Maybe We Should Take It Slow

With "Ordinary People" John Legend has created one of the rarest things in musicdom, namely, a love song that is 1)good 2)popular and 3) good in the sense of the word that doesn't result from 2). It's a song for mature lovers, time-tested, second-thoughts creeping in. The summer of 2005 I danced to it with a girl that I had known for some years, had hated and loved at times, had grown tired of, couldn't stand being away from. We were in the basement of a camp building, and my friend and I D.J.'ed this beautiful, third-worldish/speak easyish bash with a karaoke machine. We had to take turns anticipating the end of every song because it had only one CD deck on it, and we had to be there to quickly insert the next disc so the party wouldn't come to a halt after every song. So, that night neither of us danced to a full song with our ladies because we had to stand right in front of the karaoke speaker, and they would want to sit with deafness before the song stopped, or we had to get another disc ready. We didn't have a computer at this camp, so, no mixes. Wer're lucky someone brought this karaoke machine along or else it would have been records and we only had Thriller and some Prince. It would have come off anyway.

 But that is just the first memory that came with "Ordinary People". The one that I really cherish is this friend of mine--the collaborating DJ, playing this song in his car on the way into Lexington. It was February, I think. And wintery. There was a light, white dusting that moved from left to right, back right again over 68; the curls of snow kicked up from the pavement appeared as apparations. My friend and two other people that are very dear to me were in that car. I don't remember what we were talking about, but we were running late for meeting some people at B-W 3's downtown. We trekked there every Tuesday for good talk and cheap wings, a get-out from the smallness of Wilmore, KY and the ever present school presence of school stuff-oh, I am having a tough time putting this in writing. The apparations were everywhere at school, different kinds of them: over-seriousness, mediocrity, mundane existence. But, again, we were late for a meet-up. So my friend was putting some speed on. And we were going really fast. Someone put Get Lifted in and selected this track just as a spinning mixture of red and blue lights tagged up behind us. My friend was pissed and worried about a ticket, and we just talked of any chance of dodging it until the trooper finally got to his window. We had completely forgotten to turn down the stereo--a courtesy that often aids ticket dodgery--and didn't notice until the patrolman was standing in silence, impressed with the irony put out over speakers when John Legend repeated "We're just ordinary people/Maybe we should take it slow". The officer had not need for words and seemed content to cock his head at an angle and nod--and listen--in agreement. We got a ticket. But we also got a laugh the rest of the way into town. And the officer didn't double the fine that he could have for being in a construction zone. Probably bought the album and took it home to his wife.