I Want To Know What Love Is, Redux
A foreigner to this journey
Hi friends! I am bringing back an oldie but a goodie from the first batch of earworm essays. I’ve got a massive head cold and the piece I was hoping to have finished requires more brainpower than I’ve got left. I fixed some grammar and added some footnotes, but mostly it’s the same. I’d love to hear what you think in the comments!
Okay, NyQuil, take me away!
In 1999, acclaimed Swedish film director Lukas Moodysson released his debut feature, Show Me Love, an affecting, teenage lesbian coming-of-age story. The film’s original title was Fucking Åmål!, named after the small town1 where the two lead protagonists live and desperately want to escape from. The title was changed for the US market for obvious but unfortunate reasons.
I remember seeing it on closing night at the San Francisco Gay & Lesbian Film Festival with my friend
. Both of us (along with the packed audience) left the theater on a high, invigorated by having just watched one of the most honest, unsentimental portrayals of young love in recent memory.I was reminded of this film, of this memory, with the appearance of my latest earworm, Foreigner’s 1984 mega-hit, “I Want To Know What Love Is.”
During one of the most emotionally powerful moments in Show Me Love, the two main characters, Agnes and Elin, sit in the backseat of a stranger’s car. The driver had picked up the girls hitchhiking. When the car breaks down, he pulls over, lifts the hood, and tries to fix it. All the while, “I Want To Know What Love Is” is playing on the stereo.
I was going to say “plays in the background,” but after 10 seconds or so, the music gets louder and louder, becoming the entire soundtrack, swelling and crescendoing along with the teens’ budding romance. The camera starts on a 2-shot of the girls — well lit, then silhouetted — nervously holding hands in the darkened backseat. By the song’s the next verse, they are passionately making out.
Foreigner’s dramatic anthem works perfectly in this scene. Both from the perspective of the audience — most of whom likely were old enough to remember when this power-ballad was radio omnipresent in the mid-80s — and the perspectives of the teenage protagonists, deftly capturing the all-consuming infatuation that so often accompanies young love.
What I’d previously considered a supremely cheesy ‘80s love song had been transformed into a paean to vulnerability, of following the heart instead of the head. The lyrics fit perfectly in describing first love, even if the song was written from the perspective of an older person wanting to find a new partner after closing themself off after being hurt one too many times.
I want to know what love is
I want you to show me
I want to feel what love is
I know you can show me
So simple, so trite, yet when Lou Gramm sings those words with his powerfully emotive tenor, it transforms from corny to heartfelt.
And then, 1 minute 40 seconds in, when he’s suddenly accompanied by the New Jersey Mass Choir2 (featuring Jennifer Holliday!), it’s as if the whole world is encouraging Lou (and in turn you, me, the stars of the film) to let down his armor and allow this new person to show him what love is. Do it! Do it!
Watching this powerful scene in Show Me Love, I witnessed how a song that by all rights should trigger the gag reflex can reach into the solar plexus and tenderly pluck the heartstrings.
It reminded me of my own first love experience.
Her name was Rori and I met her at a Jewish Family Encounter weekend in the summer of 1981. I was 14 and she was almost 14. Rori wore checkerboard Vans and had the Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith and Queen logos drawn into the shoes’ rubber trim. Those were three of my favorite bands!
And she was cute too. Long, wavy black hair that she constantly alternated between pulling back in a ponytail and letting hang loose, covering half her face. She was short, like me, and carried herself with what I interpreted as a confident shyness — qualities I also attributed to myself. Minus the confident part.
She was there with her parents and younger sister, and I met them all at the same time. Though really, in my body, I was only meeting Rori. My stomach churned, my vision blurred, and my head grew dizzy the moment Rori and I first made eye contact. We’d both looked away immediately, trying to seem casual about it while attempting to steal furtive glances at each other.
Family Encounter was an offshoot of Marriage Encounter, which my parents had been regular members of for several years. Marriage Encounter was like a form of group couples’ therapy. One couple (usually the couple hosting the meeting) would serve as the “lead” and facilitate each gathering, proposing questions for everyone to contemplate and then write down their thoughts and feelings into spiral notebooks. Then, each couple would find a private corner of the house or event space and read aloud what they had written to one another. This was believed to be an effective way to deepen one’s marriage/relationship.
My parents eventually began hosting semi-annual “retreats” at hotel conference rooms for new couples to learn the Marriage Encounter3 way. When I was 13, my family was recruited to lead the U. S. West Coast expansion of Family Encounter, which had to that point only existed on the East Coast. Modeled on the Marriage Encounter framework, Family Encounter retreats would include entire families, where each member would be asked to, based on a prompt, write their feelings down in spiral notebooks and then share their writing with one another — ostensibly deepening the familial bond.
My younger sister Lisa and I, along with our parents spent six months putting together our 3-day presentation for the very first Family Encounter Weekend which we would lead the following summer. We prepared talks on topics such as deep listening, empathy, and recognizing your feelings.
It was on day one of this retreat that I met Rori.
I didn’t know if it was my status as lead family member that left a positive impression on her. If I were simply a kid from another family attending the retreat, Rori would have ignored me completely.
Perhaps it was my own wavy black hair, white Vans (not checkerboard), and wisp of a mustache that attracted her. I like to think the fact that I sat at the front of the room, expressing my feelings via a well-practiced and prepared family script, was what set her heart pounding a few extra BPMs.
I mean, what 14-year-old boy proudly talks about love and sadness and expressing his emotions in private let alone in front of a conference room full of strangers? It had to have earned me some extra karma points.
During a meal break, Rori and I snuck outside and talked about music, school, and how completely strange the whole Family Encounter weekend was. We exchanged phone numbers, writing them down on the inside back cover of our notebooks, and snuck back into the conference room. I rejoined my family to teach other families how to recognize their feelings, while trying to hide the heart-pounding ones I was having for Rori.
Our first date was finally set to happen a month after the Family Encounter retreat. Rori’s mother was VERY apprehensive but agreed to the plan of my mom driving us to Northridge Bowl for a couple of hours.
On the ride to the bowling alley, Rori and I sat in the backseat, both of us noticeably nervous and excited about the date. My sister sat in the front passenger seat; she and my mom were going shopping at the mall while Rori and I bowled.
The radio on our Chevy Citation was playing KIIS-FM, a top-40 station, and after a commercial break, the car began to fill with music.
The rock band Journey had just released their multi-platinum-selling album Escape, and “Don’t Stop Believing” was all over the radio. But it was “Who’s Crying Now,” their new single, that began to play on our drive to the bowling alley.
As Steve Perry fervently belted, “Two hearts born to run/Who’ll be the lonely one,” Rori’s fingers slowly found mine at the hump between the seats.
The car didn’t break down and we didn’t end up making out while my mom tried to figure out what was wrong with the engine (my sister would have told on us anyhow), but I could have sworn that the music had begun to swell louder and louder, filling the car with its intoxicating soundtrack.
Even though Rori and I considered ourselves “rockers” and Journey was viewed as way too soft for our heavy-metal social circles, we both shared a particular love for the band and agreed that Steve Perry had an amazing voice.
The bowling date went amazingly well. I was able to score in triple digits in both games despite feeling a bit weak at the knees with nervous energy. Rori and I talked about music, our obnoxious families, and what we imagined our first year of high school would be like in a few weeks.
Although ten minutes before we had to meet my mom in front of the bowling alley, Rori and I would share a sweet kiss near the shoe rental counter, it would sadly remain our one and only kiss and our one and only date.
Rori’s mom would not allow her to go out with me again.
We lived too far away, she was too young to date, she needed to focus on school — those were the reasons Rori gave me over the phone when I tried to plan a second date. I didn’t understand. Clearly, we were in love! This was meant to be!
After I hung up the phone, I sat unmoving on my bedroom’s brown shag carpet, the cardboard sleeve of Journey’s Escape album in my hand. For the next two hours, I sat there in shock, leaning over every five minutes to move the needle on the turntable back to the beginning of “Who’s Crying Now.”
I mumbled the lyrics over and over along with Steve Perry, certain that I’d never find another love as deep as the one I had with Rori.
One love feeds the fire
One heart burns desire
Wonder who's crying now?
Two hearts born to run
Who will be the lonely one?
Wonder who's crying now?
Foreigner and Journey get, often rightfully, maligned in critical music circles, but both bands were important in the early romantic education of this writer. What bands or artists defined young love for your early teenage (or teenage) self?
It was fun revisiting this one. I spent a lot of time in Pixelmaker Pro designing those Vans!
I really wish I had photos of that short period of my life in Family Encounter! (I think.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%85m%C3%A5l
A short history of the town of Amal.
https://www.crossrhythms.co.uk/articles/music/New_Jersey_Mass_Choir_The_US_choir_who_shot_to_fame_through_I_Want_To_Know_What_Love_Is/36242/p1/
Story of how the New Jersey Mass Choir came to sing on this tune.
https://wwme.org/
This is the Christian Marriage Encounter website - can’t find the Jewish one my parents were part of.
It's funny how a song will unexpectedly resonate with you. I was in high school in Southern Indiana in the early 70s and one week we had a substitute freshman English teacher. She asked each of us to bring in a song that had a positive message and which hopefully inspired us. We had to sit at the front of the class and explain why we chose it before we played it. Because I was an insane kid, I chose Michael Jackson's "Ben." I explained that I found the song inspirational because it showed how even the loneliest person could have their life turned around by one good friend. And that every person - no matter how freaky other people thought they might be - deserved some happiness.
Looking back, it was a bit too much of a look into my psyche at maybe age 16. Most of the class was stunned & just stared me. I remember this one girl (who had a crush on) just staring at me with such a sad look and she was wiping away tears. That moment was broken when some chucklehead at the back of the room yelled out "so you're trying to tell us you like boys?" to a round of laughs.
Spoiler: I didn't. But it was a magnificent job of completely misunderstanding the point of something.
Came out if the restaurant and yelled at me,” What did you say?”
I repeated,” Why don’t you go home and listen to your Foreigner records.”
The ran to me and I held my ground. The short ferret face said I like Foreigner and pushed me then kicked the bag of Chinese food from my hand. I reached down to pick it up, and he sucker punched me. They then ran off.
The one punch cut my eyebrow, bashed my nose( you can see the damage to this day). Blood was pouring down my face. Just then the tall guy started running down the sidewalk toward me. He said Are you all right? I said through the blood to fuck off, and he did. I went home and wondered what to do. I had moved out if my parents home a few months before. So I called the cops. They showed up and asked me to describe the three guys. I said they were wearing jeans and jean jackets. I could have been describing anyone.
By then so had stopped the bleeding and they said I should be ok.
Later I lost a tooth and can’t breathe great from that side of my nose. I too have reconsidered Foreigner. A great song is a great song.