar cubes. Now consume the wet sugar. Presto. You have an empirical example of the nature of the “Ebony and Ivory” duet (and some wasted coffee). Between the sweet melody and the earnest sentiment, the song was never easy to listen to. Or perhaps it was too easy to listen to. It became a giant hit. But that didn’t make it any better. It is surely one of the most annoying duets of all time.

  To provide some context, I have compiled a short list (or shortlist) of the worst pop duets of all time:

  1. Gwyneth Paltrow and Huey Lewis, “Cruisin’”

  2. Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson, “The Girl Is Mine”

  3. Paul McCartney and Stevie Wonder, “Ebony and Ivory”

  4. Bono and Frank Sinatra, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin”

  5. Rob Lowe and Snow White, “Proud Mary”

  As you can see from this list, one of the few duets worse than “Ebony and Ivory” is another Paul McCartney duet called “The Girl Is Mine.” That song has a nice melody but similarly crap lyrics that defy any logical defence. In the main refrain of that song, Paul and Michael both sing that the “doggone” girl is his. Besides the absurd nature of the lyric, it’s hard to imagine a girl who fancies both Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson. What kind of diverse taste does this doggone girl have? It doesn’t make any sense. “Ebony and Ivory” was only slightly better. It featured a strangely literal video with Stevie and Paul sitting on giant piano keys and then dancing and high-fiving each other. It was all very embarrassing for two musical greats. The upshot is that it still belongs on a list with Rob Lowe singing out of tune with a cartoon Snow White character at the Oscars.

  But anyway, I don’t mean to mislead you. It wasn’t the quality of “Ebony and Ivory” that was the problem in terms of my performance at Harbourfront in May of 1982—not at all, actually. It wasn’t how silly or banal the song was. You see, there’s something you need to know about Kim Richardson beyond what I’ve told you. Kim was one of the best singers around. I’ve told you that. She was a dear friend and had distractingly large breasts. You know that, too. But there’s one more thing. Kim was black. That is, she still is black. And she was black in 1982. Why is that relevant? Well, when it came to deciding which one of us was going to sing the Ebony part of “Ebony and Ivory,” it was quite clear what direction we would take. Kim was Ebony. Obviously. But that left me. And the song wasn’t call
ed “Ebony and Olivey.” Or “Ebony and Browny.” My only option was to play Ivory. And so it was. I was to sing Paul McCartney’s part of the hit song that would close the Harbourfront concert. The song was about racial harmony. And I was charged with the responsibility of representing all white people. I was to do this onstage.

  It may be a testament to Bob and the Thornlea Vocal Group’s progressive thinking in 1982 that they cast an aspiring New Wave brownish Persian kid as the Ivory part of “Ebony and Ivory” at the Harbourfront Centre. It might even look good to the audience in a diverse city like Toronto. On the other hand, people might say things like, “Isn’t that nice … they’ve got the Paki boy singing the Ivory part.” That’s probably what Jim Muffan, the angry hockey player, would say. Or maybe people wouldn’t notice at all. But I noticed. It was too complicated to go from being teased as a kid and isolated in the locker room and regularly called a terrorist to pretending it was natural being Ivory onstage. But nor could I give up a glorious opportunity to achieve the acclaim and acceptance I so badly wanted.

  Maybe this was another colourful example of the paradox that was me in 1982 and beyond. I was a terribly sensitive and insecure soul who wanted to be accepted. I wanted to fade into the woodwork. And yet I never shied away from putting myself out there in some form of potentially masochistic public adventure. It’s like I needed to keep proving to myself as much as to others that I wouldn’t succumb to judgment. So, as much as I feared being disliked, I created the conditions where I might polarize reaction. I shared my opinions and did the announcements. As much as I wanted to fit in, I would elect to wear purple eyeliner and pointy boots. As much as I wanted to be part of the group, I would set myself apart by becoming the student class president or the team leader. I was fearful of disapproval by my peers, or my cool sister, or the older theatre students. But I was even more scared of giving in to that fear. So I would soldier on and pursue my passions—sometimes recklessly toying with the implications. Maybe not all that much has changed as I’ve gotten older. For most of my life, people have assumed I’m a confident guy with a Teflon exterior. That you could say anything about me—or to me—and it will just wash away because of the strength of my ego or character. That’s pretty much the opposite of the truth. But criticism has never fully prevented me from pursuing my goals or what I believed in. I somehow wouldn’t let it. I guessed Bowie wouldn’t either. Oftentimes, I was stupid to put myself out there. It’s hard to tell, when it came to “Ebony and Ivory,” if I was being stupid in May of ’82.