Baby She Lied

Baby, I lied. This is the title of a song country singer Deborah Allen released in 1983. It was apparently a hit and although I was never aware of this, the song nonetheless had a profound effect on me in the mid-80s. The rendition I knew was by some local VA Beach gal named Diana Ray. I was familiar with the tearjerker having watched this gal perform it on several occasions circa '84/'85 at Michael's, a tidewater area country-western two-step shitkicker dance club. I'm pretty sure Baby I Lied was the only number Diana Ray sang, offered up as an estrogen-infused change of pace to the male house band's otherwise Good Ol' Boy set.

Thinking back on it now, I don't believe I'd even heard the name Deborah Allen until yesterday when I googled the tune after experiencing a strange nocturnal flashback from this period in my life. I didn't follow the top 40 back then, happy to collect most of my music from the bottom of the discount bins in an era when punk and new wave had, for the most part, not yet found a footing with the public in the US (the "poppier" stylings of Blondie, Joe Jackson and U2 aside). My preferences weren't yet classified "alternative" by the marketing machine (that didn't happen until "alternative" was popular enough for them to bother and by that time it meant mostly "mainstream"). My favorite type of music wouldn't be rescued from the bargain bin until Nirvana's sonic success nearly a decade further on down the road.

Given my musical proclivities, I was about as far from a country music fan as could be in the mid-80s so you might ask why I darkened the door of this yee-haw establishment even once to get out of the rain let alone repeatedly on purpose as a specific destination. It's a good question and one I'm not completely sure I can answer. I can tell you that it most certainly wasn't thanks to the crew I accompanied to the joint: I loathed those vermin one and all. They were merely my transportation. You see, these were my Navy days and I didn't have any means for getting around save for buses, taxis and my own two legs, which often posed a problem: mass transit took an ungodly long time to get anywhere and cabs were usually out of my price range on a sailor's salary unless it was a relatively short jaunt. As for my legs? Well, I wore down my fair share of shoe leather but it only gets you so far. The fuck-sticks with the all-important car were among my "shipmates," living and working in the same spaces on the same floating prison (a.k.a USS Dwight D. Eisenhower) but I couldn't have less in common with this particular group of charmers, made up as they were of equals parts racism, sadism, and abject idiocy. In other words, real sweethearts.

The first time I decided purely on whim to accompany them to Michael's, reasoning I could get drunk on the cheap, goof on the hillbillies - including my "buddies" - and gawk at the hot chicks that congregated at such establishments in southeastern Virginia back then (probably now too). But I went mainly because I thought it might kill the overpowering boredom I was mired in. I think I wore an Iggy and the Stooges shirt to my inaugural two-step dosey doe. Or maybe one that read, "fuck country music." Nah, it had to be the Stooges: I wasn't that ballsy. Certainly I wasn't decked out in the stetson, big belt buckle and cowboy boots my fellow travelers wore like a second skin.

I was vaguely aware that there was a chance I was gonna get my ass kicked courtesy of my dress and antics (shouting out requests for the Clash and B-52s, muttering "country sucks" and other such witticisms under my breath, attempting to pogo during a two-step; you get the idea). Maybe that was the point (I was and am nothing if not a masochist). And then Diana Ray sang that song and I was transfixed, my goofs melting away. All subsequent visits had one sole purpose: Diana Ray and "her" song. I'm not sure what it was that lit my fire: the song itself is a sub-par weeper and DRay was no great shakes in either the looks or talent department from what I recall. Together, though, it was magical to me. Ours is not to wonder why (well, of course it is but I can't for the life of me come up with a satisfactory answer). Where o' where are you now, Sister Ray? (Apologies to Lou Reed and the Velvets)

I immediately downloaded Baby I Lied from iTunes once I discovered it was in fact an actual hit my girl had been covering and not her own composition since lost to time. Hearing the original for the first time tonight brings back strangely powerful feelings. The song is now comfortably ensconced in my "80's Sense Memory Dreck" playlist, taking its rightful place alongside such charmers as Don't Stop Believin', Islands In the Stream, Hold On, Sister Christian and other slightly brighter dim bulbs I hate to love but can't quite hate: I adore the memories they invoke.

(Postscript: I've actually since overcome my own prejudices against country music and very much like some of it today, particularly the roots stuff that - along with R&B - helped to fuel what became rock and roll: I love the darker Hank Williams stuff, though I have little use for his son or most of the pop-gloss reactionary slop that passes for the genre these days. I also dig a lot of late forties/early fifties bluegrass and its drunken cousin, rockabilly. Of the contemporary variety, Rosanne Cash does it for me (and I'd be remiss if I didn't give a shout out to her father, Johnny). Thanks to the Elvises Costello and Presley with turning me around on this subject. It still might constitute a fairly small slice of my listening pie but at least I don't reject the whole spectrum out of hand when something I'd otherwise classify as "good" pops up on the menu.)