Ross Breithaupt
Author
A Cut Diamond
…all those songs you drilled down for – deep down in your record collection – and then held up to the light. Those diamonds.
In October, I was lucky enough to have been invited to attend two wonderful book club meetings to discuss Midland. For both discussions (one virtual, one face-to-face) there were a lot of good questions about the songs on Voyager 1, and how I chose them.
First off, I had to get something straight: I didn’t choose the songs. I let Rory do that.
The response: Of course you chose them, you’re the author. What I’m saying is, as the author, I used Rory’s point of view as a lens through which to choose the songs and their order. If I’d created a mix of ten of my own personal diamonds, it would have been quite different.
One question we didn’t get to in either discussion was: were there songs that I ended up cutting from Voyager 1? Were there any “cut diamonds”?
Yes, there were several actually. Probably the most meaningful (and the most difficult to cut) track was “The Carpet Crawlers” by Genesis. In early drafts of Midland, this song was a crucial part of Rory’s fever dream in front of the shaving mirror in the motel bathroom, where he finally faces the ghost of Teresa Downing, only to learn that she is a kind of gatekeeper to his access to Mike’s “voice”. I’ll quote from my fifth draft.
It was the last album you ever bought, June of 1976. As I recall, it was Luke Angel who really turned you and Nigel onto progressive rock. You already had Dark Side of the Moon in your collection (like everyone else in Etobicoke) but I don’t remember you making much of a fuss over Pink Floyd. It was Luke, though, who introduced you to a couple of other key prog bands: King Crimson and Genesis.
Despite his surname, Luke Angel was, by reputation, anything but – there were unconfirmed rumours about connections to drugs and a car theft ring – but you had a tacit respect for him: he was the only person you knew who had seen Genesis with Peter Gabriel on the Lamb tour. He’d seen them at the Forum in Montreal.
I’ve just sheared off one cheek’s worth of fuzz. This is working.
For reasons I couldn’t sort out at the time, you bestowed your copy of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway on me just before you left on your motorcycle trek with Nigel. You told me that if I wanted to have the “real experience” with the album, I should listen to all four sides in one sitting. Preferably in the dark. I admit I have yet to do this. I mean I have heard all four sides, but never all in a row, and always with the lights on.
One day I was examining the lyrics on the record sleeve, and I found your clue. It had to do with the song “The Carpet Crawlers”. That’s why I decided to make it the fifth, and final, track on Side A of VOYAGER 1.
Your clue was double-underlined, in careful ruler and pencil. It was the chorus of the song.
The carpet crawlers heed their callers: We’ve got to get in to get out.
I’m inspecting my chin now. The shaver has left a crust of ugly stubble. I shake the shaving can and dispense a little cream into my hand. Spreading it across my face now, slowly, with both hands. The crawlers cover the floor. I try to sing along. My voice catches…
Oh my brother. Oh God, my big brother.
Michael Jakob Fleck – you were just a little ant. Like all of us: helpless, finally… a fleck of creation. But crawling. Searching. Steve Hackett’s lonely, muted guitar in my left ear tells me I’m right. I slide the Bic razor down my cheek and along the jaw line. I try to sing again, but once more I falter. Head in my hands for a moment as if to cry, but, as usual, the tears don’t come.
I think, suddenly of Dad: trying to thread the needle with his curling rock, barking at his sweepers like mad Captain Ahab in pursuit of the whale – “Lively, boys! Lively now!” And of Mom: knitting and knitting, every free moment. Churning out another scarf, another sweater, another pair of mitts. Keeping everybody safe and warm. I think of Penny and her lists. Organizing, categorizing. And now I remember, suddenly, the little island in the middle of Red Lake.
The bass and drums have entered. The chorus is repeating, with several voices now, overlapping: We’ve got to get in to get out.
We’ve got to get in
Perfect in a way, right? That chorus… We’ve got to get in to get out… seems to encapsulate the whole of Midland in one phrase.
Somehow, though, this scene didn’t wear well through subsequent revisions. It began to feel like a bit of an information dump: lots of telling and not much showing. And all this information seemed to compete with the crux of the scene – that Rory has summoned up enough courage to begin to face his demons. Also, I don’t know if Mike would have ever achieved this insight, especially the “getting out” part: unlike Rory, he never really faced his shadows.
In the end I was content to edit “The Carpet Crawlers” out of the scene. The song did, however, serve as a kind of personal inspiration – I’m sure I played it more than once – as I wrote the final third of the book!
Voyager 1
The Porcupine’s Quill
The Porcupine’s Quill
Voyager 1
Ross Breithaupt 