I'll Always Have Paris

Tomorrow is the birthday of Voltaire who said "Froth at the top, dregs at bottom, but the middle is excellent." Here's a music memory of France.

By the time I was 15, I had moved 12 times with my family. But we never lived outside the U.S. - just throughout it. So it wasn't until 1989 as a undergraduate in college, that I took my first trip abroad. It was just France, but it was with my first love and we went to Paris. We went for the French Bi-centennial - the 200th anniversary of July 14th - Bastille Day. I remember landing at Charles De Gaulle, piling into a taxi and driving into the heart of La Ville-Luminere (aka "the city of light"). It was early morning, the smell of fresh bread was everywhere. I had a Walkman radio, so I turned it on. The radio played unfamiliar songs in French. It made me feel like I was a big time traveler in a totally new and exotic world.

We stayed with my girlfriend's sister - a fashion writer who was a devout bohemian. She lived in Le Quartier Du Marais in the IV arrondissement. She had the 3rd flat of a walk-up on a tiny street called Rue Des Ecouffes. I loved that street, the bakery on the corner, the synagogue across the way, the Place Des Voges park so close by, and of course, the then recently opened Picasso Museum. We drank bowls of coffee, pretended to be poets, walked everywhere and polished off many bottles of champagne on the Pont Des Arts. But the Musee Rodin hit me like a thunderbolt - I was dans l'amour with that museum and the small garden behind it. It's a top priority to visit there whenever I'm in Paris. After five minutes at the Rodin, my troubles turn to dreams.

During this trip, my girlfriend's sister was really into Tom Waits. I had never heard of him and at first thought he sounded like a drunken sailor singing from inside a trash can. But there was one song that really struck a chord with me. It's called "You're Innocent When You Dream" off his album Frank's Wild Years released in 1987 (note: there are two versions of the song on the album, I like the second one - track 17).

It's a great song. When I hear it, I feel like I'm in a bar and Tom is mumbling it to me from the next table, hovering over his beer using the mug to prop his sauced self up. At the next table are the wide eyed Hemingway, Fitzgerald and Stein talking about finishing their first novel, what it meant to write one true thing and where to find a good cheap drunk. Indeed, the song offers a sip of fantasy.

On the 200th birthday of France, I was young, innocent and in love on the streets of Paris - I was definitely doing a lot of dreaming.