Shuffle Junkie

View of Utah Lake from Squaw Peak

The trouble with being a shuffle junkie is that sometimes songs you've forgotten about can pop up and what happens depends on whether it's a busy day and it produces just a little twinge, but if it's a sultry fall night just after a rain storm and the windows are down, that's when it smacks you in the gut with a little more oomph. And I remember that one fall Saturday night in 1995 when we went up Provo Canyon for a little wholesome campfire and guitar-playing under the clear, Western sky.

T & I rode up in the back of Korb's Nissan Sentra, with Dave in the front, 1/2 of the four boys of the Briar Avenue basement apartment that we were collectively and individually madly in love with. (Not specifically Korb & Dave for me, and with T there would be an eventual realigning of affection, but that night Korb had a little advantage with her, and our friend Brooke would later capture Dave.) Korb put in the Hootie & the Blowfish disc and skipped it to number 3, which is "Let Her Cry," of course, and he said, "I know I have an economy car, but this stereo was the best thing I ever did." I'm sure it sounded great or whatever, but for me with that song it's more about the tragic first chord and the lonely girl by the lamp post.

We met J & Chris up the mountain, where the fire was already toasty and crackly and J already had his guitar out. There were more girls waiting, too - Kari & cute, ditsy, flirty Kiersta, who were also collectively and individually in love with the Briar boys, and lived across the hall from us. They were a little older, and Kari, anyway, possessed the hippie no-makeup, long blonde hair confidence that seemed very much the right thing to have in that group. I was really jealous of her, despite the Birkenstocks; she was at ease around these boys, who were much older than us. I was wearing a big Eddie Bauer pullover, and whatever the real story, how I felt was that unlike the rest of these girls, I was liked fine but unadored. I felt unsporty and uncool and Kari could run a room in an effortless and breezy way that was never obnoxious somehow.

So the night for me was fun in theory - it was perfect with cute boys and marshmallows and guitars, but the perfect made me crazy and insecure and I like I wanted to go deep in the dark canyon and find my way back alone with no one to see how dumb I felt. I don't hate this memory; Hootie starts singing and I have to close my eyes for a second and take a deep breath, because it's that young and hopeful combination of joy, anticipation, embarrassment, and the overwhelming crush of the moment, long since passed and been replaced for all of us by other people, other friends, other loves. But I can also pretty easily tap into that odd girl out, even if that perception is tainted.

Now that Darius Rucker is trying to start a country career, he pops up with more frequency, but nothing he does can replace the heartbreaking pathos of "Let Her Cry," those first few guitar chords, the sad girl by that lamp post. She's destined to stand there forever. I can hear her tale from high up the canyon, looking down.