Trollheart

We’ve all heard the stories about the rocker or pop star who has a girl in every town, and the often naive women who somehow think they’re more than just a one-night stand, that they are different and the star is going to take them away from the drudgery of their life and make them part of the glitz and glamour that goes with showbusiness. Two songs illustrate this hope, and indeed the reality, from two entirely different perspectives, one from each side of the story and in fact one from each of the genders. In a way, they could almost be the same people talking about the same event, but with wildly differing views.

"Back on the road again" (REO Speedwagon) from the album "Nine lives", 1979
REO’s “Back on the road again” looks at the situation from the perspective of the rock star, who knows full well that he is just using the girl and has no intention either of settling down with her or taking her away with him. He lies to her --- ”I’ve loved you since the day I met you/ And I’ll love you till the day I die” --- yeah, sure! He then callously tells her it’s over --- ”I think it might be better/ If I told you now goodbye.” Better for him, certainly. But just in case he might end up back this way at some point and need to hook up with the girl again, he leaves her with a note of hope, false hope of course: ”You know that I’ll see you next time/ That I come to your town to play.”

The tempo of the song is high, a rock song with an exuberant beat for what is basically a breakup song or indeed a “wake up and smell the coffee” song. This is a rocker letting the girl down, not exactly easy, but he don’t care. He’s off to the next town, the next gig on the tour, where he’ll pick up another impressionable young woman and feed her the same lies, spin the same story and in the end, dump her with the same excuse. It’s a pretty sordid tale, and yes, I’m sure it goes on all the time in rock and pop circles. The idea of having a girl in every town is certainly attractive, but you sure as hell don’t want these women coming with you, and you don’t want them to meet your other women! And sure, they’d cramp your style, wouldn’t they? Gotta be footloose and fancy-free, and anyway, what would the wife say?

"Superstar" (The Carpenters) from the album "Carpenters", 1971
The late, lamented Karen Carpenter does a soulful and heartrending version of Delaney and Bonnie’s 1969 song two years later on the debut self-titled album by The Carpenters, and it became the most successful and famous of all the cover versions of the song. Looking at the idea from the viewpoint of the woman left behind, “Superstar” (originally titled “Groupie song” and then “Groupie (Superstar)”) takes us some time into the future, when the rock star has long since moved on and the woman is left behind. She talks about the promises he made to her --- ”Don’t you remember you told me/ You loved me baby/ Said you’d be coming back again/ This way again maybe?” --- and deep in her heart she knows, but refuses to admit even to herself, that he is never coming back for her. She consoles herself by listening to his voice on the radio, and convincing herself that he will return --- ”I can hardly wait/ To be with you again” --- and ends by sending a heartfelt plea to him via the radio: ”Come back to me again/ And play your second show”. Yeah. There will be no second show. This guy ain't ever coming back. He said what he needed to in order to get you into bed and he most likely forgot about you the moment he walked out your door.

It’s pretty obvious that the woman in the song is desperately holding on to the last shreds of her dignity by pretending the rock star will honour his promise, and like someone who refuses to believe a love affair is over she does not want to accept that she has been used, lied to and tossed aside. So much easier, so much less painful, to cling to the fragile hope that one day her lost lover will walk through that door and take her away, as he said he would, ”Long ago/ And oh so far away.”

In keeping with the more melancholy, almost bitter but certainly determined nature of this side of the story, “Superstar” is a much slower, moodier piece, with at least the Carpenters’ version (the only other version I have heard has been by Elkie Brooks) based around a mournful horn motif that gets almost embarrassingly upbeat for the chorus, where Karen recalls the promise made to her and holds on to that elusive hope like a woman clutching the edge of a cliff. It’s a far more sombre song, and though it does not specifically blame the man --- there’s something in the vocal that says she knew this was going to be the eventual outcome and that in addition to him lying to her, she was lying to herself, trying to make herself believe --- it avoids the callous disregard that REO’s song levels at the “groupie” being left behind.

Two sides, certainly, of a very sad and unfortunately probably in many cases very true story.

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Trollheart: Signature-free since April 2018