THE ACCIDENTAL LYRICIST

Jay sat in English class, writing lyrics in the margins of his vocabulary book, sometimes using the very words he refused to memorize. Chemistry is my anathema/I can't take all this frustration/Waiting for emancipation. At the bell, he'd skip out to meet John, hand him the lyric, talk music, dream, plan rehearsals. "Robert's bringing this Ed kid who plays the sax." In John's head, a melody would already be winding itself around the lyric. John would wish he was home with his guitar picking out the chords.

The dreams turned into a first gig, a punk rock show at an inside tennis court in Boston, the first band of four. They picked a name: Boys Life. Jay's father decided the dream had gone too far, and the band enlisted Joe to play bass, and John needed more words.

Then words and phrases stuck in my head, and soon I was scribbling them down, counting out the beats on my fingers, dropping them in John's open guitar case, and one became two, became dozens of sheets of paper. Sometimes John would disappear behind a bedroom door for an hour, re-enter the room and play me the song. Other times I heard it for the first time on stage a week later.

The band went from one show a month to three times a week. They played Cantones, The Underground, The Rat, Storyville, The Channel, The Paradise, The Orpheum. They opened, first on the bill, then second, then headlined. They released two 45's, an EP, songs on complilations. Teenage girls sat outside our house, hoping in vain for John to come and talk to them. A car pulled up at 2:00 A.M. blasting out a Boys Life tune on the car stereo. Local papers and 'zines sung their praises. They traveled to Maine, New Hampshire, and New York City: CBGB's, The Ritz,and The Peppermint Lounge. Southward to Miami gigging in every state along the way.

And sometime along the way, Ed became Neal, Joe became Chris. And John found his own words for his melodies and in my head, the words and phrases stop insisting to be made into lyrics. And some time later the band broke up. John Surette's latest band can be found on www.johnsuretteanddeniros.com

David R. Surette