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Thanks, Phil

No Jacket Required - A Soundtrack for Life

By Noel T. CumberlandPublished 10 months ago Updated 10 months ago 8 min read
4
Thanks, Phil
Photo by Courtney Cook on Unsplash

In 1986, when I was fourteen years old, my folks told me and my brothers that we were moving. I had just started ninth grade at Johnson Junior High School and had been looking forward to being the “upperclassman”. I was going to be in the Junior ROTC class, I was going to take up the saxophone. I even had a friend, who was a GIRL, and who seemed to kind of tolerate me, which was an unusual state of affairs up to that point. The news that we were moving over a THOUSAND miles away was devastating.

Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever been a 14-year-old boy (I don’t recommend it), but it’s an emotionally volatile time. Hormones on top of hormones mixed with insecurity and a perpetual fear of just about everything new. You can’t just up and make me MOVE. I can’t cope with that.

But…it was a done deal. Dad got a new job, and off we had to go. I was crushed, and I was too young and naïve to have ever developed any useful coping skills, so I figured my whole world was coming to an end. Naturally I did what any right-thinking 14 year old would do; I decided to sulk.

Now, I don’t know about you, but when I really need to get my sulk on, I retreat into music. There’s nothing like a really depressing track to help you wallow in your misfortunes. Something like Depeche Mode’s Blasphemous Rumors, or Depeche Mode’s Love, In Itself, or Depeche Mode’s Monument… well, let’s just say it’s a good thing I hadn’t discovered Depeche Mode yet in 1986.

No, my jam in ’86 was Phil Collins. And my Dad had just given me No Jacket Required on cassette. It had only been out for a few months, but he worked at a radio station, and had access to it early. So I grabbed my Walkman, some fresh batteries and went off to drown my sorrows with my man Phil. And boy, was it working. The first couple of tracks, Sussudio and Only You Know and I Know, didn’t really contribute to the pity party. I wasn’t quite ready to hear about Phil’s secret love on the first, and while the second track toys with loss,

“Please try to remember, before I walk away”

It just wasn’t plumbing the infinite emotional depths of the adolescent soul of a displaced boy in anguish.

Next came Long Long Way To Go. Boy, was THAT ever a song designed for self-pity.

“While I sit here trying to move you any way I can. Someone’s son lies dead in a gutter somewhere.”

Oooohhh. That’s ME. I’m the one feeling dead in a gutter. YES. This was really working out well. Throw in a secret cameo by Sting doing a haunting backup vocal and you have an excellent recipe for teen angst to the max.

Then Phil hooked me up with I Don’t Wanna Know. I mean it starts with the words, “It’s over.” A clear win for someone looking to be as morose as possible. Sadly, the track makes it clear that Phil (me, by this time) is the one being left behind, and it actually becomes empowering. Can’t have that. Time to fast-forward.

Side A closed with One More Night. A desperate plea for just one, tiny little, itty-bitty chance. Please, just a chance.

“Like a river to the sea, I will always be with you. And if you sail away, I will follow you.”

I mean, I wasn’t in a position to follow anyone, but I could FEEL the need to do so! This is a kid who was barely two years away from making mixtapes and delivering secret love letters in unattended schoolbooks. The need to need was growing in me and that haunting saxophone solo was MY saxophone solo! Now I couldn’t wait to flip the tape and see what else Phil had in store for me.

Side B started out as a mood killer. WAY too upbeat to keep the sadness train on its tracks. I understand now that Don’t Lose My Number was maybe the most loss-laden track so far, but back then, it was just too pithy. Besides, I wasn’t in the mood to be told to “Don’t give up,” so I fast-forwarded through that one.

Who Said I Would had a lot of promise. Rejection? Check. Indifference? Check. I mean, it says it right in the lyric,

“She's got a heart must be made of stone. 'Cause when I tell her that she'll miss me when I'm gone, she says, ‘Who said I would? Tell me, who said I would?’”

I mean, dang. Heartless and cruel, it was certainly feeding my funk, but the music was just too positive, too upbeat. I needed a durge. Something that would make Eeyore say, “Jeeze, pal, lighten up, willya?”

Naturally, Phil did not disappoint. Doesn’t Anybody Stay Together Anymore came up next and I was transfixed. I wanted this exact answer from the universe at large. It was not fair for me to be ripped from my world. Why can’t we just stay together (meaning here, in my home?!?!)?

“And I don't know why you keep emotions walled up. Your heart's on your sleeve, but your sleeve is rolled up”

I wonder why, doesn't anybody stay together anymore! I wonder why, doesn't anybody stay together anymore!”

Custom made lyrics for an angst-ridden teenage boy. Never mind the context, or subtle message about societal breakdown, I just want to know why I can’t STAY!

Inside Out was a great metaphor for how I was feeling. I didn’t understand what was happening, or why because it wasn’t centered on ME. When you are fourteen, you need the world to be about you. Other people are simply bit players in the story of your life, so the narrative is supposed to be centered around you. How could uprooting my life and hurling me hundreds of miles into the void (actual description of what I assumed was about to happen) be part of my narrative? It was almost as if other people actually existed and mattered, and I was having none of that.

“Now everybody's got me running round, up and down. And here I am going out of my mind.

But I won't lose sight of all the, the things I'm looking for. They're coming to me and I'm taking what's mine!”

Boy, that’s it right there. We're gonna move? No way! I’m angry and you can’t make me! You got it, Phil. Money.

The album finished with the absolute classic, Take Me Home. Man, I was gonna get a lot of mileage out of THAT baby when we got to our new town. Over and over again, my desperate plea,

“Take take me home! ‘Cause I’ve been a prisoner all my life!”

This song was it. This was how I could finally express everything in my heart and force the world to conform to what I knew it was supposed to be.

But then a funny thing happened. See, my Dad had dubbed this tape off of the CD master and hand-copied the track list onto the cassette’s insert. But the CD master had a bonus track after a few seconds of silence, and I guess Dad didn’t notice, because it wasn’t on the list. It was called, We Said, Hello, Goodbye.

It started off with a very melancholy piano introduction, but it shifted into an uplifting combination of strings and synth which swelled up, then drifted back into piano, which slowly faded out. If I had known the word “coda” back then, I would have assumed this was that, an emotional ending to an emotional album. So I was about to eject the tape and start over when the piano bursts back in, and Phil’s haunting voice says:

“We said goodbye to a dear old friend. And we packed our bags and left...feeling sad.

It’s the only way”

OH. EM. GEE.

Phil. You are in my head and in my heart. I heard those words, and the tears started to flow. All my pain and all my fear and all my confusion and anger and sadness were about to be articulated by Phil Collins. I was hooked the moment I heard those words and thank goodness, because Phil was only just starting up. The song goes on:

“We said hello as we turned the key. A new roof over our heads...gave a smile.

It’s the only way. Only way.”

Somehow, Phil KNEW I was going to move and that I would be sad about it, so he added this song at the very end of his album and didn’t even tell anyone, just so I could take comfort in it.

“Turn your head and don't look back. Set your sails for a new horizon.

Don't turn around don't look down.

Oh there's life across the tracks. And you know it's really not surprising

It gets better when you get there”

This song touched my heart so deeply and so completely that day, that it has become my go-to internal comfort food. And it worked. I made it through the move, and eventually High School. Somehow, things were not so bad.

A few years later, after much soul-searching, I joined the Air Force and We Said Hello, Goodbye got me through that change as well.

I got married, and we decided to stay in the military. This album, this insight, made all of that work for me as well.

If you spend enough time in the military, you move around a lot. Sometimes with your family and sometimes not, but We Said Hello, Goodbye has an answer for that too:

“Well it really don't matter much where you are. Cos home is in your heart.

It's a feeling that you wake with one day.

Some people keep running all their life. And still find they haven't gone too far. They don't see it's the feeling inside - the feeling inside”

Whatever happens in my life, No Jacket Required helps me through it. When my kids were born, we said goodbye to one type of life, but we said hello to another, greater one, and Phil helped me through it. Air Force Retirement? Phil. Learning to be a civilian again? Phil. Finally going back to school? There’s always Phil.

“We said hello as we turned the key. A new roof over our heads.

Gave a smile.

It's the only way...”

Thanks, Phil.

vintagepop cultureplaylisthumanityalbum reviews80s music
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About the Creator

Noel T. Cumberland

Noel T. Cumberland is always looking for the bizarre twist in everything he writes. He is published on the Scarlet Leaf Review, and Flash Fiction Magazine. He lives in Tucson with his wife, two sons, a cat, and the occasional loaner dog.

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  • Mel Danielle10 months ago

    That was a great read. So relateable.

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