Before the multi-platinum elegance of Hysteria, the British metal group Def Leppard was a hard rockin’ band.
When I was seven years old, my brothers and I used to save up our allowances in order to buy metal records at the Post Exchange. Living on an Army base near a small California town, the PX was the closest thing to a mall we were going to get.
The music selection at the PX was wide…rows upon rows of records. Everything was on vinyl. Albums cost $6.50 a piece.
One Saturday, a particular disc caught my eye. On the cover, a man was diving into a pool without water. Men were looking up at him in quiet contemplation, as if they understood.
“I want to hear that,” I told Jay, my oldest brother. I was agog.
“You’ll love it. It’s like AC/DC, but lighter,” he replied. Of course, Jay purchased For Those about to Rock, the AC/DC album with the big cannon on it. Joe and I pitched in $3.25 a piece for Def Leppard’s High n’ Dry.
The three of us shared one big room at our house on the military base. Joe and I had a small record player on our side of the room. When we got home, Joe and I ran back to the stylus and cranked some Leppard.
Steve Clark’s opening riff was so awesome that we immediately picked up tennis racquets and jammed along. “Let It Go,” in its rawness and honesty, is one of the best opening tracks of all time.
I played that album out. Way out. There were virtually no grooves on it when we moved to Texas a year later.
Yesterday, I received one of those highly anticipated Amazon.com boxes in the mail. “Hell, yes,” I thought as I brought the package in from the mailbox. This replacement copy of High n’ Dry is sure to get some play.
I look forward to pulling out a guitar, plugging in, and playing along with “Let It Go” like I did when I was seven. Life is different now, though. I can actually play the guitar. Steve Clark has passed away. Vinyl is a rarity.
The thing is, when I hear High n’ Dry now, I feel the same way I did back then. It’s as if, just for a moment, everything is right with the world and all that matters is the sound of electric guitars.
Perhaps that’s why I like music so much. It’s a reminder that, deep down, everything is fundamentally all right.
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