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Don't Tell Me You Love Me was the first NR song I ever heard.
I think the year must have been 1982; I would have been a high school
sophomore. We were "motorin'" around my small (8000+) town, piled
three deep in the back of someone's car. He had an outrageous stereo
system in this car, and had it wired to an untold number of speakers,
tweeters, woofers, you name it, in the back and sides of this car. It
could sound like a real concert . . . you could feel the music in your
kidneys. :-) Well, several of us had piled in, and I was just enjoying
the thrill of being young and stupid and having fun, and he sticks in
this cassette . . . makes everyone be quiet for a second, and says,
"Hey, guys, listen up . . . check *this* out."
*Any* song at ear-shattering decibels would likely not interest me
in the least these days. Gotta watch the old hearing, you know? But
when I was a teenager, had a good buzz, was crowded in a hot-rod
Mustang with a bunch of guys and girls that I hung out with freqently,
and the opening guitar lick of "Don't Tell Me You Love Me" came
seemingly from everywhere at once, and then the song proper kicked
off (with such a big BANG!) and Jack started singing the first verse,
well, I knew then, that this band was *it.* I remember to this day the
feeling I had, and I remember thinking, "Man, this is *so* cool,"
during the quiet part right after the guitar solos when Fitz is playing
that dah-dah dum, dah-dah dum part. I asked the guy driving who
the band was a little later. He told me, and the rest was history.
To me, that song *is* Night Ranger.
- William Acuff |